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Rob_Hugo@PortNWI am learning to play a game called Go, or Wei-Chi. It is deceptively simple in appearance, played on a grid board with smooth white and black stones. I found a website with basic information and history on the game http://www.tradgames.org.uk/games/Wei-Chi.htm
The game is thought to be 4,000 years old. I have noticed numerous Go clubs in Korea Town. My friend told me that women would not go to these clubs, but there are many women who do play the game, and are masters of it. I also found a coffee house on Pico (just up the street from McCabe's guitar shop) where people meet to play in the evenings. Does anyone here play?
All of this to start up this conversation: Why is it that so many of our Asian students fare so much better in Mathematics than others? Is it related to the reason why many of the top school musicians are of Asian backgrounds as well?
AnonymousI think we all notice there is something to the fact that Asians, Koreans in particular, seem to be oriented toward academic and artistic talents. My observation is that it is a result of several cultural traits including strong familial support to be high achievers and a great appreciation for things artistic. If you ever visit Asia, it is obvious that there is a great deal of effort to balance beauty with practicality in architecture, landscaping etc. I also have observed how Asian parents make extraodinairy efforts to provide as many outlets for their childs development as possible, including enrolling them in good schools and intrroducing them to artistic pursuits at an early age.
AnonymousI teach sixth grade at Carnegie Middle school where my reading class participates in " The Harvest of the Month Club." The harvest for the month of February was Bok Choy and Long Beans. First we recieved a lesson plan guide that included how to count and write from one to ten in Chinese along with how to construct and use an abacus. The students thouroughly enjoyed these activities. About two weeks later we recieved the vegetables and were able to enjoy the fruitage of Chinese labor.
AnonymousI teach AVID, which is program that helps students prepare for college.
I have also noticed my asian students tend to do very well in math. I think one reason is math is a universal language. Many of these Asian- actually Korean students came to America in the last 5 to 8 years. Also, rote memorization, that helps so much in math, tends to be more commonly valued in Asian countries.
But, it seems like things are about to change.
This is from Thomas Friedman's column on March 24, 2006
"Singapore is obsessed with improving its already world-leading math scores before others catch up. And America agonizes that its K-12 public schools badly need improvement in math and science. I was just in Mumbai attending the annual meeting of India's high-tech association, Nasscom, where many speakers worried aloud that Indian education wasn't nurturing enough ''innovators.'
Both India and China, which have mastered rote learning and have everyone else terrified about their growing armies of engineers, are wondering if too much math and science -- unleavened by art, literature, music and humanities -- aren't making Indira and Zhou dull kids and not good innovators. Very few global products have been spawned by India or China."
AnonymousI agree with the suggested reasons offered here explaining higher performance of Asian students in math that these students often have more support at home for academic achievement and a higher level of commitment to drill and memorization of facts. I believe that these differences in motivation and attitude on the part of many of our Asian students contributes to their greater success in all academic areas, and specifically in Math.
There has been a high degree of concern in the US for many years now about the discrepancy between our math scores and those of Asian and other international students. Performance of our students on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, known as TIMSS has created alarm in many that we are rapidly falling behind in these critical areas.
The Japanese model of math instruction has often been cited as the key factor in this situation. While math education in the US is centered on teaching the algorithm or procedural steps in order to perform various mathematical tasks, the Japanese instructional model begins with a problem solving approach that allows for students to develop their own internal understanding of the question and its solution in a cooperative group setting before then having the students formalize their own methods into a set of procedures.
Theorists agree that this approach to learning allows students to develop the underlying concepts. In other words, while we may think that the drill of math facts is the key ingredient to good mathematical skills, it is actually more important that the meaning of procedures is understood. Once you move beyond addition and subtraction, the steps to solve problems can become fairly involved quickly and cannot easily be memorized if there is no meaning attached to the steps.
I taught math in middle school for 2 years, and I was amazed at how many of my students could not perform simple calculations. From what I’ve read, I believe we need to return the study of math to a more natural context and use more effective instructional strategies (manipulatives, problem solving) so that students know what they are doing and why. Underneath the current national and cultural differences, I do not believe any one group of students is natively better able to learn math, and I think we can improve math education in the US if we are willing to learn from the Japanese (and others).
AnonymousI always used to think it was because of how much practice, discipline, and encouragement they had. Also the correlation of math and music.
AnonymousRboller has suggested that US math teachers should do more to teach math using manipulatives and presenting math in a problem solving context. I agree that these strategies are helpful to motivate and reach a diverse group of students. But it seems, on the other hand, that this is what integrated math was all about and it didn't go over to well because many students still lacked basic skills including math facts, etc.
I still believe that the key factor is connected to Asian culture where there seems to be a higher premium on exposing ones children to all kinds of learning and brain development related activities. Many kids spend hours watching TV, compute games etc. rather than expanding the brain in other ways. This might also explain the lack of motivation for some students to want to challenge themselves with memorizing certain math skills that are necessary when attempting to solve problems.
There is also research that shows that kids who learn a musical instrument have a much better foundation for learning math.
AnonymousI think a balance of both approaches is good.
AnonymousI agree that a balance of aproaches is the way to go. But, I think we need to look at the way some strong nations that want to get stronger, like India and China, act. Their philosophy of moving towards a more powerful economic power directs them to work more on the production of already made products and less on innovation.
We see a historical, if ancedotial view, of ancient China. The people who held great bureaucratic positions did not get it through new ideas of challenging the order. They got there by memorizing the great works of the past. That is something very important to remember when we look into this situation.
AnonymousWhen we look at math scores from around the world, we need to first look at the curriculum of what is taught in each nation. Then we need deeper insights into the cultures of teachers in the high scoring countries. Finally, how does learning really occur among our students, and what are their practical uses in their daily lives?
In Japan for example, many of the trains run on razor sharp time schedules. As such, lives often revolve around these time references points. For example, "I have 15 minutes to catch the 55 minute train ride home to catch my favorite TV program at 8PM..." There is usually no tax on many of the products so the real beauty of math when shopping is, "How much is everything?...oh...just add the prices!" In the USA, taxes vary so much among local municipalities with strange rates (8.25%???) that how many of us really calculate accurately in our heads during shopping?!? Do we turn our kids off from calculating??? Metric divides by tens and thousands, our system by 12 inches, with 16 ounces, with 5120 feet for mile???... Who is going to do math with all this 'simple math'???
How is math taught for example in Japan??? Too much rote, but the trade-off is team challenges... Learn as a whole class, or fail as a whole class... Teachers collaborating on lesson plans daily.... Yes, mandatory faculty professional development daily after school, but paid and culturally normal behavior.... National and local curriculum with coordinating lesson materials, with many various competitions throughout the nation....
How do we get American kids to perform better at math?? The old issue of metric conversion in the U.S. runs across my head... It's not the culture or the tradition we follow...Yes they are important... We use 10's in money and in our currency, why not in general math??? I know mechanics, engineers, and domestic architects hate this idea because of old learned math systems... Could this be the first step to higher national math scores?????
AnonymousI came across an article in the Orange County Register on July 14, 2006 by Anh Do called "China Can Teach the US a Math Lesson". The article was based on an Asian Society Study called Math and Science Education in A Global Age: What the US can learn from China. It states the average math scores for students in the US "trail significantly behind nearly all countries in the Asia Pacific region".
I noticed that the US does do some of the things from the article that were China's strengths:
We also align instruction to the standards, and we do in my opinion seem to be exam driven recently( although I have no idea if it is at the same level that China is).
The US differed from CHina in some aspects. Apparently a huge portion of their math and science teachers have degrees in their disciplines compared to US teachers. These degrees their teachers hold seem to start with teachers who teach 3rd grade and up. Also secondary students in China are in school for a month longer thatn US students and their students study twice as much.
In this article they did acknowledge some of their own drawbacks compared to the US. Yong Chen a professor of history at UC Irvine was quoated as saying "competition is unbelievable; its almost sad". The artile goes on to infer that Chinese children are not as balanced as US children... for example they are alot less physically active.
THe article hints that China is making adjustments in this area and is taking some of their own advice. They feel that school districts need to compare themselves not only to local or national districts, but with schools around the world. In a sense to be more worldly. Therefore they are looking into the "flexible and creative approaches to learning". Chen summed everything up well when he said "Ultimately we have much to learn from each other".
AnonymousWhen the article "What the US Can Learn From China" from the Orange County Register stated that the US trailed significantly behind countries in the Asian Pacific region, I wanted to check out some of these facts for myself. I went to a site I have used before when studying lesson study and Japan. It is called Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study and is found at http://nces.ea.gov/TIMSS/ . This site gives data on math and science achievment of US students as well as many other countries. It is conducted every four years, and highlights the results of 4th grade and 8th grade.
Here is an exerpt from the website summarizing what results from the TIMSS 2003 report tells us about US student scores compared to other countries including Asian ones:
Mathematics and Science Achievement of Fourth-Graders in 2003
Comparisons of the mathematics and science achievement of fourth-graders in 2003 are made among the 25 participating countries.
In 2003, U.S. fourth-grade students exceeded the international averages in both mathematics and science. In mathematics, U.S. fourth-graders outperformed their peers in 13 of the other 24 participating countries, and, in science, outperformed their peers in 16 countries.
In 2003, fourth-graders in three countries-Chinese Taipei, Japan, and Singapore-outperformed U.S. fourth-graders in both mathematics and science, while students in 13 countries turned in lower average mathematics and science scores than U.S. students. Among the 13 countries in which students were outperformed by U.S. fourth-grade students, five countries are members of the OECD (Australia, Italy, New Zealand, Norway and Scotland), and three are English-speaking countries (Australia, New Zealand and Scotland).
Table 1 Average mathematics scale scores of fourth-grade students, by country: 2003
Table 2 Average science scale scores of fourth-grade students, by country: 2003
I found it quite imformative especially if you have any interest what is happening in education internationally. You can see where the US stands compared to other countries in the world. We can see which countries are the leaders in education and possibly study their techniques to increase or better our education system.
AnonymousI understand that there may be more encouragement and support at home and that test scores are higher in Asia. It seems that much of this is the type of student or culture of the student when in fact there is more to this. What is leading to these high scores? What exactly is being done in those classrooms? What strategies are different or the same?[Edit by="vhui on Aug 30, 4:27:03 PM"][/Edit]