Abstract
This study investigates Chinese and U.S. teachers’ cultural beliefs concerning effective mathematics teaching from the teachers’ perspectives. Although sharing some common beliefs, the two groups of teachers think differently about both mathematics understanding and the features of effective teaching. The sample of U.S. teachers put more emphasis on student understanding with concrete examples, and the sample of Chinese teachers put more emphasis on abstract reasoning after using concrete examples. The U.S. teachers highlight a teacher’s abilities to facilitate student participation, manage the classroom and have a sense of humor, while the Chinese teachers emphasize a teacher’s solid mathematics knowledge and careful study of textbooks. Both groups of teachers agree that memorization and understanding cannot be separated. However, for the U.S. teachers, memorization comes after understanding, but for Chinese teachers, memorization can come before understanding. These differences of teachers’ beliefs are discussed in a cultural context.
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Notes
China and the U.S. are viewed as representatives of the Eastern and Western cultures, respectively.
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Acknowledgments
Research reported in this article was supported by grants from the Spencer Foundation. Any opinions expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of Spencer Foundation. We gratefully acknowledge the valuable assistance of Vic Cifarelli for collecting U.S. data and Chunghan Lu and Bingyi Wang for collecting Chinese data. Assistance provided by Erin Meyers and Bikai Nie for transcribing interview data greatly appreciated. Special thanks go to Konrad Krainer and three anonymous reviewers who made valuable suggestions concerning an earlier version of this manuscript, thereby contributing to its improvement. Of course, it is solely the authors’ responsibility for any errors.
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Cai, J., Wang, T. Conceptions of effective mathematics teaching within a cultural context: perspectives of teachers from China and the United States. J Math Teacher Educ 13, 265–287 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-009-9132-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-009-9132-1