Changes in Instructional Tasks and Their Influence on Classroom Discourse in Reformed Mathematics Classrooms of Chinese Primary Schools

Abstract

This chapter describes two studies that show the impact of China’s new mathematics curriculum on classroom instruction. The first study examined the cognitive features of instructional tasks implemented in primary-level mathematics classrooms adopting the new curriculum in comparison to those using the conventional curriculum. The results indicated that the reform-oriented classrooms used more tasks with high cognitive demand, multiple representations, and multiple solution methods than the non-reform classrooms did. The second study looked into how cognitive demands, multiple representations, and multiple solution methods were related to the nature of student-teacher discourse in the reformed classrooms. It was found that tasks of high cognitive demand were associated with teachers’ high-order questioning which, in turn, was related to students’ highly participatory responses. It was also found that tasks of high cognitive demand as well as teachers’ high-order questions were associated with the teacher’s authority in evaluating students’ answers. In contrast, tasks of multiple solution methods were showed to be related to teachers’ simple questions, and teachers’ simple questions led to more teacher-student joint authority in evaluating students’ responses. Some implications of the findings from the studies are discussed in order to further our understanding of the current instructional practice in Chinese mathematics classrooms and to help formulate strategies to sustain and affect the desirable changes in the classrooms.