How Chinese Teach Mathematics: Canadian Teachers’ Perspectives

to general feelings such as liking/disliking of mathematics, nor is it meant to exclude perceptions of the difficulty, usefulness, and appropriateness of mathematics as a school subject. There are several ways affective variables are related to mathematics learning. It is likely that a student who feels very positive about mathematics will achieve at a higher level than a student who has a negative attitude toward mathematics. It is also likely that a high achiever will enjoy mathematics more than a student who

Children's Mathematics Learning: The Struggle to Link Form and Understanding

Mathematics Curriculum Evaluation

The 24 Nature Notes project was part of the China-Canada Reciprocal Learning Program. Two sister schools participated in the project. Following the same set of dates, students from both schools conducted outdoor observations and collected data. Skype meetings were arranged to exchange ideas and share student work. This study aims to understand the impact of the project on Canadian and Chinese teachers and students, what they learned from each other, and what challenges they faced. Data was collected through observation notes, meeting minutes, student work, and interviews with both Chinese and Canadian teachers and students. Data analysis revealed that the project was a positive opportunity for participants from both countries to gain cross-cultural understanding. The Canadian students enjoyed the freedom in topic selection and presentation formats. They particularly liked the life lessons that the Chinese students shared through their work. The Canadian teachers also valued the idea as it allows students to reflect their observations from a different context. The Chinese teachers and students appreciated the Canadian students’ creativity. They gained inspiration from Canadian teachers and students and as a return their project work became more creative.

Background:The current main research trend in mathematics education is publishing studies by Western scholars pertaining to educational issues of the world in general. but Asia is mostly overlooked. Since international comparisons show Asian students outperform others in mathematics, the imbalance should receive more attention.Material and methods:To gain insight into this disparity, this study surveys all theoretical and empirical articles published by Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (JRME), Educational Studies in Mathematics (ESM), and Mathematical Thinking and Learning (MTL) from 2000 to 2012.Results:Issues regarding westernization vs. internationalization of mathematics education and how to build a self-identity in research in mathematics education are addressed.Conclusions:A sociocultural framework for conducting and publishing educational research in mathematics is needed to develop multicultural perspectives.

This article focuses on a comparative analysis of traditional Physical Education games and experiential learning on the part of teacher candidates enrolled in an Ontario Faculty of Education and one in Southwest China. Funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) partnership grant for research on Reciprocal Learning between Canada and China, the researchers conducted a qualitative study interviewing ten teacher candidates from the reciprocal Faculties of Education. Emergent themes included risk-taking and resilience, willingness to implement foreign practices, division of sport-related skills, and daily physical activity (DPA). Findings suggest that DPA is overlooked in Canadian classrooms; Chinese teachers are more likely to implement foreign practices, and skills development in traditional PE games is disparate between Canada and China.

This paper presents a reflection on the importance of replication studies in the development of the field of mathematics education. Based on a literature review, it explains what replication studies are, and why they are important for our field. It also addresses the issue of why, despite their apparent importance, replication studies remain scarce. Some open discussions about replication studies in mathematics education are pointed out, and a couple of issues related to replication studies whose empirical exploration could help to advance our research field are identified. Additionally, a typology of fundamental questions and modes of exploration that could guide a replication study in mathematics education is proposed. The paper closes with a discussion about the necessary conditions to promote and further develop replication studies in mathematics education.

Debate has continued throughout the last decade over the existence and possible causes of differences between males' and females' mathematical skills. Several observations recur as the focus of this controversy. First, adolescent boys have been found to score higher than girls on standardized mathematics achievement tests.' Second, males are more likely than females to engage in a variety of optional activities related to mathematics, from technical hobbies to careers in which math skills play an important role.2 Third, adolescent males typically perform better than their female

Problem solving, the core of mathematics, has always been the focus of primary school mathematics teaching. The first step and the key to solving mathematics problems are to understand the problem. The purpose of the study described in this chapter is to analyze the teaching practices of teachers as they help students learn to understand mathematics problems. We found that the cultivation of a students’ ability to understand mathematics problems is beneficial to a student’s ability to think deeply and to avoid mechanical problem solving. Developing a student’s ability to understand problems also improves the efficiency of solving problems and to consolidate knowledge. By examining Chinese and Canadian teachers’ teaching of problem solving, we can better understand what factors and conditions influence their teaching and what practices are most effective.

In this statement from The Order of Things, Michel Foucault speaks of the nineteenth-century revolution in linguistics that, in effect, rediscovered language and made it the object of systematic study in its own right. Language, no longer seen as a transparent medium, was granted "its own particular density ... and laws of its own."' Yet it is not self-evident how we are made more free by understanding that words are not just a repository of knowledge. The density of language is a troublesome postulate. That postulate, according to Foucault, raises difficult epistemological problems and presents theorists with a choice:

In this study, it was aimed to evaluate the mathematical justification studies in mathematics education between 2007 and 2016. In the study, 31 theses and articles about mathematical justification in mathematics education were analyzed by means of determined databases. In the literature review, the studies were classified according to the method, the study group, the mathematics subject, and the time frame of ten years. As a result of study, mathematical justification studies in mathematics education were carried out mostly in 2009, 2010 and 2016. As a study group, examined studies are composed mostly of students. As a method, qualitative method was used mostly. The tasks related to justification at three different levels of education were included. According to primary, middle and high school levels, the most common areas of learning for which mathematical justification tasks take place are numbers and operations, algebra and numbers and algebra, respectively.

Jia Ming, a boy from Shanghai, China, arrived at the Newcomer Support Class of Bay Street Community School in his first year and moved on to an advanced English program for newcomer students in his second year in Canada. The generational narratives of Jia Ming’s family tell the differences between Chinese schools and Canadian schools in terms of parental involvement, the teacher’s role, homework, notions of learning and playing, and educational approaches and expectations. The differences, frustrating as some may seem to be, reveal aspects and necessities of mutual appreciation and reciprocal learning between Chinese parents and Canadian teachers, and between Chinese schools and Canadian schools.

This paper looks at the origins of the international journal Educational Studies in Mathematics (ESM) in 1968 and traces its later development as it responded to changes in mathematics education. The paper first examines, in chronological order, the contributions of its editors in defining its spirit, policy and procedures, as they directed its growth and its transformation into a leading journal of research in mathematics education. The paper then presents a statistical profile of ESM articles by content area, educational issue, level of schooling and research method, and goes on to look more closely at the special issues of ESM, each dedicated to a single topic, and how they reflect the changing concerns of mathematics educators.

Scholarly research related to gender and mathematics is not as frequently published as it was in the 1980s and the 1990s. In Lubienski’s (2000) survey of Mathematical Education Research from 1982 to 1998 there are 367 publications in Journal for Research in Mathematics Education (JRME) and 385 publications in Educational Studies in Mathematics (ESM) about gender. This gives us approximately 21 publications a year in JRME and 22 publications a year in ESM. We did a search of publications about gender in JRME and ESM from 1999 to 2005 (or today) and saw a very different picture. Over this period 14 publications were in JRME and 17 publications in ESM, which gives approximately 4 publications a year in JRME and 3 publications a year in ESM. So what do these numbers tell us about the status of research about gender and mathematics? Does this mean that the gender gap has been closed? If so, for whom is that true? Does it mean that we don’t have to worry about gender differences in mathematics any more? And if it is true, is it certain that it will sustain itself without any follow up? Finally, why are there still differences in women entering fields such as mathematics and physics?

Socio-political studies in mathematics education often touch complex fields of interaction between education, mathematics and the political. In this paper I present a Foucault-based framework for socio-political studies in mathematics education which may guide research in that area. In order to show the potential of such a framework, I discuss the potential and limits of Marxian ideology critique, present existing Foucault-based research on socio-political aspects of mathematics education, develop my framework and show its use in an outline of a study on socio-political aspects of calculation in the mathematics classroom.