Hi Eugene.
A good place to look to for insight into what makes traditional
U.S. mathematics teaching successful and unsuccessful is the
recently completed Third International Mathematics and Science
Study (TIMSS). The organizer of the U.S. TIMSS committee, and
lead author in most official reports, is William H. Schmidt.
A listing of his recent books can be found at
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ats-query/002-6978983-8929425
_A Splintered Vision_ is probably a good starting place.
The TIMSS research points to a variety of educational factors
in the U.S. that differ from other countries that may have
greater mathematics achievement. As such, the analysis tends to
be correlational rather than explanatory. But the descriptions
of traditional mathematics classroom practices are extremely
detailed and insightful (often based on systematic qualitative
videotape analyses). There are no cognitive analyses of
traditional teaching, per se, that I am aware of; though
there is a huge literature on the psychology of mathematics
learning more generally (much of which actually is focussed on
exemplary --reform, rather than traditional-- teaching).
One of the leading contributors to this literature is Jim
Hiebert, on faculty at your University. He's also been
involved with some TIMSS related analyses, so he'd be a
good person from whom to borrow TIMSS books, which otherwise
are prohibitively expensive. (In my opinion, Kluwer Academic
Publishers --who publish most of the TIMSS results-- specialize
in seeking out, and then overcharging for, important
research reports.)
David Kirshner
PS. Please let me know what you turn up in your search.
"Eugene Matusov" <ematusov who-is-at UDel.Edu> on 02/11/99 06:40:21 PM
Please respond to ematusov who-is-at UDel.Edu
To: "XMCA" <xmca who-is-at weber.ucsd.edu>
cc: (bcc: David H Kirshner/dkirsh/LSU)
Subject: Math ref
Hello everybody--
I want ask for your help. For my Spring grad seminar on cognition and
instruction, I need to find a book (better a monograph) that discusses and
makes a critical analysis of traditional US math instruction. I'm more
interested in how things are rather than how they should be. Ideally, I
need
a discussion on how traditional math instruction leads to both academic
"success" and academic "failure".
I'd appreciate your help.
Eugene
----------------------
Eugene Matusov
School of Education
University of Delaware
Newark, DE 19716
Office (302) 831-1266
Fax (302) 831-4445
email ematusov who-is-at udel.edu
Website http://ematusov.eds.udel.edu/
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