A Call to Teachers: Join the Journey Beyond TIMSS
by Patsy Wang-Iverson
American teachers have said for years that they are asked to cover too much material, in not enough time, and with inadequate support. However, it seems that they have not been taken seriously, as the textbooks continue to increase in weight and teachers are asked to cover increasingly more topics and assume additional responsibilities.
American teachers, indeed, work the hardest, but sometimes with less results than we would hope. An international study, the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), has confirmed this dilemma. This comprehensive, in-depth study of student achievement, curriculum and teachers and students' lives provides us with a different lens through which to examine practices that we may have accepted as immutable. It allows us partial answers to the following questions: what actually occurs in these mathematics and science classrooms? What do teachers do to engage their students? What support exists to allow teachers to do their work? And what content knowledge do teachers possess?
The curriculum analysis across countries revealed that American teachers, relative to their counterparts in other countries, are asked to cover more topics per year and frequently the same topics year after year. The question about what happens in classrooms was answered in part by the TIMSS Videotape Study, which provides a concrete glimpse into representative eighth grade mathematics classrooms in the United States, Germany and Japan. I have viewed the American and Japanese geometry lessons over 20 times, and each time I have learned something new from my co-viewers. For example, it was a revelation when a teacher, watching the video for the first time, exclaimed that the Japanese geometry lesson taught deep concepts without the use of any numbers. By contrast, we tend to equate mathematics only with numbers and computation.
I discovered one country's answer to the second and third questions rather serendipitously. I was introduced to Lesson Study, a Japanese model of ongoing, teacher-led professional development, when I viewed the tape Secret of Trapezes (see http://lessonresearch.net ). As I deepened my understanding of Lesson Study, I was struck by the advantages the Japanese teachers have over American teachers: they share a common, concise curriculum; the elementary teachers engage collaboratively in Lesson Study, which allows them to deepen their content knowledge while acquiring a variety of strategies for engaging all their students; they frequently observe each others' lessons; and they focus on student thinking and understanding.
As for the fourth question about teacher knowledge, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma reveals concretely what many elementary teachers are missing - a deep understanding of mathematics. It also communicates powerfully that elementary mathematics is far from simple.
In our country, one frequently hears calls for better prepared teachers and greater teacher accountability without acknowledgement of the need for crucial support to help teachers succeed. By contrast, countries with top performing students recognize that teaching competence and knowledge are acquired on the job under the guidance of strong leadership and take time and a supportive environment to develop.
Now we are talking about testing our students every year from grades three through eight.
However, if we examine the testing policies of the high achieving TIMSS countries, we will notice an absence of standardized testing in the lower grades. In Singapore, national testing occurs at the end of grade six; in Japan, students don't take any high-stakes tests until the end of grade nine.
Teachers, after years of being told "Research shows...", it is now your turn to use the lessons from TIMSS as a wake-up call to create the demand for more support, more time for constructive collaboration, and a more concise curriculum.
About TIMSS
The largest international study of student achievement ever undertaken, TIMSS is a collaborative research project sponsored by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) and directed by the International Study Center in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. Researchers and educators from more than 40 research organizations in countries around the world collaborated in the design, development, and implementation of this enormous comparative achievement study, which is supported by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics, the National Science Foundation, and the World Bank, among other organizations. Since it began in 1995, TIMSS has provided initial assessments of five grade levels, involving over half a million students across more than 40 countries.