U.S. math instruction changes
Two new views of U.S. math instruction; Neither are reassuring
10:30 pm April 18, 2010, by Maureen Downey
Some interesting developments on math instruction in the education press this week:
First, a new study of future math teachers suggests that we need to improve their grasp of math. The study raises the question of whether teachers need more training in math once they’re in the field or whether we should recruit potential teachers with stronger math skills. And should there be math specialists for elementary schools?
According to Education Week:
The findings from the first Teacher Education Study in Mathematics, or TEDS-M, were unveiled this week at a press conference in Washington.
Among the world’s aspiring elementary teachers, the results show that American college students nearing the end of their teacher-preparation programs performed “neither particularly low, nor particularly strong.” They scored at rates similar to those of future teachers in Germany, Norway, and Russia, but not on par with typically high-achieving countries such as Taiwan and Singapore.
At the middle school level, however, the study contends that the next generation of teachers fared slightly worse, landing “on the divide between countries in which students usually do well on international math exams and those that don’t.” U.S. teachers-to-be outperformed their counterparts in Botswana, Chile, and the Republic of Georgia, for example, but trailed far behind the top-scoring Taiwanese teacher-preparation students.
“We must break the cycle in which we find ourselves,” said William H. Schmidt, an education professor at Michigan State University in East Lansing, during a webcast held to announce the findings. He oversaw the U.S. portion of the study, which surveyed 3,300 future teachers in 80 public and private colleges.
“A weak K-12 mathematics curriculum in the U.S., taught by teachers with an inadequate mathematics background, produces high school graduates who are at a disadvantage. When some of these students become future teachers and are not given a strong background in mathematics during teacher preparation, the cycle continues,” he added.
Both Mr. Schmidt and Gene Wilhoit, the executive director of the Council of Chief State School Officers, said the results bolster the case for teaching all students to higher math standards—a feat they hope to help accomplish with the common-core academic standards being developed now by the CCSSO and the National Governors Association.
In what seems to be a contradiction of sorts, another study — the first round of findings from a federal review of 77 middle schools — suggests that even intensive, state-of-the-art efforts to boost teachers’ skills on the job may not lead to significant gains in student achievement right away.
According to Ed Week:
The “Middle School Mathematics Professional Development Impact Study,” which was released April 6, is the second major experimental study by the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences to find that a high-quality professional-development program failed to translate into any dramatic improvements in student learning. A two-year study of efforts to improve teachers’ instructional skills in early reading reached a similar conclusion in 2008.
“What accounts for this somewhat consistent pattern of results? We don’t really know,” said Michael S. Garet, a vice president at the American Institutes for Research. His Washington-based organization conducted both studies with the MDRC research group of New York City. “I think what we’re learning,” Mr. Garet added, “is that it’s challenging to make a big enough difference in teacher knowledge and instructional practice to have an impact on student learning.”
The results are already providing some intellectual ammunition for finding better ways to select and retain effective teachers—and shedding those who are ineffective—as the best way to improve instructional quality in schools.
The new study shows that “you can’t change teacher effectiveness very well with the tools that we have, and that you can’t change ineffective teachers into effective ones,” said Eric A. Hanushek, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, based at Stanford University. He is also the president of the IES advisory board, which heard a presentation on the new study’s findings last week.
But other scholars said it is too soon to issue a verdict on the effectiveness of professional development.
“We know teacher change takes time,” said Hilda Borko, an education professor who is also at Stanford. “The general belief is that it takes a while for teachers to take ownership of change and really incorporate change into their instruction.”
Read the two studies if you have time and let’s discuss.