Chemical Education Today
Editorial
Something Might Be Gaining on Us Science is usually not front-page news, so when the first column on the front page of the New York Times says, “U.S. Is Losing Its Dominance In The Sciences” (1), scientists and educators should take note. Perhaps it is only hubris to think that the U.S. inevitably leads the world in science and technology. The New York Times reported that in Physical Review the fraction of publications by U.S. authors has fallen from 61% in 1983 to 29% in 2003, and the total number of papers by U.S. authors peaked in 1993. In 1996 the number of articles in Physical Review by Western European authors surpassed the U.S. and in 2000 the number of articles from all other countries also surpassed the U.S. In 1980 more than 60% of U.S. patents were granted to inventors from the U.S., but in 2003 that fraction had fallen to 52%. During the same period U.S. patents to Japanese inventors rose from 12% to 21%. In every year from 1989 through 1999 the total number of doctoral degrees in science and engineering granted in Britain, Germany, and France exceeded the number in the U.S., and in 1998 the number granted in Asia equaled that in the U.S. About 400 companies have recently set up research institutes in China, not only because it costs less, but also because excellent science is being done there. Satchel Paige, who pitched his last major-league baseball game at age 59, had this recommendation regarding the competition, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” Certainly the rest of the world is gaining on us in scientific and technological prowess, so let’s look ahead and see how we might improve. Long-term strength in mathematics, science, and engineering depends a great deal on attracting people to such careers, and a major influence on people’s career choices is the quality of the education they receive. An excellent prescription for improving U.S. education in mathematics, science, and engineering is provided in a book by James Stigler and James Hiebert (2). Their thesis is that if students are to learn more, then science teaching (not teachers) must be improved, and this can best be accomplished if teachers work together to improve teaching incrementally and continually. Stigler and Hiebert base their argument on an innovative study in which classroom lessons in eighth-grade mathematics were videotaped in the U.S. (81 lessons), Germany (100 lessons), and Japan (50 lessons). Analysis of the videotapes revealed striking differences in teaching methods among the three countries. In Japanese classrooms, teachers challenged students to engage with the subject and teachers mediated that engagement. In Germany the teacher was owner/expert in the subject and parceled it out to the students, while in the U.S. the subject-matter was much less in evidence and the main engagement was between teacher and students.
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Lessons and teaching are also viewed differently by the dif- I prefer incremental, ferent cultures. According to sustained change Stigler and Hiebert, in Japan lessons “hold a privileged place in the activities of the school” and rather than periodic, “A great deal of attention is given turbulent reform. to their development.” The videotapes show that a Japanese lesson is almost never interrupted, whereas “almost one-third of the U.S. lessons were interrupted in some way.” The sanctity of the Japanese lesson derives from the cultural belief that a lesson should be a story—one that is carefully constructed to introduce and connect ideas, facts, and processes in a coherent way. Another cultural difference is that in Japan teachers engage regularly and as part of their professional responsibilities in creating and teaching new lessons. This amounts to long-term research in the science of teaching. Teachers at all levels, especially elementary-school, meet in subject-matter groups for several hours each week to decide on an area in which teaching is to be improved, to create new lessons within this area, and eventually to have one member of the group teach the lesson in a classroom with the rest of the group observing. This is not peer evaluation of a teacher, but instead a group evaluation of the lesson the entire group has devised. On the basis of the evaluation, the lesson is modified and improved, and then taught again. Careful, written records are kept, and over time many highly refined lessons become available to the school and to teachers throughout Japan. The teachers then are not teaching lessons or using materials developed by “experts” external to the school—they are themselves the experts (as they should be, given that they are the ones interacting directly with students and subject matter). There are not periodic “reforms” of teaching methods. Instead there is a steady, even inexorable, progress toward the best possible lessons and the highest quality teaching. In previous editorials (3), I have stated that I prefer incremental, sustained change rather than periodic, turbulent reform. Stigler and Hiebert make a similar argument and provide a workable mechanism for continuous improvement of teaching at any level. Their book is well worth reading and their ideas well worth implementing.
Literature Cited 1. Broad, William J. New York Times May 3, 2004, page 1. 2. Stigler, James W.; Hiebert, James. The Teaching Gap; The Free Press: New York, 1999. 3. Moore, J. W. J. Chem. Educ. 1999, 76, 149; 2002, 79, 535.
Vol. 81 No. 8 August 2004
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Journal of Chemical Education
1079
