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Price: $18.99 - $9.99
(as of Mar 21, 2025 11:15:39 UTC – Details)
Ten years after its first publication, The Teaching Gap remains “a critical resource” (Publishers Weekly) for anyone involved in education. In paperback for the first time, it has been fully revised and includes a new preface and afterword by the authors.
American schools have famously lagged behind foreign schools in all areas of academic achievement. When James W. Stigler and James Hiebert made their assessment of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) ten years ago, they discovered that the problem with American education is neither one of testing nor curricula, but teaching. A clarion call for treating teaching like the craft it is, The Teaching Gap lays out a clear program for change that administrators, teachers, and parents can implement together. Newly updated with fresh teaching solutions drawn from new research, this educational classic is as vital a teaching tool as ever.
Publisher : Free Press; Reissue edition (June 16, 2009)
Language : English
Paperback : 256 pages
ISBN-10 : 1439143137
ISBN-13 : 978-1439143131
Item Weight : 8 ounces
Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.6 x 8.44 inches
Customers say
Customers find the book easy to read and informative. It provides them with great insights into teaching and instructional methods. The research is based on and provides guidance for all readers.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
ACH –
Scary but needed read for parents who care
The scary conclusion for parents is that math is basically not taught. What passes for math teaching in the US is training kids in the rote application of some math-like algorithms. An example is giving kids the formula for Pythagoras’s theorem and having them apply it tens of times instead of teaching them how to prove it and how it connects to the other basic theorems. Words and formulae rather than completing the proof alone.
The result is that most kids never develop a coherent picture of the full math landscape and never develop the self confidence and the tools to be able to guide themselves through mathematical reasoning in this landscape. Some teach themselves math in spite of this system, some others catch up in college but most are robbed of the opportunity to get these skills.
Amazon Customer –
excellent read
Every math teacher should read this book. The book was easy to read and understand with great ideas to improve teaching.
Engaged Educator –
Thoughtful Analysis
If you are looking for answers or quick “take aways” for your classroom – you won’t find them in this book. But if you are interested in examining teaching methods through a new and different lens – then definitely pick up this book. There is enough information in other reviews that I don’t feel the need to elaborate too much – but this book is a thoughtful examination of instructional methods and it will change the way you think about teaching.
Bob Lewis –
Worth thinking about
Everyone who pays any attention at all knows that education in the United States is in trouble. Our schools, to put it quite bluntly, are failing. People have approached the problem from a variety of directions, with varying degrees of success, but little actual improvement has resulted from all of the money spent (read: wasted) trying to reform education. This book takes a slightly different approach. It begins by comparing American math education to systems of math education around the world, focusing in particular on comparisons between American, German, and Japanese middle-school math lessons.
The results of those comparisons are dismal. The book describes international students being invited to derive proofs and explore mathematics at a deep level while American students are expected to simply memorize algorithms while developing or demonstrating little to no actual understanding of the mathematical content. Anyone familiar with the way mathematics is taught in American schools will find this all quite familiar, except they may be shocked to find how much better other school systems actually do.
Though now decades old, the book nevertheless remains a timely call of alarm for anyone interested in education, particularly math education. However, we should also remain cognizant that it’s far from a perfect book. Stylistically, it’s far too prone to repetition and some of its finer points could easily get lost because it tempts the reader to skim some passages.
And it’s proposals for improved education are, while they make sense in a certain light, insufficiently developed to make a real difference. We must remember that any improvement to educational systems must overcome not only political challenges but also institutional inertia unlike anything I’ve seen in any other profession. That’s not to say the book’s proposals are entirely wrong. It seems self-evident that improving not only the competence of teachers but the quality of teaching (that is to say, lessons themselves) is a worthy goal. What remains unclear is how the specific proposals could be translated from, for example, a Japanese model into the American setting.
The book argues that part of the reason teaching is different in these different countries is that education is embedded within the different cultures of the respective nations. While that’s self-evidently true, the book fails to explain specifically which elements of those various cultures either aid or hinder progress in education. And without an understanding of those elements, simply observing that there are some cultural differences is a fairly vacuous argument.
Further, the book goes on to ignore those cultural differences in assuming that a Japanese practice known as lesson study could be translated into the American school system. Perhaps it can be, but without accounting for those cultural differences, it’s hard to see how it would work. As the authors acknowledge, one of the major differences between Japanese and American educational systems is that the Japanese system is highly centralized and the American system is more diffuse (or, to be more accurate, I would say that it’s become a Frankenstein’s monster with bits of centralized control and bits of diffuse governance, where we end up with the worst of both worlds and the best of neither). Simply asserting that the centralized planning they call for could be administered at the level of local school districts rather than nationally is, perhaps, a valid argument, but the book fails to thoroughly make the case and I remain unconvinced.
Still, though the policy prescriptions leave something to be desired, the book is informative no matter one’s own policy preferences. Some of the ideas for improved math education could be implemented nationally or locally (or even individually, if the will is there) as well as publicly or privately. For those ideas, this book is worth its weight in gold. Even individual teachers bound by institutional standards beyond their control can assuredly benefit, even if in limited form, from the implementation of at least some of the book’s ideas.
Cristina Heffernan –
A great book!
This book not only has interesting observations about teaching but more importantly has how teaching
Is a cultural phenomena which can have large impact for those that are trying to change teaching.
Jean-Noel –
Good read
Interesting reflection on how to improve teaching. Convincing argument. A must-read for policy-makers! Making teachers responsible for researching education appears a very sensible idea.
Meira –
Fascinating- Ways to End the Demise of U.S. Teaching and Learning
Excellent book. Fascinating research. Easy to understand if you are not an educator. Deep understanding if you are. A must read if you are a teacher, administrator, parent, or policy-maker.
Amazon Customer –
It’s a great book, with a lot of insight
It’s a great book, with a lot of insight. Stigle needs to revise it for the current state of Education and social media.
Carolina Camila Bonelli –
O livro compara a forma de ensinar matemática em diferentes paÃses e o reflexo desses diferentes métodos nos resultados obtidos. A conclusão gira em torno da necessidade de um estudo profundo da melhor forma de dar cada aula, algo que pode ser feito de forma colaborativa e incremental.
Sem dúvida um excelente caminho, fosse ele possÃvel em nossa cultura brasileira.
kirsty friar –
Quick delivery very pleased
AmazonCustomer –
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devhabib –
Great insights into the cultural aspects of mathematics education and how they affect classroom practice and the teaching of mathematics. Supplement it with the sample videos from the TIMSS website.
Cliente de Amazon –
Es un libro bastante interesante. Describe de forma práctica la forma de enseñar matemáticas de los profesores de alemanes, japoneses y americanos. Si lo lees con cuidado, podrás encontrar sugerencias para aplicar en el salón de clases, o para realizar una investigación. Muy muy recomendado, aunque recomiendo la pasta dura (mejor durabilidad y mayor presentación). No me agradan los formatos de pasta blanda.