Comparative Study On Difficulty Of Chinese And Japanese School Geometry Curricula

Both Japan and China are influenced by oriental culture, and they have a lot of similarities in mathematics education. In recent decades the reform of Japanese mathematics education forms its own character by learning and organically integrating a lot of west reform ideas and experiences, and the world attach importance to Japanese mathematics education.Geometry is the most important and disputable content of mathematics education in compulsory education. In 21st century new mathematics curriculum of Chinese and Japanese both have some changes in dealing with geometry content, so it is necessary to do comparative study on difficulty of geometry curriculum in China and Japan compulsory education.The following is the main content and results of this study:1. The definition and mathematics model of curriculum difficultyWhen we talk about curriculum difficulty, perhaps we mean two different things. One is statistic difficulty and the other is content difficulty. Statistic difficulty is to show difficulty from certain tested object. It is also called relative difficulty. Content difficulty that is determined by curriculum's goal is to show difficulty on Curriculum standard and teaching materials. Content difficulty is also called absolute difficulty. Curriculum difficulty discussed in this paper is content difficulty of curriculum.Curriculum difficulty is directly proportional to curriculum depth and inversely proportional to lesson period. Similarly curriculum difficulty is directly proportional to curriculum width and inversely proportional to lesson period . N is curriculum difficulty, S is curriculum depth, G is curriculum width, T is lesson period, unit time curriculum depth S/T and unit time curriculum width G/T are the most important quantity portraying curriculum difficulty. We call it as "comparative depth" and "comparative width". So curriculum difficulty is:0< a <1, where a is called as weighting factor which shows the degree of curriculum's focusing on "comparative depth" or "comparative width", we call N defined by (*) curriculum difficulty coefficient.Curriculum difficulty model is regarded as not only a comparative study platform of international mathematics curriculum , but also a control of difficulty factors in curriculum design, so it has most important reality significance to develop mathematics curriculum.2. The comparative study on difficulty of Chinese and Japanese School geometry...