An Analysis Of The Features Of Exemplary Elementary Mathematics Lessons

During the current two decades, Chinese mathematics classroom has attracted muchattention and ever-increased interests from worldwide researchers. Knowing andexamining the characteristics is one of the key issues for defining and constructingChinese mathematics education. The elementary mathematics classroom, as a part ofChinese mathematics classroom, needs adequate attention from researchers.Exemplary lessons represent the expected teaching practice in specific period of time.Comparing the exemplary lessons over different periods of time is a currently newperspective for classroom study, which may highlight the characteristics of classroomin different periods of time, and help us understanding the progress and the trend of areform of teaching in an overall way and from a historical perspective.This paper presents a comparative study on exemplary lessons of elementarymathematics over different decades in Mainland China. The selected exemplarylessons in this study were honored as the first-class exemplary lesson in the nationallevel teaching contests or exhibitions. Using the instrumental and multiple case studystrategy and the method of video study,22exemplary lessons that were selected fromthe last decade of the20th century and the first decade of the21st century wereanalyzed in this study.The dual analysis strategy (up-down and bottom-up) was used to identify andexamine the similarities and differences between the selected lessons. Firstly, byreferring to the TIMSS1999Video Study (Hiebert, et al.,2003) and consideringChina’s current educational background, a holistic five dimensional framework wasestablished, which including instructional objectives, lesson structure, instructionalcontent, ways of teaching and learning, and usage of textbook. Secondly, thebottom-up strategy was applied in data analysis to each dimension. The data wasanalyzed by using the constant comparative method (Glaser&Strauss,1967) toconstruct grounded theory.The results of analysis showed that both similarities and differences co-existedamong the exemplary lessons over different decades. Some educational ideasadvocated by the current educational reform in China were highlighted in the lessonsthat were taught in the first decade of the21st century. Moreover, all of the selectedlessons shared some common features. The similarities included: the selected exemplary lessons in different decades shared many common features in the aspect ofknowledge and skill among their instructional objectives and the content of teachingand learning; their lesson structure also displayed similar mode; all of them weredominated by public activities, during which the main form of interaction wasteacher’s questioning and students’ answering, and students’ responses in chorus wasquite popular; and the instruction was all impacted by the textbook in different extent.The differences between the selected lessons were shown as that the students’ over-alldevelopment was concerned from a more broader perspective in the lessons taught inthe first decade of the new century, and that the lessons in the new centurydemonstrated more openness in the lesson structure, the content of teaching andlearning, the teaching method, and the usage of textbook regarding of the lessons in1990s.The found similarities among the selected exemplary lessons indicate the relativestability of teaching; while, the differences between these lessons reflect the changesof the educational ideas and values over different decades. This study reveals thatmathematics education reform is a successive and gradually changing process. Theimplication drawn from this study is that, while implementing a teaching reform, itshould be recognized that the teaching is a cultural activity, teaching reform is agradually changing process and during which the regular reflection on teaching isneeded, and that the teaching reform should make a balance between itsappropriateness and transcendence.