Title: Early Childhood Mathematics Teaching in Japan: Participation in Mathematical Activities in Everydayl
1Early Childhood Mathematics Teaching in
JapanParticipation in Mathematical Activities
in Everyday-life Settings
- 16.4.2009
- Erickson Institute of Education
- Kiyomi Akita, Ph.D.
- Graduate School of Education
- The University of Tokyo
2 9 4 ?
3Japanese teachers cultural belief and values for
bring up the sense of numbersand mathematical
thinking
- Fig A
- ???????? ?
- 123412312
- C For this reason, the answer is 5.
- Cs Ah!
- T ??
- Fig B
- ?? ?? ??
- ?? ?
- the beauty of the number
sequence
4Topics
- Japanese school math education in East Asian
countries - Characteristics of Japanese Math teaching in
Early Childhood Education - and Care
- Collaboration with elementary school teachers on
mathematics education
5Topic 1 Japanese math education
In East Asian countries
- Educational crisis in Japan
- decrease of Math test score
- increase of economic inequality
-
6Decreasing Japanese student international math
scores
- TIMSS(Trends in International Mathematics
Science study) 2007 - -Score of 4th graders
- Hong Kong (609), Singapore (599), Taiwan
(576), Japan (568) - - Joy of Learning Math - Percentage of Strongly
agree - International Average 55
- Japan 34
- - Self-confidence in Math
- International Average 43
- Japan 17
- PISA(Program for International Student Assessment
of the OECD) Rapid decrease of 15-year-olds Math
score - -2000 1st ranking ? 2003 6th ?2006 10th
7Revision of Math Curriculum
- 2009 Revision of National Curriculum Guidelines
- Elementary School
- -Increase in number of math lessons
- 4 lessons ?5 lessons per a week
- - Emphasis on mathematical literacy and thinking
- Acquisition of core concepts and basic skills
- Kindergarten (Day - Nursery)
- No change in Mathematics
- Emphasis on continuity of childrens experiences
between kindergarten and elementary school - Traditionally distinctly separate from elementary
school education
8Topic 2 Characteristics of Japanese
Math Teaching in ECEC
- - National curriculum
- - Practices, cultural tools and teachers
cultural beliefs - - The case-study on childrens development of the
concept of volume -
9 National Curriculum Guidelines of Kindergartens
and Day Nurseries
- 5 key content areas (not one-to-one
correspondence to subjects) - 1 Health Health of mind and body
- 2 Human Relationships The relationship between a
child and other people - 3 Environment The surroundings, and childrens
relationship with them - 4 Language The development and acquisition of
language - 5 Expression Feelings and expression
10Mathematics that relates to the childrens
Environment
- Aim
- To enrich childrens understanding of the nature
of things, concepts of quantity and numbers, and
written words, and so on, through observing,
thinking about, and dealing with surrounding
things and experiences. - Content
- Developing curiosity about concepts of quantity
and numbers, and diagrams in everyday life. - Dealing with content
- Children should be encouraged to place
importance on their experiences in their own
lives, in order to bring up interest, curiosity
and real understanding of concepts of quantity
and numbers, and written words.
11Mathematics in Everyday Settings
Sakakibara (2007)
- Data 14 classroom, 3-,4-years-old in seven
kindergarten in Tokyo Kanagawa - Mathematics were included fairly often in
activities - 40 of all observed
teacher-initiated activities. - Mathematical components were observed in which
the goal was something other than teaching
mathematics (e.g., singing songs, creating arts,
craft projects etc.)
12Types of Mathematical Activity
- Activities of numbers are the most frequent in 14
classrooms of 3- and 4- year-olds in 7
kindergartens
13The Effects of Pre-school Programs (Sakakibara,
2007)
- The 3-year-olds in highly teacher initiated
programs showed better overall performance than
those in less teacher initiated programs. No
effect on overall performance was observed in
4-year-olds.
14Cultural Play Tools Supporting Childrens Math
- Picture books, monthly journals,
- Calendar, clocks
- Trump, Sugoroku (Japanese variety of Parchessi)
- Many sizes and kinds of blocks, folding papers,
etc. -
15Gazing at Spinning a top
16(No Transcript)
17Classroom environment for counting and using
numbers
18Characteristics of Japanese Early Childhood
Mathematics 1 Everyday-life Oriented
- Japanese early educators beliefs and values
- (Romantic constructive view Hatano and
Inagaki,1999) - - Orientation for mathematical activities is
embedded in a variety of pre-school everyday-life
activities, rather than simply giving formal
systematic mathematical teaching and paper work - - Not project-based, but involves every-day life
routine activities
19Characteristics of Japanese Early Childhood
Mathematics 2 Counting-based Perspective
- Emphasis on area of number
-
- Teaching method Counting-based perspectives
- not comparison of quantities perspective
(Sophian, 2007) - History of Japanese school math
- Toyama(1972), Gimbayashi (1975) and research
groups of the SUIDO method criticized the
history of Japanese mathematics education - 1. Counting-based teaching without
realization of the relations - between quantity, number words, and
numerals - 2. Promotion of fast mental calculation
without real embodied manipulation (culture
of abacus) - Parents have preferences for not core
concept-oriented but effective practical
skill-oriented - (e.g., concept of unit, concept of set and
subsets etc.)
20Characteristics of Japanese Early Childhood
Mathematics 3 Weakness of Explicit Pedagogical
Content Knowledge
- They do not have explicit core concepts of math
knowledge, or a systematic curriculum from ECEC
to Formal schooling, and mathematical thinking
reasoning - Less concerned for space and geometry,
measurement and patterns - (concept of direct comparison and indirect
comparison, concept of faces of solid figures
etc.) - Cf children in US (Ginsburg et als.1999)
- Chinese children (Ginsburg,Lin, Ness Seo,
2003 - ECEC teachers pedagogical content knowledge of
relations between concrete play activities and
key core concepts of early mathematics, and their
knowledge of how and when to teach mathematical
jargon to young children, are important for
childrens mathematical concept learning.
21- DVD Case 1
- Fostering the sense of volume and knowledge of
faces of three-dimensional figures
22Topic3 Collaboration with Elementary School
Teachers through Lesson Study
- - Reflecting on their own practice from math
perspectives - - Linking the curriculum and developing manuals
for PCK - - Learning from the core concepts of mathematics
for deep understanding -
23Preschool Education (Kindergarten day nursery)
Promoting connectivity and linking through
lesson study
Elementary School Mathematics Lesson
24? Collaboration between Kindergarten and
Day-nursery
Method
Reflecting on the learning environment, and
developing a new environment from the
perspective of math education
25Sign of correspondence
Invent new learning environment
Lines putting chairs in order
Color Sign for categorizing the books
Sign for grouping
26Paying with relay game(sequencecounting
corresponding)
Putting Blocks in order(Groupingthree-dimensional
objects)
Growing plants (direct comparison)
Check of numbers of absent children(countingcalcu
lation)
Making dumpling (countingthree-dimensional)
27 5 year-old ball game
?Corresponding ComparingCountingSequence?
If we throw at three more children, we can win!
The number of children left is decreasing when
the child thrown by the other team member
Which team of children left are more?
Judging the winning team
285year-old Project of using sweet potato runners
? Feeling by sense and FindingExpressing
verballyComparing directly?
29? Collaboration between both teachers
Case
Relay game in Kindergarten Documentation on
childrens performance Unit ?what order?
First grade May (learning ordinal and cardinal
numbers) Plan the lesson using a relay game as an
introduction to the unit
30Standing in a line
What number are you from The front person ?
?ordinal numberscardinal numbers, concept of set?
Relay race
31- Children are very familiar with relays. Thus, the
children actively participated in the mathematics
lesson. - Children understand the differences between
ordinal numbers and cardinal numbers more deeply
by learning with body movement activities these
experiences are more effective than learning with
paper and pencils.
32Making Teachers Manuals for number, quantity
and shape for connectivity of curriculum
Numbers
Reading/writing numbers
calculation
corresponding
counting
comparison
sequence
grouping
Five year-old
Activity
First graders
33Fostering childrens sense of number, quantity,
and figure
Principles of activity 1. Hands-on
activities 2. Everyday-life settings 3.
Repetition 4. With friends 5. Learning from
failures 6. Attention to mathematical expression
Physical environment Learning environment in
which children actively engage Human resources
Interaction responding to childrens interests
and concerns
34Issues in Future
- How to promote collaboration between school math
teacher and teachers in ECEC should be
addressed. - In pre-service training, it will be necessary to
teach the relations between concrete activity in
practices, development of mathematical key
concepts, and mathematical words. Textbooks and
tools from new perspective are requested. - We have to reflect our own cultural beliefs on
counting based perspective. Dialogue between
people from different culture, Documentation
childrens math learning trajectory from long
span perspective. and Design for networks are
needed in future.