中美小学数学教育差异何在？.docVIP

马立平：中美小学数学教育差异何在？Liping Ma, a former teacher and principal in China, has written extensively about the differences between how the United States and China teach math to elementary school students. After earning a doctorate in curriculum and teacher education from Stanford University, she worked as a senior scholar at the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. In 1999, she published “Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics,” an influential book that argues elementary school teachers need a better grounding in arithmetic and math in order to teach them effectively to their students. She currently works as an independent researcher. Dr. Ma spoke recently with Vikas Bajaj of The New York Times editorial board about her research and why Chinese and other Asian students score well above their American counterparts on international math tests. 曾在中国任教师和校长的马立平就中美小学数学教育的差异撰写过大量文章。在斯坦福大学(Stanford University)获得课程和教师教育博士学位后，她作为资深学者在卡内基教育发展基金会(Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching)工作。1999年，她出版了《小学数学的掌握与教学》 一书，这本影响深远的著作提出，小学教师要想进行卓有成效的教学，自己需要在算术和数学方面打下更好的基础。目前是一名独立研究者的马博士近日与《纽约时报》评论版委员会的维卡斯·巴贾吉(Vikas Bajaj)谈了她的研究，以及为什么中国等亚洲国家的学生在国际数学测验中成绩要比美国同龄人好很多。 Q. Your research compares how the United States and China teach elementary math. Can you briefly explain the biggest differences between the two countries? 问：你的研究对中美小学数学教育进行了比较。能否简要解释两个国家的最大差异在哪里？ A. In my first work, published in 1999, I found that Chinese teachers who had much less education than our American teachers showed more profound understanding of the elementary math they were teaching. 答：在我1999年出版的第一本书里，我发现中国教师虽然接受的教育远不如美国教师，但是对他们所教授的小学数学有着更深刻的理解。 I noticed that Chinese math education at the elementary level has a core subject structure. They focus on one subject; I called it school arithmetic. That ongoing core subject picks up other things [like fractions, geometry and simple equations]. While in the States, we teach many, many things [like number operations, algebra, problem solving and geo