How do textbooks from Brazil, the United States, and Japan deal with fractions?

2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 77-111
Author(s):  
Maria Alice Veiga Ferreira de Souza ◽  
Arthur Belford Powell
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Elementary Education ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Procedural Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Japanese Students ◽  
Procedural Approach ◽  
Textbook Series ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis

Background: Researchers recognise the importance of textbooks for teachers’ lesson planning and the importance of fraction knowledge for shaping students’ future mathematics performance. Objectives: The finding of discrepant achievement by Brazilian, American, and Japanese students in the last three editions of PISA led us to investigate how textbook authors from these countries approach fraction content in elementary education relating to magnitude, flexibility, reasonableness, as well as conceptual and procedural knowledge from both symbolic and nonsymbolic perspectives. Design: The quantitative performances in mathematics of Brazilian, American, and Japanese students in the last three PISA editions lack qualitative and exploratory research to understand some reasons presented by the numerical results. Data collection and analysis: To achieve the objectives, we selected three textbook series, one each from Brazil, the United States of America, and Japan, that schools in those countries widely use. Results: The main results revealed that all textbook series practised flexibility and reasonableness with different emphases, but not the sense of magnitude. Brazilian and U.S. textbooks were based primarily on part-whole interpretation and on a procedural approach. In contrast, Japanese textbooks emphasised the understanding of measurement as the iteration of unit fractions and more conceptual development. Conclusions: The fraction knowledge approach in the Japanese textbook series seems to be close to what the mathematics education researchers recommend, which can be an essential differential to explain the Japanese results in PISA.

scholarly journals The Decline of Japanese International Students

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yukiko Shimmi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
College Students ◽  
International Students ◽  
The United States ◽  
Demographic Shift ◽  
Japanese Students ◽  
Economic Stagnation

The number of Japanese students who study in the United States has decreased recent years. Several structural issues that are influencing the current declines are explored: a demographic shift, an increased capacity at domestic universities, an economic stagnation, the season of job-hunting for Japanese college students, and academic requirements. Then, new trends and approaches for the increase are discussed.

scholarly journals Searching for Culturally Responsive Formative Reading Assessments: Retellings, Comprehension Questions, and Student Interviews

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 133 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan V. Piazza
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
African American ◽  
Culturally Responsive ◽  
African American Male ◽  
The United States ◽  
Formative Assessments ◽  
Reading Assessments ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis ◽  
Urban University ◽  
Case Comparison

How do formative reading assessments influence educators’ ability to assess readers’ understandings in culturally responsive ways? This study examines three formative reading assessments to explore the capacity of each measure to fairly represent readers’ understandings without being influenced negatively by social and cultural diversity. The guiding question is “How do these three formative assessments inform and support culturally responsive literacy instruction?” Participants in this study include 10 young adolescent African American male readers. Data collection and analysis took place in a Midwestern urban university in the United States and makes use of a cross case comparison format. Interviews reveal that readers are the best informants regarding their own understandings about texts. Comprehension questions and retellings reveal discrepancies across readers’ understandings. It is crucial that students are given the benefit of responsive assessments in order to accurately demonstrate academic strengths and areas of instructional need.

WHAT PEOPLE ASSUME ABOUT HUMANOID AND ANIMAL-TYPE ROBOTS: CROSS-CULTURAL ANALYSIS BETWEEN JAPAN, KOREA, AND THE UNITED STATES

2008 ◽  
Vol 05 (01) ◽  
pp. 25-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
TATSUYA NOMURA ◽  
TOMOHIRO SUZUKI ◽  
TAKAYUKI KANDA ◽  
JEONGHYE HAN ◽  
NAMIN SHIN ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Acceptance ◽  
Humanoid Robots ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cultural Analysis ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Korean Students ◽  
Japanese Students ◽  
Cultural Research ◽  
The Usa

To broadly explore the rationale behind more socially acceptable robot design and to investigate the psychological aspects of social acceptance of robotics, a cross-cultural research instrument, the Robot Assumptions Questionnaire (RAQ) was administered to the university students in Japan, Korea, and the United States, focusing on five factors relating to humanoid and animal-type robots: relative autonomy, social relationship with humans, emotional aspects, roles assumed, and images held. As a result, it was found that (1) Students in Japan, Korea, and the United States tend to assume that humanoid robots perform concrete tasks in society, and that animal-type robots play a pet- or toy-like role; (2) Japanese students tend to more strongly assume that humanoid robots have somewhat human characteristics and that their roles are related to social activities including communication, than do the Korean and the US students; (3) Korean students tend to have more negative attitudes toward the social influences of robots, in particular, humanoid robots, than do the Japanese students, while more strongly assuming that robots' roles are related to medical fields than do the Japanese students, and (4) Students in the USA tend to have both more positive and more negative images of robots than do Japanese students, while more weakly assuming robots as blasphemous of nature than do Japanese and Korean students. In addition, the paper discusses some engineering implications of these research results.

scholarly journals Phase I Microgrid Cost Study: Data Collection and Analysis of Microgrid Costs in the United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julieta I. Giraldez Miner ◽  
Francisco Flores-Espino ◽  
Sara MacAlpine ◽  
Peter Asmus
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Phase I ◽  
The United States ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Cost Study ◽  
Data Collection And Analysis

Performance-Based Assessment in Preparing Teachers

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Drew Polly
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Teacher Education ◽  
Elementary Education ◽  
Teacher Education Program ◽  
The United States ◽  
Teacher Education Programs ◽  
Education Programs ◽  
National Board ◽  
Performance Based Assessment ◽  
Support Teacher

Performance-based assessments are assessments in which learners complete a complex task or series of tasks in order to demonstrate their learning. Originally designed and used with school-aged learners (ages 5 through 18), the use of performance-based assessments gained popularity in the early 2000s as a way to deeply assess learners’ knowledge and skills. The National Board of Professional Teaching Standards has been using performance-based assessments, which include video evidence of teachers, artifacts of student work, and teachers’ written reflections as part of their credentialing process. For individuals seeking their initial teaching license or teaching credential, in the past decade in the United States, teacher education programs have started to use performance-based assessments. The most widely used performance-based assessment in teacher education in the United States is edTPA, an assessment that was either required or used as an option in 37 states at the time this chapter was written. The edTPA assessment, similar to the National Board portfolio, includes video evidence from the teacher candidate’s instruction, lesson plans, artifacts of student learning, and the teacher candidate’s written reflections about their planning, teaching, and assessment of their students. This chapter describes performance-based assessments in teacher education programs, and focuses on how faculty members in one elementary education (students age 5–11) teacher education program revised its curriculum to support teacher candidates’ completion of the edTPA performance-based assessment.

Influence of Peer Reactions and Student Attitudes on Student Deviance: Differences Between Japan and the United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 1876-1895
Author(s):  
Emiko Kobayashi ◽  
David P. Farrington
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
College Students ◽  
Learning Theory ◽  
Social Learning Theory ◽  
Student Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Japanese Students ◽  
Mixed Support ◽  
Two Samples

The current study examines the cross-cultural applicability of Akers’ social learning theory in explaining why Japanese commit fewer deviant acts than Americans. It is predicted that deviance would be less common in Japan because Japanese have less favorable attitudes toward deviance, which in turn are attributable to less favorable peer reactions to deviance. Analyses of comparable survey data from college students in Japan ( N = 583) and the United States ( N = 615) provide mixed support for our arguments. As expected, Japanese students had less favorable attitudes toward deviance because they had peers who reacted less favorably to deviance. Contrary to expectation, however, even after controlling for student attitudes toward deviance and peer reactions to deviance, the initially large difference between the two samples in student deviance remained significant. This was at least partly because, in Japan, compared with the United States, peer reactions and student attitudes had significantly less influence on student deviance.

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