The Teaching Gap
By Sandra Feldman

One of the most comprehensive studies to highlight the achievement gap between students in the United States and those in many other countries is the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). TIMSS showed that a handful of countries (with Japan near the top) consistently outperformed the others studied (including the United States). A pair of respected researchers set out to determine why.

Stark differences
James W. Stigler and James Hiebert analyzed videotapes from hundreds of classrooms that were part of the TIMSS study. The classroom observations revealed stark differences in the instructional practices of Japanese and American teachers, differences the researchers dubbed a "teaching gap."

Japanese eighth grade math teachers, for example, encourage students to use prior knowledge to solve problems. The researchers observed that American teachers routinely give students a list of concepts, definitions and strategies to employ. They found that less than one percent of American students' seatwork in mathematics required them to invent and think to solve problems, whereas that kind of work occupied Japanese students 44 percent of the time.

Stigler and Hiebert collected their observations in a book they titled The Teaching Gap (Free Press, 1999). In it, they argue that shortcomings in teacher practice are hard to resolve in the current U.S. system, which provides few opportunities for teachers to hone their craft. While teachers from other nations have regular occasions to work together, American teachers largely work alone with few chances to collaborate in ways that raise their level of practice.

Lesson study
The Teaching Gap describes the process of "lesson study" through which Japanese teachers research and test ways to continually improve instruction. Lesson study is a professional development process in which teachers systematically examine their practice by working together to plan, teach, observe and critique lessons.

Japanese teachers – and a growing number of their counterparts in the U.S. – practice lesson study in every content area from art, to science, to reading instruction. It can be used in all subjects and grade levels. A typical team might develop two lessons over the course of a school year. Proponents of this approach maintain that the crux of lesson study is not the product, but the process through which teachers examine their own practice, explore how students learn and work as a professional community.

Real change
The pressure to help students reach ever-higher levels of achievement can lead schools and districts to look for reforms that promise swift and dramatic results. Teachers are understandably skeptical of such "get smart quick" schemes. Real change is the result of focused, hard work, not fast-acting fads. Lesson study is unlikely to create many overnight wonders, but Japanese teachers have shown that it can lead to profound and lasting changes that benefit students.

Advocates of lesson study say it is proof that two (or more!) heads are better than one. It challenges the notion of teachers as islands destined to work in isolation from each other. Lesson study enables teachers to draw on their strengths to enhance not only their own effectiveness, but their colleagues', as well.

After all, shouldn't schools be places where teachers, not just students, learn?