A model of instruction is a set of strategies that guide teachers in their instructional practice. The purpose of this paper is to dispel the myth that mathematics teaching in Singapore schools is all about drill and practice, as perceived of many Asian systems. This paper draws on data of a large project that examined the enactment of school…

While the last two decades have witnessed a growing body of research on the quality of student writing, research on the impact of the socio-cognitive approach on young learners' writing has remained scarce. To fill this gap, this study investigates the effects of the socio-cognitive approach on the writing quality of 98 fourth graders in…

Background/Context: East Asian schools receive much attention for the comparatively high achievement of their students. To account for this success, scholars and commentators advance broad claims about the rote character of instruction or the complexity of classroom practice, typically generalizing to an entire nation. Yet little is known about…

This paper examines how particular teaching and learning strategies are related to student performance on specific PISA test questions, particularly mathematics questions. The report compares teacher-directed instruction and memorisation learning strategies, at the traditional ends of the teaching and learning spectrums, and student-oriented…

I advance a theoretically and empirically-grounded case for designing for and learning from failure, and instantiate it in a learning design called Productive Failure (PF). I describe the key mechanisms and the design principles of PF. The PF learning design comprises a generation and exploration phase followed by a consolidation and knowledge…

Over the last two decades, students in Singapore consistently scored above students from other nations on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS; Provasnik et al., 2012). In contrast, students in the United States have not performed as well on international and national mathematics assessments and students with…

In this article, we describe the design principles undergirding "productive failure" (PF; M. Kapur, 2008). We then report findings from an ongoing program of research on PF in mathematical problem solving in 3 Singapore public schools with significantly different mathematical ability profiles, ranging from average to lower ability. In…

Research Findings: Western ideas and progressive pedagogies have been introduced to China (including Shenzhen), Hong Kong, and Singapore to replace traditional Chinese pedagogy. But these imported ideas are not congruent with traditional Chinese culture and thus have encountered resistance from Chinese teachers. The present study observed and…