Analyzed the collaboration of a first-grade novice teacher and her mentor teacher while the novice learned to teach mathematics in China. Found that the mentor contributed to novice teacher's progress by implementing a clear, consistent focus; modeling, analyzing, and reflecting on mathematics teachers; and defining and refining the zones of the…

Reports that teaching elementary mathematics requires a much deeper mathematical knowledge than most experts have believed and that teachers must receive the training, textbooks, time, and support needed to develop this knowledge. Notes that U.S. mathematics teachers' knowledge is not nearly as robust as that of Chinese mathematics teachers, and…

Chinese researchers investigated how mathematics teachers in two elementary schools in northeast China adapted the national curriculum. One school was in a very poor, mountainous area, and the other school was in a very large city. Both used the national curriculum and the same set of teaching materials. Researchers used ethnographic methods to…