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posted by Snow on Wednesday November 30 2016, @05:49AM   Printer-friendly
from the early-burnout dept.

The results from the 2015 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) were released on 29 November and, in general, the results are largely the same as in prior years: namely that a group of East Asian countries (Taiwan, Korea, China, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan) were far ahead of the rest of the world, particularly in math, on both tests administered (4th and 8th grade).

One difference: for the first time this year, the TIMSS also tracked the progress of the same set of students by giving them a third test in their last year of school. The test, called TIMSS Advanced, was given in the nine countries that agreed to participate. These results found that the scores across the three tests from the students who were taking the most challenging math and science classes in their senior year progressively got worse over time. For instance, US students who scored 29 points above the midpoint on science as 4th graders scored 13 points above as 8th graders, and ended up 63 points below midpoint in their senior year. This trend was generally the same in the other countries except for an elite group of Russian students who take an extra class of math a day, and Slovenian students who bucked the trend in science but not math.

This article from sciencemag.org notes:

The advanced students also struggled to meet the international benchmark for the tests. In math, only 2% of the 32,000 students scored at an “advanced” level, and only 43% demonstrated even a “basic knowledge” of algebra, calculus, and geometry. The results were similar in physics: Only 5% of the 24,000 students were advanced, and a total of 46% showed a basic understanding of the subject. That means more than half the students tested weren’t really performing at an advanced level.


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday November 30 2016, @07:01PM

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Wednesday November 30 2016, @07:01PM (#435059) Journal

    Yes, I don't think we disagree on many points -- but I wanted to add some further nuance. My main quibble at the beginning was with the idea that "western" systems do better than East Asia in teaching a "deeper"understanding. I don't think that's true for most students. Instead, I think what's happened in the U.S. is that we've started to give up more on rote memorization and drilling algorithms, etc. with the INTENT to replace it with "deeper" thought -- but that second part is rarely implemented well (if at all).

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  • (Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday November 30 2016, @10:01PM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday November 30 2016, @10:01PM (#435146)

    but that second part is rarely implemented well

    Oh they try. I remember watching my kids learn arithmetic years ago long before Algebra and they did all kinds of stuff with analogies and counting objects to really pound home the concept of addition.

    Now for fun I had signed up my kids for Kumon between sports seasons and in addition to being the only white people in the building the Kumon way of math was here's todays worksheet fill it out as fast as possible repeat. Now if my kids problem was not being able to do mental math as fast as his old man, this probably would have been quite useful. But I was hoping for something else. Ironically I learned to extremely well as a kid by simply doing a lot of reading (like I think I read the entire original Tom Swift collection (like the triphibian atomicar and repelatron not the much newer ship to the mars series) the summer of Kindergarten before 1st grade, one book per day) and Kumon excels at that although my daughter didn't like it.