Do teachers in higher performing countries teach math differently from those in lower performing countries? To explore these questions, we went inside math classrooms in three countries, Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, and filmed the sixth-grade samples from a regional comparative test called SERCE, from UNESCO. Paraguay and the Dominican Republic were two of the SERCE bottom performers, whereas Nuevo Leon was one of the top-performers.

We filmed math classes in 291 schools in 2010, covering over 84 percent of the SERCE sample. Then we analyzed the classes using a coding instrument called videograph, which allows the researcher to quantify the occurrence of different classroom activities and create a wide spectrum of highly precise indicators. The quantitative indicators we obtained from the videograph analysis were also complemented with graphic maps of the pedagogical flows in the classrooms.

In part of the sample we analyzed, we found that in Paraguay, the Dominican Republic and to a lower degree Nuevo Leon, teachers rely heavily on the traditional method of teaching math. What does this method look like?

In Paraguay, for instance, a teacher begins her sixth-grade math class by having the students read in unison the definition of the term percentage. Without any conversation about the meaning of what they just read, the teacher asks a student to read a math problem on the blackboard that involves proportions. The teacher solves the problem by demonstrating the procedure for calculating a percentage value, and asks the students to copy it in their notebooks. The students are then asked to solve the same problem with different number values. The class wraps up without any teacher or group reflection on the topic they have just covered.

Long story short, teachers rely on the memorization of concepts and procedures as well as on the regurgitation of facts, and provide students with little evaluative feedback. Only in Nuevo Leon we found a sizable proportion of math teachers who seek to move beyond a mere procedural understanding and actively engage students in activities that can endow them with analytical and critical thinking skills. Nevertheless, also in Nuevo Leon does the drill, practice and memorization approaches predominate.

Teacher lead presentations take up most class time in all three countries. However, teachers in Nuevo Leon display a slightly less teacher-centered approach, using more classroom time to ask questions, listen and react to student responses.

Interruptions were also more prevalent in lower performing countries. In the Dominican Republic more than half the math classes suffered from at least one interruption unrelated to the math class. In Nuevo Leon and Paraguay the proportion of classes that suffered from at least one interruption was the same (40 percent), although the average interruption was much longer in Paraguay: 11 minutes compared to 5.5 minutes in Nuevo Leon.

The videograph methodology we used is not new: it has successfully explained test score differences between Japan, the United States and Germany in a 1995 videotape study called TIMSS, where eight-grade teachers were filmed once giving his or her best possible math class. As was demonstrated through the TIMSS video study, this type of data allows the researchers to identify classroom discourse and teaching practices that are characteristic of teachers from a specific country.

To illustrate the difference between Japan, the United States and Germany, the TIMSS student shows, for instance, that teachers in Japan clearly seek to engage their students more actively in the identification of alternative solution methods to math problems. In comparison, in none of the Latin American classes analyzed so far did students present alternative solutions.

As we move forward with this study, we hope to explore potential links between specific classroom practices and various levels of student achievement. And hopefully we will learn more about what goes on inside Latin American math classes, and find out why students in the region do worse on international math exams, a problem that is well documented.

Download the Briefly Noted Report: Inside the Math Classroom: What Makes a Teacher Effective?