Improving the way people teach is difficult, in part, because teaching is a cultural activity, said James Stigler of UCLA in his Distinguished Lecture. Teaching approaches vary from country to country based on the cultures and traditions found in each, noted Stigler, who is coauthor of The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom.
James Stigler
"One teacher I worked with in Los Angeles saw some Japanese techniques in a video that she wanted to use," he recalled. "She made her materials in English and went over them to prepare, and then presented them to her students. The result was a complete disaster, because although she was playing the part of the Japanese teacher, her students were American students and they were responding as American students."
For educators to change the way they think about teaching, Stigler suggested they examine their approaches scientifically. "To change a cultural activity, [one must] create a context in which the cultural routines can be brought into awareness, examined, and studied, so people can figure out where [those routines] might be useful, how they might be changed, and what alternatives might be used." After that critical reflection, educators will need to "repackage those routines into a new standard practice that will be just a little better" at helping students learn.
Complicating this process, Stigler said, is the fact that there is presently no system in the United States for collecting and evaluating different teaching methods. "If you look at medicine, for example, doctors will work on new techniques and report their findings in journals. In the United States, we have no such knowledge base [for teaching methods]."
A shared knowledge base, Stigler said, will be critical in the years to come. "It can help teachers learn the skills they need," he says. "But perhaps even more important, it can provide a means of accumulating knowledge that can be a foundation for teachers to learn from in future generations."