Differences between Japanese Education and American Education

I am continually fascinated by Japanese education. It is just interesting to see another education system, especially a successful one, and look at the similarities and differences. The more I talk about my experiences and things that I am learning, people want to know "Why is Japanese Education better?" and my answer is "I don't know." Anyone who is involved in education understand that it is very complex and connected to the students that we serve, so it would be impossible to research and find the that make Japanese education work that American education is missing. That is the wrong question to ask. But I do want to point out some differences:

1. Children are left behind

The responsibility of learning information is set squarely on the student's shoulders. Teachers come to class, they lecture, the students take notes, and speak only when invited to by their teacher. In fact, Japanese high school is more like American college than American high School. The students know that if they don't study well, they won't pass their next entrance exam and therefore won't be on a track to get into a good university. But it is their choice to learn or not. I have seen multiple students with their head on their desks sleeping during class. The teacher doesn't make any comments about it, as long as they aren't disturbing the class, it is fine.

2. No Differentiating

Differentiated Instruction is a hot topic and a discussion among American teachers, but not Japanese teachers. American teachers strive to adapt their teaching to meet their kinesthetic, auditory, and visual learners as well as meeting Garners Intelligences. Japanese teachers stand at the front of the room and lecture and draw diagrams on the chalk board. From what I can tell, they may not even know their student's names, let alone their learning styles. When they call on a student they are usually looking at a class list.

3. Not Standards, Curriculum

I have limited working knowledge of Japanese curriculum, but it is an area of interest. There are national education standards approved by the Ministry of Education. But in talking with Japanese teachers, I have never heard them say anything about standards, but they do talk a lot about textbooks. There are only a few textbooks that are used in Japan and they are all approved by the Ministry of Education and therefore you don't deviate from them. The examples that the teacher gives are the examples that are printed in the textbooks. Very little is done that isn't directly from the textbook.

4. Teacher Observations

American teachers are not used to being observed. In my entire teaching career of about four years, I have only been observed about three or four times. I have only had two individuals come into my class and watch me teach. This is very different from Japanese teachers. During a few months of the year, there are open lessons where anyone can come and observe a teacher. So each teacher may have one open lesson a year where the principal, other teachers, or parents are welcome to come and watch them teach. I have also heard that the first full year of teaching is done with an experienced teacher assisting them. Usually in the back, but providing feedback.

Conclusion

I don't know what will fix the problems that we are seeing in American Education. It is my opinion that the American Education system is too complex for simple solutions. Slow and gradual progress is the only way that we will improve our schools. I have highlighted some areas that are very different between Japanese Education and American Education. I find them interesting, I hope you do too.

How my iPhone changed my career

About a year ago, I purchased an iPhone and it has been the greatest professional development tool I have ever used. When I started using my iPhone, I wasn't sure how it could be used. But I noticed that it had a podcast app, and I found a few educational podcasts, like the Flipped Learning Network Podcast, and began listening to it.

The next step happened a few weeks later. The guests who appeared on this Podcast said that they can be reached on Twitter. So eventually I realized that I could use Twitter to connect with amazing educators and learn from them. I don't think I am very good at using twitter, but I love the ideas that I get by reading other teacher's tweets and blog posts.

Since then I have expanded to listen to a variety of podcasts, many of which are from EdReach and my iPhone has become a constant source of professional development that inspires me to try new things.

In case you are curious, here are some of my favorite educational podcasts:

• The Google Educast
• The Flipped Learning Network Podcast
• The EdGamer Podcast
• Chalkstar to Rockstar
• The Flip Side with Jon Bergmann

If you have others that you would recommend, please leave a comment below!

Using Requirements on Teachers to Inspire Creativity

One of the most liberating and powerful attributes in education is freedom. Sometimes as teachers we don't feel that we have a lot of freedom. We are required to teach Common Core, State or other Standards. At the same time we are required to meet other school or district improvement plans. This is on top of lesson planning, grading, and differentiating for a wide variety of learners. But the truth is, in all of this, there is still room for freedom. In fact, the demands on you as a teacher can inspire creativity.

One TED talk that I think about frequently is Phil Hansen's TED talk entitled Embrace the shake.

He is an artist who developed a tremor in his hand which kept him from drawing pointillist drawings. So instead of giving up, he decided to embrace the shake. I love the moment when he goes to the art store and can buy anything, he doesn't know what to do. He then sets limitations that inspire the creativity.

My goal as a teacher is to use standards, improvement programs, and other demands on me and my time to inspire creativity. I am always willing to try new things in my classroom. Some of them fail, but most of them work and can then be improved upon.

This same idea is passed to my students. I love to assign open ended projects. For example

• Create a game that reviews the ideas from this chapter, the game must include content questions from the chapter that you wrote. This can be:
• A board game
• A card game
• A video game
• Present a summary of all the important ideas from this chapter. Be creative, for example:
• Make a video: a movie trailer, news broadcast, or video of toys discussing the ideas.
• Write a story: a children's story that incorporates the ideas from this chapter.
• Create a PowerPoint, Prezi, etc.
• For more ideas go to:
• http://khsgeometry.weebly.com/quarter-1-projects.html
• http://khsgeometry.weebly.com/quarter-2-projects.html

I have been amazed at the quality of work that I get when I allow the students freedom with specific parameters. Last year when I detailed exactly what I wanted, I received exactly what my rubric stated, but it lacked passion and enjoyment.

I hope that educators will embrace the demands on us, and use it to inspire creative solutions to the daily struggles of being a great teacher.

How do you get your students to watch the videos?

I got an email from another teacher who is flipping and they asked the question "How do you get your students to watch the videos?" How you answer this question as a flipped learning teacher is very important. In my opinion, here are a few options:

1. Make them by not allowing them to move on until they do it.

This is taking the approach of a Flipped Mastery model where students can't move on until they have watched the video. The teacher in us assumes that students can learn unless they are first exposed to content. So this is the approach that I used during my first year of flipping. I have since found that students learn more from doing problems than from watching a video. I don't think that students have to watch a video before being ready to do problems on a new topic, but this is a better sequence for most students.

The main problem with this problem is that students will struggle on harder sections, especially weaker students. The first year that I flipped I found that my lower achieving students were the ones who were always falling behind. These were also the same students who were not motivated to do more work to catch up. There are lots of teachers who have found ways to make Flipped Mastery work, but it doesn't work with my teaching style because I couldn't give my lower achieving students the support that they needed.

2. Don't require them to watch the video

Simply giving them points or not giving them points won't be enough motivation for most students to watch the video. If you offer points for doing it late, then students will put it off until just before the test or quiz and then the opportunity for depth of understanding is lost. Or if you don't accept it late, then students who didn't do it have no reason to go back. This is a recipe for failure.

3. Find a "happy medium"

I think this is where most flipped teachers settle, is some combination of the first two elements. These aren't discrete suggestions, it is a continuum and different teachers and groups of students will need to find a different "happy medium."

The "happy medium" that I use is: all of my students watch the same video on the same night and come to class ready to do textbook problems as a class, usually on individual whiteboards. If a student shows up to class without having watched the video, I don't send them to the back of the class to watch the video, even though many Flipped teachers do this. They have the choice of going to a computer, taking notes and then completing some textbook problems later or they can participate with the class in doing problems together and watch the video later on their own time. Most students choose to participate with the class because they learn more with the class than they do from doing textbook problems alone. There is a penalty though, the students do take a 3 question, open notes, quiz about the assigned video. Students may not retake these daily quizzes and they are worth, in total, about 10% of their overall grade. Not a lot, but enough to show them that I am serious about them coming to class prepared.

I am sure that there are other "happy mediums" that you can find, but this is the one that has been working very well for me. As I have said before: the first year of flipping is very hard, but the second year of flipping is worth it. It will take you about one year to work out the system, but after that it is awesome! I will never go back.

Disclaimer

I would like to point out that am assuming that the videos are accessible to students. With my current students I have never had a problem with students getting access to the videos. I teach at a one-to-one laptop school and all of my students have internet at home and most of them have personal internet devices. I also post my videos in multiple locations just in case one source has problems. So my main focus has been on motivation.

Japanese perspective of American Teaching

On December 18, 2013 I invited two Japanese teachers to my school. One was a math teacher and one was a "society" teacher. The math teacher and I watched three math classes and talked about American teaching styles. I was very intrigued by what he found interesting. These things highlight differences between Japanese and American education.

1. Similarities

The thing that this math teacher found the most interesting was how similar American school and Japanese schools were. He had the perception that in every American classroom, everyday, students sat in groups and had discussions. I believe that there are classes like this in America, but it isn't the common method of instruction. He was surprised that he saw many teachers in the front of the class delivering content and the students were listening to (or in Japanese receiving the) lesson just like as is common in Japanese classes.

2. Technology

The math teacher that I talked to also taught a few technology classes, so he was very interested in the technology that was used. My school, like many American schools, has worked very hard at increasing the amount of technology in the classroom. My school is a one-to-one laptop school and every classroom has a SmartBoard. In every class that we visited there were students using the laptops appropriately and 2 of the 3 classes had teachers using a SmartBoard for instruction. I think it would surprise most American educators to learn that the most high tech device in a Japanese classroom is a chalk eraser vacuum.

This teacher was surprised that all of the students that he observed were using their laptop appropriately. He said that in Japanese schools they would be afraid that students would be looking at other things during class. I didn't want to tell him that this is a constant struggle. He attributed this to the high expectations of American students. We had this discussion in a Flipped Mastery classroom, where students were expected to watch videos, complete notes and practice problems, and then take quizzes. I feel that these expectations are high for typical America classes, but especially when compared to Japanese classes. In many Japanese classes there is no homework, no quizzes, and a few tests. In the American paradigm this would be seen as having low expectations. But to balance this, Japanese schools have very rigorous entrance exams. Students study hard to pass entrance exams so they can go to a good junior high school, then to a good high school, then to a good college, and then have a good career. I think there are pros and cons to both systems.

Previously we had talked about the fact that I use video to deliver my instruction. During our lunch break, we went to my classroom and I showed him how I use my SmartBoard and a laptop to record lessons of me teaching and then upload it to the internet. This seemed hard for him to grasp. I am sure it is a stretch for a teacher who usually uses colored chalk, erasers, and a cardboard roll as a pointer.

3. American Classrooms - Desk Configurations

In Japanese schools the students stay in the same room and the teachers move. Teacher's prepare their lessons in shared work spaces, so I was interested in what he would say about American classrooms. The thing that surprised him the most about American classrooms is desk configurations. Since Japanese teachers share teaching space, the desks in every class are the same. Columns of individual desks. He was very surprised that in all three of the classes that he visited the students were in clusters of four. I explained that this was to encourage students to help each other and work together. He said that he was interested in trying different desk configurations.

He also commented about the walls of classrooms. Again, since teachers share teaching space, the walls in Japanese classrooms are bare. He liked that there were posters and student work posted on all the walls. I was surprised that he didn't say more about the differences between American classrooms and Japanese classrooms.

4. American Math Textbooks

The last topic that we discussed in detail was American Textbooks. Japanese mathematics instruction is very textbook driven. The textbook is approved by the Ministry of Education and you don't deviate from the textbook. At first this teacher was trying to follow along with the teacher in the textbook, but I had to explain that the examples that the teacher was using are different from the printed textbook. This is never done in Japan.

He was surprised that he didn't see American students reading and studying the textbook and asked if students did this at home. I had to explain that most American students don't read the textbook unless they can't do a homework problem. He commented on the colored pictures and the detailed step by step examples with explanations. He kept saying that it was a waste that American students don't use their textbooks more because they are so good.

Another thing he commented about American math textbooks is that there are problems that are based outside of mathematics. I never realized that every problem in a math textbook in Japan was pure math, there were never word problems about two students, or problems related to science. He thought that this was very good.

Conclusion

I really enjoyed talking with this teacher and American education and noticing what he found to be interesting. Many things that were surprising to him were things that are emphasized in American teacher training and professional development like technology use and student desk configurations. Even though we complain about professional development, it does shape our education system for the better.