{"id":3115,"date":"2025-08-11T18:10:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T01:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/?p=3115"},"modified":"2025-08-11T18:10:27","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T01:10:27","slug":"teaching-through-problem-solving-a-lesson-from-japan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/2025\/08\/11\/teaching-through-problem-solving-a-lesson-from-japan\/","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Through Problem-Solving: A Lesson from Japan"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the things I\u2019ve always appreciated about teaching is that each new school year feels like an opportunity to grow, try out new ideas, and build on both the successes and failures of the previous year. Amidst the hustle and bustle of starting a new school year, I hope you can find a quiet moment to reflect on your own opportunities for professional growth.<\/span><\/p>\n

Twenty-five years ago, I was working at the National Center on Education and the Economy, where I had been hired to write a book introducing the Japanese approach to mathematics instruction to American teachers. I thought I knew math\u2014until I observed my first classroom just outside Tokyo. I have been reflecting on this lesson ever since.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was a 7th-grade lesson on ratios and proportions. The teacher began by telling a story about three different cabins at a camp, each with a different number of students. The question was simple: <\/span>Which cabin is the most crowded?<\/span><\/i> Without further instruction, students immediately began working silently in their notebooks. The teacher walked the aisles, occasionally whispering advice to individuals. Soon, students formed small groups based on the similarity of their solution methods, excitedly sharing their thinking with one another.<\/span><\/p>\n

I was amazed\u2014no, floored\u2014by the methods they were using, all without the teacher having \u201ctaught\u201d them anything yet. They drew on their own reasoning to attack the problem.<\/span><\/p>\n

The teacher then selected three students to present their solutions. Each was more elegant than my own \u201cunit rate\u201d approach. One student used a common numerator method, another used common denominators, and a third organized the data into a series of tables. The sophistication and creativity of their thinking was humbling.<\/span><\/p>\n

That day, I made a personal vow to learn this style of teaching. It engaged students deeply, honored their existing knowledge as mathematicians, and taught them to authentically problem-solve when a solution was not immediately apparent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Only last year did I learn that in Japan this approach is called <\/span>Teaching Through Problem-Solving<\/span><\/i>. I\u2019ll be sharing more about it in future blog posts.<\/span><\/p>\n

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One of the things I\u2019ve always appreciated about teaching is that each new school year feels like an opportunity to grow, try out new ideas, and build on both the successes and failures of the previous year. Amidst the hustle and bustle of starting a new school year, I hope you can find a quiet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3116,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[99,98],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3118,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3115\/revisions\/3118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theothermath.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}