James Stigler, co-author of *The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom* and *The Learning Gap: Why Our Schools Are Failing and What We Can Learn from Japanese and Chinese Education*, speaks about his understanding of teaching and learning based on his research of math education in the United States, China, and Japan.
James W. Stigler is Professor of Psychology at UCLA. He is co-author of *The Teaching Gap* (with James Hiebert, 1999) and *The Learning Gap* (with Harold Stevenson, 1992). He directed the TIMSS video studies (1993-2003), and in 1998 founded LessonLab Inc., a company whose mission was to study and improve classroom teaching, which became part of Pearson Education in 2003. He received his A.B. from Brown University in 1976, a Masters in Education from the University of Pennsylvania in 1977, and a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from the University of Michigan in 1982. Before moving to Los Angeles in 1991, he served eight years on the faculty of the University of Chicago. He has received numerous awards for his research, including a Guggenheim Fellowship and the QuEST award from the American Federation of Teachers. Dr. Stigler is best known for his observational work in classrooms, and has pioneered the use of multimedia technology for the study of classroom instruction.