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Lesson study has emerged as an approach to improving the quality of teaching in the USA. The purpose of this paper is to provide an investigation into teachers’ attitudes toward lesson study. Evidence suggests that lesson study may increase teachers’ content knowledge and their ability to anticipate student misconceptions during lessons. Nevertheless, certain issues have surfaced in the literature. Teachers may struggle with the demands of collaboration, critique of their lessons, and observation of their teaching. Moreover, lesson study may conflict with the existing mandate-monitor culture within many school districts. Understanding how teachers perceive lesson study is vital to gauging the effectiveness of the process.

In all, 55 teachers at two elementary schools in urban Los Angeles participated in the researcher-designed survey. For the teachers in this study, participation in lesson study was mandatory, and most had participated in a version of lesson study that emphasized following the established curriculum and district-approved strategies. Data were analyzed using correlational analysis.

Results yielded significant associations between teachers’ comfort levels with collaboration, lesson observation, lesson critique, and their support for lesson study. Higher degrees of control by the district over the lesson study process were linked to teachers feeling less responsible for student learning.

The findings from this study have important implications for the prospects of lesson study as a model of teacher development in the USA.

This paper fulfils a need to investigate factors that impede and promote the effective implementation of lesson study in the USA.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the teaching of undergraduate macroeconomics.

To suggest a roadmap, based on a consumption function, to be used by instructors willing to teach the Lucas Critique subject.

Therefore, this paper proposes a lesson, which consists of three parts, to help undergraduates better understand the subject: (1) a grading exercise to bring the topic closer to students’ lives; (2) a Keynesian and an optimal consumption function, followed by an example based on an unemployment insurance policy; and (3) two optional topics consisting of extensions of the optimal consumption function and some empirical results related to the Lucas Critique.

The Lucas Critique influenced the evolution of research in macroeconomics, but it is not easily grasped in a classroom.

The purpose of this paper is to examine a seventh grade mathematics lesson in Iran and Japan through a comparative analysis for illuminating what actually goes on in the classroom in different cultural contexts. Emphasis is here placed on Iranian oral and Japanese literal teaching traditions.

Qualitative research methods were employed for data collection, including cross-cultural lesson analysis meetings in Iran and Japan and semi-structured interviews with the participants of the meetings. In doing this, the study plans to make apparent the structure of meaning hidden in lesson practice – a so-called cultural script of teaching – by comparing this practice in cultural context, through the eyes of educators from different socio-cultural perspectives.

The findings are intended to clarify the mathematical communication approach used in Iran and Japan. Mathematical communication proceeds through speaking rather than writing in Iran, discussing before summarizing and taking notes (speaking/listening), while in Japan, it proceeds through writing before telling and speaking (writing/reading).

This study delivers a transnational learning opportunity for educators to learn how to provide evidence-based analysis of a lesson for professional learning to raise the quality of teaching. However, as this is a case study, it opens up the possibility for comparative lesson analysis of more sample lessons, and how active learning and dialogic teaching can be designed in different educational contexts. In addition, it may be interesting for educators to see how this comparative lesson analysis helps practitioners to revise their teaching. These are very important research questions which the researcher hopes to cover in his next manuscript.

Comparative lesson analysis has the potential to expand more “research in practice” for designing mathematics lessons from the perspective of the students – so-called “customized teaching.” In addition, how the silent process of each individual student in the lesson has impacted on their learning and understanding – so-called “personalized learning” – is one of the issues arising from the case studies.

The value of comparative lesson analysis as a lens is in its ability to reveal to educators their own unconscious teaching script. It provides an opportunity for evidence-based critiques of our own teaching traditions that we accept culturally, share tacitly and may not even be aware of in the construction process.

This study combines careful measurement with “insider” and “outsider” perspectives to provide a deeper understanding of the real world of the classroom and the cultural context of teaching.

Utilizing film as a teaching tool in a personal leadership development course helped undergraduate students synthesize authentic leadership concepts. Iron Jawed Angels facilitated the culminating lesson as students applied course concepts to an observed leader. Three objectives guided the final lesson: (a) critique Alice Paul’s leadership as it relates to the components of the Discovering Leadership Framework described in Discovering the Leader in You, (b) identify key film scenes, quotes, and characters, applying them to course concepts and Alice Paul, and (c) analyze Alice Paul’s leadership as it relates to authentic leadership development. Four class meetings were designated for the final lesson. Students viewed the film on days one and two, and days three and four were spent identifying, critiquing, and analyzing Alice Paul’s leadership.

Emerging research on education reform in Shanghai for the last decade or so has either focused on broad contexts and trends of the second-cycle curriculum reform or the professional development in response to the reform or a few detailed cases of teaching improvement to meet the reform demand. Little attention has been paid to how schools as institutions have been made to respond to and enact the reform. Through three detailed school cases, the purpose of this paper is to understand their distinctive responses to reform in terms of how they interpreted, enacted and sustained their reform efforts and how more importantly lesson-case study and multi-tiered research projects has become a reinvigorated form of Chinese lesson study and teaching research to significantly mediate the school’s curriculum reform efforts. Features of sustainable development behind these cases are conceptualized by Lave and Wenger’s notion of transparency of the mediating technology of a community of practice.

Drawing on master’s thesis reports of school leaders (2010-2016), school research publications and lesson cases as secondary data sources, an instrumental multi-case research design was adopted to build detailed case narratives and tease out cross-case comparisons.

Building on unique strengths and legacies to solve school problems, the three secondary schools responded to, enacted and sustained the reform in unique ways: case 1, a municipal key school, has focused on “three translations (of curriculum)” involving all teaching research groups (TRGs) in specifying broad curriculum standards and turning them into concrete, actionable designs and student tasks which are tested and refined through iterative cycles of lesson-case study, with the decision making for each translation informed by research projects studying problems arising. Case 2, a district key school, has capitalized on its strong TRGs and used research projects and lesson-case study to unite teaching, research and PD into a whole; and case 3, a regular neighborhood school, has aimed to build a structured PD system to tackle teacher stagnation by stressing the reflection components of each cycle of lesson-case study, challenging teachers to learn in the district-level curriculum integration experiment, and nudging them into their own research projects with well-staged support. In all the three cases, research projects have been networked connecting municipal, district, school and teachers in building a research climate. The lesson-case study has turned designs into refined actions to ensure quality of curriculum implementation and teacher growth.

This study yields insights into the inner workings of Shanghai’s recent curriculum reform. With strategic injection of research into the familiar institutional structures and organic cultural forms of collegiality, school innovations can be built on familiarity to create a sense of continuity, coherence and institutional identity so that teachers learn from doing with least disruption. The slow and steady work of sustaining innovations and reform goes beyond simple notions of scaling up and relies on building internal drive and institutional and teacher capacity for deep learning in responding to reform.

The purpose of this paper is to report on an exploratory study, Project En-ELT (enhancing English language learning and teaching), which used lesson study to mediate curriculum innovation to enhance student learning by engaging teachers in learning and implementing effective English language teaching strategies and formative assessment practices in seven lower secondary schools in Singapore over two years. It aims to portray how lesson study can be adapted to build teacher pedagogical capacity in carrying out the language development goals formulated in the revised national English Language Syllabus 2010.

Project evaluation is embedded systematically into the research design from the very beginning of the pilot to in between each step of lesson study process across three consecutive cycles in order to evaluate the effectiveness of the pilot program from the project advisors’, participating teachers’ and students’ perspectives. Both the quantitative and qualitative data were collected in and across the instructional steps and lesson study cycles to create immediate evidence-based feedback to inform continuous on-going adjustment and improvement.

Findings indicate that across the three cycles the lesson study teams moved from isolated to collaborative planning; from poor understanding and mechanical execution of the retelling strategy to a more sophisticated and skilful use of reciprocal teaching. An increase was found in teacher confidence and positive attitude towards the value of the project in developing their language and teaching effectiveness. There was enhanced student engagement and collaborative participation in the lessons while assessment for learning was fostered in the classroom.

Program evaluation provided feedback loops to ensure that each enactment stage and cycle learns from and builds on the limitations and strengths of the previous one(s) so internal consistency, continuity and coherence can be achieved for concrete implementation; different perspectives from the project officers/researchers, teachers and students were collected consistently and analyzed to gauge the accuracy of the findings; the collaboration between Ministry of Education curriculum officers, specialists and teachers, through lesson study, was able to create democratic relations rested upon interdependence, and mutual respect and trust; and it provides an illustrative case of how lesson study can be used effectively to help schools carry out national curriculum and pedagogical innovations. The project has important implications for addressing the issues of implementation and sustainability of innovative curriculum practices.

The study explores how pre-service teachers engage in Tong Ke Yi Gou (“Same lesson and different design”) as a Chinese version of lesson study in a language teacher education course.

Data were collected from multiple sources, including semi-structured interviews, field observations, as well as individual reflections constructed by the participants. The different data sources served to triangulate and enrich each other, shedding light on the student teachers’ learning experiences through lesson study.

The findings of the study reveal the participants’ enhanced motivation and participation through a process-oriented, collaborative design (i.e. joint lesson planning, micro-teaching, collaborative debrief and individual reflections). In addition, the participants engaged in constant comparisons at multiple levels, which collectively refined and expanded their pedagogical knowledge about language teaching. Such rich and collaborative experiences further contributed to their reflections on and for practice as future language teachers. On the other hand, the study also reveals the emotional challenges faced by some participants due to the competitive atmosphere brought by the comparative element embedded in the process of Tong Ke Yi Gou.

This study incorporates the mode of Tong Ke Yi Gou into a pre-service teacher education course in order to examine how it can benefit student teachers’ learning to teach. The findings highlight the power of “comparison” in promoting student teachers’ reflective and analytical thinking at multiple levels with practical implications for current pre-service teacher education programs.

This paper focuses on how one Student Teacher (ST) shifted his planning from teacher activities to student learning during a semester-long student-teaching practicum course in social studies. The study of this shift provides a glimpse of the enormity of the ST’s task and the ways in which he responds to the complexity of the work. Data include: lesson plans, providing a written record of activities, and classroom discourse. Analyses of the data rendered three areas relevant to the shift, including: 1) evidence of initiation-response-evaluation [IRE] script as a default script before the shift, 2) evidence of a shift to planning for student learning, and 3) evidence of movement away from the IRE to increasingly open-ended questioning. Preliminary evidence indicates increments that appear inconsequential taken individually, combine to present a picture of an incipient, developmental shift by the ST from planning for teacher activities to planning for student learning.

This paper aims to examine whether reconciling profit maximization and social welfare as two possible aspirations of company is feasible.

The possible corporate goals are presented by drawing an arc from purely profit-maximizing organizations via a combination of profit and social objectives to organizations clearly serving social utility. In addition to this sorting principle, the order of the different positions presented also takes into account the number of goals and goal-setters.

The primary finding of the study is that none of the business concepts discussed here met the initial expectations as for economic and social objectives. The study points to the need to redefine the purpose of business within a broader social science framework.

For a critical perspective, this paper considers only those standpoints that emphasize a certain form of social utility beyond profitability resulting from business activity directly or indirectly.

In addition to revealing the relationship between the two aspirations, the novelty of the paper lies in the attempt to explore through normative critique and empirical evidence the validity of the expectations regarding the goals.

Museum visits provide opportunities for students to learn content in engaging and interactive ways. In social studies, museums may be spaces where students can increase their historical and civic understanding through exposure to artifacts and narratives unavailable in classrooms. Yet, research suggests teachers are insufficiently prepared to integrate museum visits into classroom curriculum effectively. In this project, the instructors of the two secondary social studies methods course sections organized a visit to a natural history museum. The instructors modeled pre- and post-visit lesson activities during class and provided a guide for pre-service teachers to complete during their museum visit. While pre-service teachers reported they better understood the importance of connecting museum visits to classroom curriculum, they also raised questions about how methods course faculty might introduce pre-service teachers to museum visits. This article discusses what was learned during the project, as well as approaches social studies methods course instructors might reflect upon when considering museum visits as a component of social studies teacher education.