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The main purpose of this study was to explore how engaging in lesson study enhances secondary school mathematics teachers’ pedagogical practice in lesson planning in Jimma, Ethiopia.

The study employed a design-based research approach with qualitative and quantitative data collected from two secondary schools, and 12 mathematics teachers. A purposive sampling technique was used to select participants. Interviews, observations, questionnaires and document analysis were the main sources of data. Qualitative data were analyzed using themes with the support of Atlas-ti qualitative data analysis software. Quantitative data were analyzed using the Wilcoxon ranked signs test.

The findings revealed that engaging secondary school mathematics teachers in lesson study enhanced their lesson planning competence. As a result, teachers began to carefully plan detailed lessons, use curriculum materials and create more student-oriented lessons. Lesson study was found to be a potent model on which to build secondary school mathematics teachers’ lesson planning competence. Hence, it would be rewarding to integrate lesson study into the present school-based teachers’ pedagogical capacity-building program in the study settings.

The data were collected from particular localities with a small sample size in the quantitative phase. Therefore, it is difficult to generalize to the entire secondary school teachers in the country. However, thick descriptions were provided that would allow readers to determine the transferability of the findings to their specific school context. Future research should investigate the effects that enhanced TPP in lesson planning has on teachers’ mathematics teaching in more schools using a larger sample size.

This study provides insight into and empirical evidence of how engaging in the process of LS is essential to enhance teachers’ lesson planning competence. It adds important knowledge to a small but growing model of lesson study research. It also informs future researchers in the practical use of LS where lesson planning is a crucial concern in many secondary schools of the country.

This research was originally conducted to build mathematics teachers' pedagogical practice in lesson planning through lesson study in Ethiopian secondary school contexts.

This study aimed to determine the expectations of students from mathematics teachers in the planning phase of lesson study (LS) in mathematics classrooms.

This study reported only a part of large-scale action research. The participants were Grade 8 students selected by the convenience sampling method. The data were obtained through open-ended questions. The content analysis method was used to analyze the data.

Four categories emerged: connection, technology-supported teaching, use of concrete materials, practice, and teacher behavior and teaching style.

This study reveals how students in a different culture and education system, such as Türkiye, want to learn mathematics in the LS process of Japanese origin. It also gives some important clues for applying LS in a different culture.

This study may attract the attention of educational stakeholders who want to implement LS in mathematics classrooms by considering student perspectives.

Due to the nature of LS, this study may emphasize teacher–student and teacher–teacher interactions. Thus, it can draw attention to the importance of social learning environments where students take responsibility and interact.

This study emphasizes the importance of listening to student voices in LS. Some ideas about mathematics teaching in Turkey should also be given. Finally, it can provide a good basis for understanding and comparing LS practices in different cultures and understandings.

The purpose of this qualitative study was to bring together teachers from different academic disciplines to engage them in lesson study (LS) cycles with a focus on literacy.

This research employed a qualitative case study and occurred in one secondary school along the Texas (USA) and Mexico border. Ten teachers representing six academic disciplines participated in eight LS cycles to reflect on their knowledge of literacy, including when, if at all, they integrated literacy when planning and teaching lessons. About 20 students shared their impressions, feelings and thoughts about the lessons.

Teachers learned that literacy standards exist in each academic discipline and that integrating reading and writing during lessons allowed for more increased dialogue between/among teachers and students. The principal learned that teachers from all academic disciplines need differentiated, sustained professional learning opportunities on how to teach literacy skills.

Teachers often work alone or within their respective academic departments, whereas this project focused on secondary teachers from six academic disciplines taking part in LS cycles with a common focus on literacy. Sustained opportunities for teachers to study their standards and curriculum materials, plan and teach lessons and share perspectives from classroom observations resulted in new knowledge about ways to include literacy in any academic discipline. A schoolwide professional learning community focused on literacy could act as a catalyst for instructional change.

This qualitative study extends jigsaw lesson study (JLS) by focusing specifically on the impact of feedback on teacher candidates’ (TCs') professional knowledge and instructional growth in the teacher-educator classroom.

For this study, JLS took place in two different methods courses and followed the lesson study (LS) framework using the small group rotations of JLS. In each course, the JLS small group teams taught another team before receiving feedback and revising their lessons. Then they would teach another group. After each iteration, teams debriefed and reviewed the feedback to revise their lessons and prepare for reteaching. Following the JLS process, TCs reflected on the impact of feedback in a post-survey that was analyzed, coded and aligned with their lesson iterations and revisions.

Both integrated language arts (ILA) and math TCs reported that receiving peer feedback improved their lessons, instructional materials, revisions and student engagement. Through collaboration, TCs valued peer dialog, multiple perspectives and TCs learned to provide and receive constructive feedback professionally. Overall, feedback and collaboration helped strengthen their lesson planning as they considered multiple perspectives. Feedback helped TCs consider differentiation and the diversity of learners as well as student engagement while building their professional knowledge.

Although a previous study has shown an impact of JLS in ILA teacher-education courses with a broader scope in mathematics courses, this study focused on the JLS process in two teacher-education courses. Furthermore, current research tends to focus on the LS process, but this study focused specifically on TCs’ perceptions of the impact of feedback of their professional and instructional growth.

This study reports on changes made within the study, plan, teach and reflect steps of lesson study with pre-service teachers who were learning to teach within a disciplinary literacy course.

Using methods associated with formative experiments and design-based research, this study gathered data over four iterations of the disciplinary literacy course. Data included the course materials, pre-service teachers’ written work, observational notes from research lessons, transcripts of post-lesson discussions and teacher-educators’ analysis sessions and pre-service teachers’ post-program interviews. Data were analyzed within and across iterations.

Initial adjustments to the lesson study process focused on the reflect step, as we learned to better scaffold pre-service teachers sharing of observational data from research lessons. Later adjustments occurred in the study and plan steps, as we refined the design of four-day lesson sequences that better supported pre-service teachers’ attention to disciplinary literacy while providing room for their instructional mentors to provide specific team-based feedback. Adjustments to the teach step included reteaching and more explicit attention to literacy objectives.

This paper contributes to the literature by explicitly applying formative experiment and design-based research methods to the implementation of lesson study with pre-service teachers. Furthermore, it contributes examples of lesson study within a disciplinary literacy context, expanding the examples of lesson study’s applicability across content areas.

Film has long been an instructional tool in social studies education; however, most research and methods for using film to teach social studies are situated at the secondary level. As such, the purpose of this study was to extend and expand what is known about using film in elementary social studies classrooms. More specifically, this qualitative content analysis study explored how and why elementary pre-service teachers (PSTs) used film clips from Molly of Denali to design critical Indigenous studies lessons. The data offer insight into the possibilities of using film as a strategy to teach anti-oppressive elementary social studies education.

The authors used qualitative content analysis in this study. Data for this study included 17 lesson planning assignments and corresponding written rationales completed by PSTs in an elementary social studies methods course. Data collected as a result of convenience sampling, given both the authors were the instructors of the methods course. To analyze the data, the authors used a multi-step coding process and a combination of inductive and deductive coding.

Grounded in a framework of anti-oppressive and anti-colonial education, PSTs designed elementary social studies lessons that used film clips from Molly of Denali to increase representation, center a counter-narrative and serve as a motivator. PSTs also infused other sources into their lesson plans, thus extending their lessons beyond the film.

Given the lack of research on how film can be used in elementary social studies classrooms, this study fills a void in the literature. Results of this study suggest that similar to the benefits of using film in secondary classrooms, film can be an engaging and motivating source of information for elementary students. Moreover, when used within a critical pedagogical framework like Sabzalian's (2019) critical orientations of Indigenous studies, film can increase representation and teach anti-oppressive counter-narratives in the elementary classroom.

The purpose of this paper is to explore whether and how principles from variation theory can contribute to the planning of teaching and learning beyond learning study.

We study whether and how principles from variation theory contributed to a group of teachers’ planning of teaching and learning about decimal numbers in Grades 4 to 7 working in Subject Didactic Groups – a collaborative arrangement suited to daily teaching. A theoretical thematic analysis approach was used when analyzing eight audio-recorded meetings and written documents.

The study shows that variation theory principles contributed to the teachers’ planning of teaching and learning. Two themes were identified: the theory contributed to the teachers being able to (1) specify what their students needed to learn and (2) design tasks that they anticipated would afford the opportunity to learn what was identified as being necessary to learn.

The paper demonstrates how variation theory can contribute to teachers’ planning of teaching and learning when used in a collaborative arrangement other than learning study. This leads into a discussion about variation theory being used separately from learning study and the benefits and limitations this other collaborative arrangement can have for gaining knowledge of what is to be learned and taught.

This viewpoint article considers the challenges of adapting mathematics lesson study for early-years practitioners working in pre-school settings.

The first-aid courses organized by the Youth Red Cross Carinthia (Austria) had a quality problem, necessitating a professionalization in teaching and time structure. This research aimed to enhance the quality and effectiveness of these courses by implementing modified lesson studies with non-professional trainers. The paper presents the realization process, empirical research and results obtained by applying the first-aid curriculum.

Around 22 lesson study first-aid courses (14 classes with 2 cycles, 8 with 3 cycles) were conducted and evaluated in different Austrian school types. An observation sheet was created to evaluate attention and competencies. Interviews were conducted with both teachers and students to validate the results.

The research findings demonstrate that lesson studies can significantly enhance the quality and effectiveness of first-aid courses. Inexperienced and experienced first-aid teachers significantly improved their teaching skills. Newly educated first-aid teachers showed substantial improvement, leading to the introduction of an induction period and coaching opportunity within the Youth Red Cross Carinthia.

This is the first lesson study conducted in a non-academic context. It highlights the adaptation process of Carinthian first-aid courses. It illustrates how lesson studies impact lesson clarity, instructional variety, student engagement in the learning process, student outcome, student feedback and teaching effectiveness in a non-academic context. It contributes to the literature on the application of lesson study in first-aid education and provides insight into the benefits of this approach in enhancing the quality of first-aid training.

This study aims to develop a self-reflection scale useful for teachers to improve their skills and to clarify the Japanese teachers’ characteristics during mathematics lesson observation (MLO). In MLO, it is important to understand the lesson plan in advance to clarify observation points, and we aim to develop a scale including these points.

Based on the pre-questionnaire survey, nine perspectives and two situations for MLO were extracted. From these, a questionnaire for MLO was created. The results obtained from 161 teachers were examined, and exploratory factor analysis was conducted. ANOVA was conducted to analyze the effect of differences across the duration of teaching experience on the identified factors.

We developed a self-reflection scale consisting of 14 items with three factors: [B1] focus on instructional techniques and evaluation, [B2] focus on proactive problem-solving lesson development and [B3] focus on the mathematical background of the learning content. While duration of teaching experience showed no effect, three factors of the self-reflection scale for MLO showed a significant effect. Further multiple comparisons revealed the degree of focus was [B2]>[B1]>[B3].

Teachers who use this developed scale may grasp the strengths and weaknesses of their own MLO, which leads to self-improvement. The perspectives emphasized in lesson observation are the same when creating lesson plans and implementing lessons, leading to lesson improvement. Furthermore, based on the characteristics of teachers revealed, new training programs regarding MLO can lead to higher-quality lesson studies.