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Lesson study in initial teacher education (ITE) has started to gain in popularity across many jurisdictions. However, much of the research literature suggests that the uptake is small-scale and experimental in nature. This chapter reflects on some of the ways in which lesson study might become a more systems-led approach, and an embedded part of the work of ITE. It uses a spatio-temporal approach to consider how the use of lesson study might develop at different scales and over different time periods.

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.

This research seeks to explore the potential of Lesson Study as a vehicle to support professional development (PD) in a rural, Irish primary school. Lesson Study was utilised to design and implement integrated STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) lessons with young children (ages 4–7 years).

Three teachers were introduced to and participated in four cycles of Lesson Study over the course of one school year. Qualitative data were generated from interviews, collaborative weekly meetings and observation sheets.

Analysis suggests that Lesson Study supported the development of a culture of collaboration and provided an opportunity for teachers to share their knowledge. Findings also reveal that Lesson Study motivated teachers to reflect on their role within the classroom and enabled them to move away from teacher-led approaches. Although teachers perceived Lesson Study to be a beneficial form of PD, factors constrained their engagement, including practical, cultural and sustainability challenges.

The study explores the adaptability of Lesson Study in first level education in the context of STEM education. It reveals teachers’ first experience of Lesson Study, given its stark contrast to more “traditional” PD experiences they are accustomed to. This article will, therefore, be of interest to teachers, school leaders and policy makers.

This paper contributes initial findings to a currently under-researched area, Lesson Study in a rural context. This study also combines Lesson Study with STEM education, which has not been widely explored.

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.

The purpose of this study is to examine student perceptions of flipped learning lessons designed to teach information literacy skills.

A mixed-method design was implemented using a paper-based survey and an online focus group. The survey asked questions about the participants’ perceptions of the flipped lessons. The focus group was used to clarify the participants’ responses to the survey questions.

A majority of the students enjoyed completing the lessons. Responses also indicated that a majority of the students felt that the lessons helped them prepare for class. However, issues with computers and internet connectivity at home resulted in some of the students completing the lessons before or after school.

This study was limited to a class of 21 students enrolled in a public school in North Texas.

There is limited research supporting the value of flipped learning in relation to the technology implementation role of school librarians. This study provides insights into how school librarians can develop flipped learning lessons in collaboration with classroom teachers to improve the information literacy skills of students.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight similarities between Japanese lesson study, Chinese lesson study and learning study.

This editorial review is intended to stimulate a discussion about a critical aspect of both Lesson and learning studies exemplified by the texts published in issue 6.2 of this journal.

The author identifies neriage, the comparison and discussion phase of Japanese lesson study, as a critical aspect of both Lesson and learning studies and emphasises that both involve research leading to teachers learning what makes effective lessons possible. Attention is drawn to the importance of being explicit about the theory of learning behind Lesson and learning studies and how its implementation leads to teacher learning.

This editorial review provides a framework for evaluating the quality of lesson and learning studies in educational institutions.

The authors are developing a model for rural science teacher professional development, building teacher expertise and collaboration and creating high-quality science lessons: technology-mediated lesson study (TMLS).

TMLS provided the means for geographically distributed teachers to collaborate, develop, implement and improve lessons. TMLS uses technology to capture lesson implementation and collaborate on lesson iterations.

This paper describes the seven steps of the TMLS process with examples, showing how teachers develop their content and pedagogical knowledge while building relationships.

The TMLS approach provides an innovative option for teachers to collaborate across distances and form strong, lasting relationships with others.

This chapter seeks to explain how lesson study can contribute to the growth of teacher expertise, enabling the participants to work together to address the complexity of teaching and grow what we call ‘pedagogic literacy’, a holistic but incomplete glimpse of what it means to be a teacher. The model proposed is not complete and cannot be complete given the endless complexity of the classroom. Lesson study, we conclude, is a vehicle for enabling teachers to grow their understanding of teaching and learning, while drawing on a complex web of underpinning interconnected dimensions that teachers develop throughout the varied stages of their careers.

Despite many well-intentioned efforts to improve student achievement in chronically low-performing schools, there is little evidence of significant progress. A new and different kind of data; however, is providing a fresh perspective on the problem: According to recent studies, research-based instructional strategies – those strategies that have been proven to increase the likelihood that students will be able to retain, recall, and apply what they have been taught – are not consistently used in classrooms. Irrespective of the many changes that occur in schools, student achievement will not significantly improve until teachers consistently use and school leaders consistently promote research-based instructional strategies. The purpose of this chapter is to prepare school leaders to assess the use of research-based instructional strategies in their school, and then use the data to promote more effective instruction. This chapter will provide user-friendly tools and strategies for collecting, organizing, and analyzing classroom observation data; case studies; sample data sets; findings and conclusions drawn from sample data tables; a step-by-step process for collecting the data; samples of research-based instructional strategies; and references for identifying research-based instructional strategies.

Purpose – What role did economic experiments play in creating value in the commercial market for wireless Internet access? Rosenberg (1992, p. 181) defines such experiments broadly, “to include experimentation with new forms of economic organization as well as the better-known historical experiments that have been responsible for new products and new manufacturing technologies.”

Design/methodology/approach – The chapter provides an overview of the experience of a number of firms, focusing on the period between the late 1990s and early part of the 21st century, when the technology first blossomed in commercial markets. The chapter uses the experience of Lucent and Intel as primary illustrations of key concepts, and the chapter discusses how the framework generalizes beyond the experience of these two firms.

Findings – The distinction between directed and undirected experiments helps understand events in the evolution of Wi-Fi's value. They also bring new perspective to an extensive debate in communications policy about the best way to assign and allocate spectrum, focusing on the importance of the regulatory decision to provide space in which experiments can take place.

Originality/value – This framework has value for business history of the commercial Internet. This lens stresses the importance of preserving discretion to move business away from applications with low value, namely, away from allocations that used a conceptualization of the technology founded on a poor-use case, which later lessons showed had lower value than alternatives.