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The purpose of this paper is to describe the design and initial implementation of a lesson study network in the US intended to support implementation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Participant observation and artifact collection document the development of the teaching through problem solving (TTP) network over a 14-month period.

The TTP network draws heavily on Japanese practices (e.g. lesson study) and Japanese materials (e.g. coherent, focussed mathematics curriculum) to support changes envisioned in the US CCSS related to students’ mathematical practices and dispositions. The reasons for choice of these key Japanese features are explicated, and teachers’ initial reactions described.

The design shows promise for combining teacher “ownership” with implementation of high-quality approaches designed by others; and allowing instructional innovations developed in Japan to flow into US practice. TTP in mathematics has persistently resisted implementation in the US, so the network is designed to target a central problem in implementing the CCSS.

A method for instructional innovations to spread from classrooms in one country to another is suggested.

The purpose of this paper is to reveal how the meanings of the current national curriculum reform in China changed in its transmission from the outside authoritative mandate to the local school practice through a case study of a lesson study on a reform practice called the “thematic teaching” in the Chinese language course.

By a longitudinal study of the case for more than two months in a primary school in Beijing, China, the authors of this paper followed all the steps of the lesson study cycle conducted by all the Chinese language teachers in the school. Observations, interviews and document analysis were employed to capture the teachers’ thoughts, actions and especially group interactions in trying to understand and implement this new reform practice.

The study found that due to the marked differences between the professional reform discourse and the teachers’ native discourse, the meanings of the reform tended to look alien to school teachers. In order to make meanings out of the reform, the teachers in this lesson study resorted to their own native discourse to understand the reform. Such strategies as “de-contextualization” and “re-contextualization” were found in the teachers’ joint efforts to reconstruct and reenact the reform.

This research points to the importance of school teachers’ own belief system in teaching as revealed by their native discourse. Only by finding an adequate link between the outside reform discourse and the teachers’ native discourse, can the national curriculum reform truly take hold in the school.

Lesson study has become a popular approach for supporting the development of student-teachers within initial teacher education (ITE) programmes. In a short space of time, the original model of lesson study, originating in Japan, has been adapted to fit into the work contexts of different national systems and ITE provider structures. This chapter classifies the different emerging models of lesson study into three main groups, university and hybrid approaches, practicum approaches and heterodox approaches. Learning study is also considered, due to its developing popularity, as a practice development approach. Having outlined the different models of lesson study used in ITE, the authors go on to outline some of the main challenges and advantages of participating in lesson study which have been identified in the literature.

The purpose of this paper is to articulate criteria for assessing the quality of lesson and learning studies as forms of practice-based educational action research that are grounded in the practical experience of those engaged in such research.

The paper explores the implications of Stake and Schwandt’s distinction between quality as measured and quality as experienced for assessing lesson and learning studies in higher education contexts, where “standards templates” are increasingly used to measure “quality”. Such templates it is claimed distance research from the action context of teachers’ work. Previously published work, in which the author distils criteria for good educational action research from his own narratives of experience, is then summarised as a basis for conceptualising lesson study as good action research. This poses the issue of whether the use of learning theories to inform lesson study distorts their quality by distancing them from action. The author argues that this does not apply to lesson studies that are informed by Marton and Booth’s theory of variation. In doing so he distils a set of experience-based quality criteria for assessing learning studies, and demonstrates a high degree of congruence between the pedagogical implications of variation theory and Stenhouse’s idea of “teachers as researchers”.

A set of experience-based quality criteria are distilled for assessing what counts as a high-quality learning study report.

The paper creates an alternative view of the relationship between educational research and practice to that which currently dominates academic discourse.

Collaborative professional development for inclusive teaching is a limited area of research, although there is an extensive need for special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) teachers. Research findings of how teachers’ professional development can contribute to support the development of powerful learning situations for all students are presented in this special issue. The aim is to contribute to the knowledge of how the use of lesson study can develop teachers’ capabilities to offer high-quality education for students with SEND.

The guest editor presents each of the papers and introduces key themes and concepts.

The collection of papers is divided into two themes; the first has a focus on lesson study used by teacher educators during SEND in-service training. In this theme, the teachers are the students who are studying different fields of SEND, supported by teacher educators. The second theme studies different forms of lesson studies carried out by researchers and teachers in the collaboration focused aspects of content that are of importance for students in SEND.

The papers focus on areas of education with a limited research tradition, and as a result, the studies may be seen as starting points for further research. The results so far lack generalisability. Therefore, the researchers have to test the findings further under different conditions and with wider groups of teachers and students.

The results of the papers can be used to develop both SEND teacher education, and collaborative professional development for in-service SEND teachers. This issue will, therefore, be of interest to school and system leaders.

The papers contribute initial findings from an under-researched area and also combine lesson study with methods and designs not previously explored.