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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 authors aim to determine the effects of Global Lesson Study (GLS) – a two-year, one-cycle program defined as “international cooperative lesson study through international exchange among teachers using ICT” – on intercultural competence for lesson study based on pre- and post-survey conducted for Japanese teachers.

In accordance with the GLS program, mathematics lesson studies on mathematics between Japanese and Singaporean elementary school teachers were conducted over a two-year period. Questionnaire surveys on intercultural competence for lesson study was conducted using 7-point Likert scale and descriptive questions with Japanese teachers (N = 5). Analysis of Wilcoxon's signed rank test and correlation analysis were conducted.

Followings are identified as the effects of GLS for Japanese teachers: (1) Japanese participants felt improvement of their competence in areas of attitude, internal outcomes and outward impact. (2) Participating in a GLS led to the improvement of Japanese teachers' qualities and abilities for subject teaching related to mathematics education. (3) Improvement of intercultural competence for lesson study was related to each other, and GLS led to improvement of these competences. (4) It was meaningful to have a two-year period to assimilate and adjust to independent experience of the host and guest.

The GLS led to teacher empowerment among this sample, not only as cooperative research, but also at the individual level of teachers where participants continued to develop lessons based on the GLS learning after study completion. This has important implications for the implementation and dissemination of the GLS.

The purpose of this exploratory study was to develop Global Lesson Study (GLS) defined as an international collaborative lesson study through international exchange of teachers using ICT. Its purpose is to nurture teachers from different countries with intercultural competence to conduct lesson study.

We developed an initial program for GLS in the subject of mathematics education between elementary school teachers in Japan and Singapore. The qualitative analysis of activities at each stage of the Pilot GLS was conducted from two perspectives: (1) intercultural competence for lesson study and (2) teacher's competency for subject instruction.

Through GLS, a new lesson was created that was only possible with discussions from teachers from different locations. It was clarified that GLS was not only useful for training teachers with intercultural competence for lesson study but also has led to the improvement of teacher's competency for subject instruction in mathematics.

The GLS is a new attempt in the sense of developing a high-quality lesson study method for creating new lessons as well as improving qualities and abilities of teachers through international exchange.

The purpose of this paper is to highlight some methodological problems concerning the neglect of participants' voices by workplace ethnographers and neglect of the highly interactional and co‐constructive nature of research interviewing. The study aims to use discourse analysis, to show the phenomena of workplace learning and expertise to be constituted in participants' talk.

From excerpts of natural talk and research interviews by fish culturists speaking about their learning in a salmon hatchery, discourse analysis is used to analyze how workplace learning and expertise are rhetorically performed.

The paper finds that fish culturists drew on two discursive repertoires/resources – school‐ and workplace‐based learning – to account for their learning and expertise. The main participant affirmed the primacy of interest and practical workplace experience in his job just as he presupposed a weak correlation between school‐based (theoretical) and workplace (practical) knowing. However, both kinds of learning were deemed important though articulating this view depended on the social contexts of its production.

Discourse analysis does not establish immutable truths about workplace learning and expertise but rather it is used to understand how these are made accountable through talk in real‐time, that is, how the phenomenon is “done” by participants.

There is increased sensitivity when using ethnographic and interview methods. No method can avoid being theory‐laden in its conduct and reporting but discourse analysis perhaps does it better than its alternatives.

While some contributors to this journal have also approached workplace learning from a discursive perspective, this paper attempts to understand the phenomenon solely from participants' categories and interpretations.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to answer two interrelated questions: “Who learns and how in the learning organization?”. By implication, many theories of the learning organization are adressed that are based on a static and erroneous separation of individual and collective. Design/methodology/approach – Four episodes from a larger case study exemplify the theoretical arguments. These were based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of a salmon hatchery and the public‐sector organization to which the former was accountable. Conceptual framework is strongly dialectical: in their actions individuals concretely reproduce the organization and, when actions vary, realize it in novel forms; organizations therefore presuppose individuals that concretely produce them. However, without an organization, there would be no aim or orientation to individual actions to speak of in the first instance. Findings – The paper finds that individuals learn, through the production of socio‐material resources, notions of organizations which are not abstract. These resources increase action possibilities for the collective, whether realized concretely or not. Expansive learning in individuals is co‐constitutive of learning in organizations and decreasing interest in individual learning constitutes decreased levels of action possibilities for the collective. Research limitations/implications – The paper shows that using this framework, it becomes problematic to separate individual and collective learning. Originality/value – The paper shows that access to participation by all members is a key component as are affordances given by the organization for the development of individuals.

Sociocultural learning theories, usually premised on participation in some community, explain workplace learning well up to a certain extent. The paper aims to extend beyond these and to account for learning in repetitive and mundane work environments from a dialectical perspective.

Based on a longitudinal ethnographic study of one salmon hatchery in Canada and the fish culturists that work there, theory (dialectics) is blended with empirical fieldwork (interview data, participant observation data, field notes). Codes that emerged were classified into categories that formed the basis for the tentative hypotheses.

Two assertions are proposed concerning learning from a dialectical perspective: the dialectic of doing (actions might seem repetitive but are in fact always different and productive in nature) and the dialectic of understanding and explaining (practical understanding develops dialectically with conceptual understanding when the latter is subjected to scrutiny). These can account for learning in places that at first sight are not conducive to change and transformation.

Using the proposed framework, researchers/management can no longer get at individual learning independent of collective learning, which simultaneously is the effect and cause of individual learning. That is, individual and collective are inseparable ontologically.

The study suggests a need to rethink the nature and possibilities of learning in mundane work environments that are believed to be widespread.

Approaches workplace learning from a dialectical, hermeneutical perspective that is not widely appreciated. Affirms the dignity of workers.