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This study aim was to analyze how lesson study can enhance learning for students with intellectual disability, and how teachers' collaboration affects the design and analysis of the intervention.

Lesson study was used as a methodological framework. Ten special educational needs teachers met the researcher for three collaborative meetings. Between meetings, teachers performed and adjusted a lesson on a particular mathematical issue: quantity and size judgment. To evaluate the lesson design, students completed pre- and post-lesson examinations and attitude tests with Likert-type scales.

Students' knowledge increased during the study. The mean scores for the first group (six students) were 4.3 in the pre-test and 6.5 in the post-test (effect size 0.9). For the second group (four students), the mean score was 3.8 in the pre-test and 4.3 in the post-test (effect size 0.2). Attitude measurement showed split opinions; seven students had a positive experience and three had a predominantly negative experience. Assessment of teacher certainty using transcribed audio recordings of teachers' statements during the collaborative meetings indicated a positive relation between teacher expressions of certainty and student learning. The teacher–researcher collaboration increased teachers' focus on student learning and deepened the researcher's analysis.

There is an urgent need to explore collaborative development in special educational needs teaching. Lesson study is an effective way of examining teachers' collaborative processes using data on teachers' reasoning about teaching and students' learning.