There is no doubt that a lesson plan is a necessary product of Lesson Study. However, the collaborative work among teachers that goes into creating that lesson plan is largely under-appreciated by non-Japanese adopters of Lesson Study, possibly because the effort involved is invisible to outsiders, with our attention going to its most visible…

The Third International Math and Science Study (TIMSS) concluded that teaching is a cultural activity. But do claims about teaching based largely in comparisons of math teachers also apply to teaching in disciplines with less well-defined problems, like civics? What is gained and what is lost when the cultural aspect of teaching becomes the focus?…