Three years after Japan integrated "programming" into all elementary school subjects, questions remain on how policy is being put into practice in arts education. This article examines the current state of "programming" - activities addressing a local version of computational thinking - in music, with a focus on Japan's pending…

This report presents a literature review that was conducted to answer the question -- what can be learned from high performing jurisdictions with respect to scientific literacy? The review intends to build a picture of the education systems, specifically science education, in the five jurisdictions which performed the best in the scientific…

In today's rapidly evolving global economy, it is essential to equip young learners with the necessary skills and knowledge to thrive in the workforce and contribute to economic development. Education is a vital driver of human capital and development in countries, and the effectiveness of any educational system depends heavily on its curriculum.…

The lesson study is a teaching practice that was first applied to the educational system of Japan. It is a form of classroom research in which teachers cooperatively plan, teach, observe and share the results in a class lesson. The purpose of this study is to review the effectiveness of the implementation of the lesson study in basic teacher…

This present study closely examines a particular type of institutionalized interactions for second language (L2) learning, namely one-on-one instructional sessions between instructors and learners of Japanese at an intensive summer study abroad program in Japan. During these sessions, both instructors and learners employ various form-focused…

This study aims to find out how students prepared for a flipped classroom and to examine what type of instruction could effectively guide students to do pre-class preparation. We conducted case studies for over two years in a physiology class at a Japanese university. In a survey performed in 2017, students were asked to participate in a…

As countries worldwide aim to reform their education systems and improve teaching and learning, lesson study (LS), which originated in East Asia, has recently attracted great attention. In order for international educators and policy makers to better understand the history and the state of the art of LS in East Asia, this article introduces three…

This paper reconsiders active learning (AL) in the context of Japanese higher education. AL encourages students to actively engage with learning, enhancing their generic and employability skills. In Japan, AL has become increasingly popular but lacks a clear definition. AL proponents suggest that it is the use of instructional methods that…

This essay is part of a collection of short essays solicited from authors around the globe who teach religion courses at the college level (not for professional religious training). They are published together with an introduction in "Teaching Theology and Religion" 18:3 (July 2015). The authors were asked to provide a brief overview of…

Foreign language education primarily aims to cultivate learners' competence to communicate in an additional language. However, the meaning of communication competence is not entirely transparent, especially given the current neoliberal valorization of communication in the knowledge economy. The meaning of communication can be scrutinized in two…

This article addresses the conceptual question "what is lesson study?" as an issue that arises in the context of the globalisation of lesson study as a method for improving teaching and learning beyond its presumed origins in the Japanese education system. To what extent can adaptations of the method in different national settings be…

Background: This study investigates how the criterion-referenced (CR) approach has impacted relationships between goals, classroom practices, and student achievement in English education in Japan from 1994 to the present, a period covering three government-mandated administrations of a national curriculum (Course of Study). No study has…

The Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) has been increasingly used to inform language policies and teaching practices in Japan. The Japanese Ministry of Education proposed in 2011 that objectives of English curricula at the secondary education level ought to be stated using the "Can do" schemata of the CEFR and…

We examine the distinction between teaching and teachers as it relates to instructional improvement. Drawing from work outside of education on improvement systems and from analyzing the Japanese system of lesson study, we contend that a focus on teaching can shape a coordinated system for improvement whereas a focus on teachers, common in the…

This study combines the Japanese lesson study approach and mathematics teachers' professional development. The first year of a 4-year project in which 3 Dutch secondary school teachers worked cooperatively on introducing making sense of the calculus is reported. The analysis focusses on instrumental and relational student understanding of…