How children participate in democracy has shifted toward more communicative, networked, and creative models than before. In political science and political theory, however, surprisingly little is understood about what if anything children can contribute to democracy and how they would do so. Traditionally, children have been considered as mere…

International comparative studies on mathematics teaching and learning often provide unitary and harmonious images of classroom practices. This paper aims to complement those studies by describing the complex aspects of those practices. Adopting activity theory as a framework, this paper considers classroom teaching and learning of mathematics as…

Learning assistance is an essential part of higher education. Tutors, the core of the assistance staff, need to have learning assistance skills. If the potential for these skills can be identified when selecting tutors, the training method will be more efficient. Also, learning assistance skills are thought to be related to learning skills.…

This systematic review is built on the seminal work by the New London Group in 1996. Few endeavours have synthesized findings of empirical studies pertaining to the effects and challenges of multiliteracies practices in various schooling and geographical contexts. Through a five-point Likert scale and a deductive and inductive thematic analysis,…

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 pays attention to the meaning of things in educational space. Students learn not only from words but also things with which they interact in the learning process. Especially in art education various things such as materials, tools, art works are indispensable. This paper tries to analyze the process of both creation and appreciation of…

This study aims to explore an educational learning environment that supports students to learn conceptual modelling with the unified modelling language (UML). In this study, we call the describing models "UML programming." In this paper, we show an educational UML programming environment for science, technology, engineering, art, and…

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…

Internationalising higher education (HE) shows tensions between recruiting international students as a means of securing income and meeting their particular educational needs towards practices of caring for their social, psychological, intercultural and educational well-being. This paper briefly outlines the extent of current HE…

Based on my personal experiences of learning nagauta as a case study, this article examines the process of learning traditional Japanese music. It raises attention to potential pedagogical issues when traditional music is introduced into school music classrooms, as was suggested in the 2008 Japanese Course of Study for Music. From my observation…

The aim of this study is to reveal the differences in the process of learning reading strategies by EFL learners whose English proficiency levels differ. For this purpose, portfolios made by 10 Japanese female college students learning English (five in the higher proficiency group and the other five in the lower) were analyzed. The results found…

Explores teaching as a cultural activity by focusing on U.S. and Japanese systems of teaching in the context of cultural beliefs about how students learn and the teacher's role in the learning process. Educational improvement could result from greater awareness of the cultural scripts used in teaching. (SLD)

This study is to explore the potential of Fauconnier's mental space theory in understanding the teaching and learning processes of mathematics. Notions from cognitive linguistics have been introduced to research in mathematics education recently, but there have been little studies about what potential the framework of mental space has in…

Motivation towards English learning in Japanese schools today is analyzed according to John Condry and James Chambers' process-of-learning paradigm. The four stages of learning (initial engagement, process, disengagement, and re-engagement) are shown to emit different processes of learning in students based on whether learning is intrinsically or…