This article analyses lesson study as a mode of professional learning, focused on the development of mathematical problem solving processes, using the lens of cultural-historical activity theory. In particular, we draw attention to two activity systems, the classroom system and the lesson-study system, and the importance of making artefacts…

With international exams (PISA and TIMSS) producing results every three or four years, there is near continual talk of East Asian dominance in mathematics education. Beyond the reporting of scores, some studies have compared mathematics teaching in these countries with U.S. instruction. However, researchers are not (usually) grade school math…

Two departments in a secondary school in England participated in "lesson study" projects over a five-month period to explore its usefulness as a vehicle for professional development. Through a cycle of two research lessons, conducted separately in each department, teachers identified challenges that inhibited the learning of their…

The aim of this study was to determine pre-service social studies teachers' skills to plan and apply the activity-based teaching and contribute to their development of these skills. In the study, the action research design of qualitative research was used. The sample of the study consisted of 6 pre-service teachers who were 4th year students at…

A primary goal of all teacher educators is to provide preservice teachers with meaningful professional development opportunities that will help them succeed in making the transition into their own classrooms. Through these experiences, individuals develop the requisite knowledge and skills to become effective classroom leaders capable of…

While pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) has been widely studied in the literature, there have been few studies that focus on content knowledge exclusively, and none that examine the interactions between new content knowledge and existing PCK. This study traced the interactions between five teachers' pedagogical content knowledge and novel…

This study investigated how involving in a lesson study process at virtual settings impacted participating teachers' knowledge. The two elementary mathematics teachers, teaching in two public elementary schools at distant cities and meeting occasionally face to face and regularly at virtual settings formed the sample of this study. Neither of the…

This article reports a study of the discourse of shared lesson planning sessions in the early stages of a pre-service TESOL certificate course. The study focuses on "lesson planning conferences" (LPCs), in which a teacher educator and a group of student teachers worked on one student teacher's lesson plan. It describes the discursive practices…

"Lesson study" is a professional learning approach in which teachers work together to: formulate goals for student learning and long-term development; collaboratively plan a "research lesson" designed to bring to life these goals; conduct the lesson in a classroom, with one team member teaching and others gathering evidence on…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to propose an electronic support tool that can be used by teacher educators and novice teachers to foster habits of reflective, systematic instructional planning. Design/methodology/approach: The authors provide a rationale for their work, present a theoretical framework, propose a unique instructional design…

How can one increase the awareness of teachers to the existence and importance of knowledge gained through physics education research (PER) and provide them with capabilities to use it? How can one enrich teachers' physics knowledge and the related pedagogical content knowledge of topics singled out by PER? In this paper we describe a professional…