As a part of the teacher licensure program at the graduate level at The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC), the M.Ed. licensure candidate is required to complete an action research project during a 3-semester-hour course that coincides with the 9-semester-hour student teaching experience or with school employment. This course, Education…

When U.S. educators first hear that Japanese teacher preparation programs require only four weeks of formal student teaching at the end of the credential program, they're appalled: How can this be? More surprising still, few new teachers in Japan (1.35 percent) leave the profession during their first year. So where are these beginning teachers…

This book provides a unique international comparative perspective on diverse issues and practices in mathematics education between and among the US and five high-performing TIMSS education systems, Japan, China, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. The book offers multiple perspectives on the important factors that contribute to mathematics…

In this article, mathematics teachers in the United States were asked what constitutes a high-quality mathematics lesson. The returned responses varied greatly. This same question was asked of Japanese teachers also. For a clearer picture both American and Japanese teachers were directed to comment on videotaped mathematics lessons taught in both…

Since the corporatization of national universities, the environment surrounding Japanese universities has dramatically changed in various respects. A series of government-led attempts have intended to support the domestic colleges and universities in gaining a competitive edge by improving the quality of teaching and research as well as…

The effects of Physical Education Teacher Education program modifications upon selected characteristics identified with effective teaching were assessed utilizing the Teacher Work Sample (TWS). Data were collected from all student teacher candidates during the 2002 student teaching sessions. Based upon the 2002 data, interventions were made to a…

Keiwa College, a small liberal arts college in Niigata, Japan, has developed a number of on-campus and community-based teacher training programmes to benefit our students in the teacher education course in the Department of English and Communication and in-service English teachers in the area. These programmes provide students with opportunities…

In the fall of 2003, the author conducted research on the student teaching process in Japan. The basis for most of the lessons observed was rich mathematics problems. Upon returning to the US, the author used one such problem while teaching an algebra 2 class. This article introduces that problem, which gives rise to both linear and quadratic…

Masafumi Ogawa's paper presents challenge after challenge facing the teacher and the teacher educator in Japan. One has the sense that a lifetime of frustrations with the national curriculum, the set-up of student teaching, and the definition of music as a school subject each made its way into the paper. Even choosing to focus on teacher training…

Masafumi Ogawa cares deeply about improving music teacher education and has grave concerns about Japan's current music education and teacher training system. He notes reduced instructional time, cuts in teaching positions, and classroom management issues resulting in the devaluing of music education by administrators, students, and the general…

The Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) reports that the mathematics teaching in Japan is distinctly different from that found in the United States. They attribute part of that difference to the professional development practice of Lesson Study. However, is the pre-service preparation of Japanese mathematics teachers also…

Evaluates the student teaching process in Japan through analysis of what student teachers write about critical events and their reflections in the context of everyday teaching experience. Results from 2 questionnaires given to 88 student teachers are provided revealing the most difficult incidents encountered, the incidents which were positive,…

Compared the student-teaching experiences of novice teachers in Japan and the United States to understand similarities and differences in acculturation. Student teachers from one Japanese university and student teachers and beginning teachers from one U.S. university wrote critical incidents summaries that researchers scored and coded. Results…

After brief histories of laboratory schools and comparable Japanese "attached schools," this article promotes preservation of university-controlled schools in a cooperating schools network that provides teacher training and experimentation sites. Although university-controlled schools may have professional development school…

The attached schools of national universities in Japan are comparable to U.S. laboratory schools. This article discusses the history of attached schools, their present condition, and restructuring the role of these schools to make them clinical schools, compatible with overall reform of clinical education for beginning teachers. (IAH)