This book elucidates the formation and development of theories of action in school reforms for Schools as Learning Communities (SLC) during ten years from its inception in 1998 in select Japanese elementary schools, junior high schools, and one secondary school. While growing international interest in Japanese lesson study is in pursuit of a standard lesson study, Suzuki offers a unique perspective into school reforms for SLC and how they resisted the standardization of lesson study out of concerns that it would limit a teacher’s autonomous judgment and choice. Through a theory-of-action approach in its examination of the pilot schools for SLC, this book clarifies: • Why did teachers reform lesson study? • What were the difficulties in reforming lesson study? • Why were teachers working on school reform for SLC? • Why did the school reform for SLC evolve from an elementary school to the junior high schools and high schools? This book provides a theoretical foundation for reviewing the past efforts and histories of Japanese lesson study reforms, and will interest academics and practitioners looking for insights into the future of lesson study.

School as Learning Community (SLC), or Lesson Study for Learning Community (LSLC) represents an approach to lesson study that emerged in Japan in the 1990s and which has been studied intensively by educators and researchers worldwide to establish democratic learning communities for teachers and students in schools. The model, which involves all teachers in a school observing and sharing a lesson together, creates a listening pedagogy to embrace and develop diversity of learning in each teacher and student – a practice that is as yet, not commonly researched in Asian countries outside of Japan. The book’s theoretical foundation reviews existing literature on SLC and LSLC in the Japanese contexts of educational theories and practices. The chapters discuss patterns of learning practices and the challenges of conducting LSLC in Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Indonesia, and Vietnam. Recommendations for research and practice involving SLC/LSLC are also provided in the book with a key focus on the impact of lesson study on school reform policies.

Lesson study is a popular professional development approach in Japan whereby teachers collaborate to study content, instruction, and how students solve problems and reach for understanding in order to improve elementary mathematics instruction and learning in the classroom. This book is the first comprehensive look at the system and process of lesson study in Japan. It describes in detail the process of how teachers conducted lesson study--how they collaborated in order to develop a lesson, what they talked about during the process, and what they looked at in order to understand deeply how students were learning. Readers see the planning of a mathematics lesson, as well as how much content knowledge the teachers have. They observe students' problem solving strategies and learn how Japanese teachers prepare themselves to identify those strategies and facilitate the students' discussion. Written for mathematics teachers, educational researchers, school administrators interested in teachers' professional development, and professional developers, this landmark volume provides an in-depth understanding of lesson study that can lead to positive changes in teachers' professional development and in teaching and learning in the United States.

Lesson Study has been actively introduced from Japan to various parts of the world, starting with the US. Such introduction is heavily connected with a focus on mathematics education and there is a strong misconception that Lesson Study is only for mathematics or science. The introduction is usually done at the departmental or form level and there has been a strong question about its sustainability in schools. This book comprehensively explores the idea of Lesson Study for Learning Community (LSLC) and suggests that reform for the culture of the school is needed in order to change learning levels among the children, teachers and even parents. In order for this to happen, the ways of management and leadership are also included as objectives of LSLC, as are practices at the classroom level. It argues that LSLC is a comprehensive vision and framework of school reform and needs to be taken up in a holistic way across disciplines. Chapters include: How to Create Time How to Build the Team How to Promote Reform How to Reform Daily Lessons How to Conduct a Research Lesson How to Discuss Observed Lessons How to Sustain School Reform based on LSLC Strong interest in LSLC is already prevalent in Asian countries, such as Japan, China, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, Vietnam and Singapore and is now being introduced more in the west. This book will be of great interest to those involved in education policy and reform, and for practitioners of education at all levels.

"This is a much needed book for educators who want to learn more than just the surface features of lesson study, to deepen the process and learning. Bringing together current knowledge and resources from lesson study practitioners and researchers all over the world, this book provides models and examples of how teachers can learn more deeply and how to support them to learn more in lesson study. The chapters connect current research/educational theories to classroom practices, filled with examples to illustrate how deeper learning looks like with lesson study; for example, highlighting research process, paying attention to educative talk, using of case pupils (students) as teachers' focus, doing kyozai kenkyuu well, facilitating mock-up lessons, etc. This is not a basic "how-to" handbook of lesson study, and readers can choose chapters with topics of interest to learn and use the new ideas promptly in their work. Coming from the global network of lesson study educators, the book not only provides new learning guides but also provides stories of how lesson study has been adopted in different cultures and educational contexts"--

Offering voices from the field – the first of its kind outside of Japan – this guide to teaching and learning elementary mathematics highlights real case examples from teachers and educators who share what they have learned through Lesson Study. The teachers’ reports provide vivid examples of new insights and ideas about mathematics, about pedagogy and lesson design, about student learning, and about professional collaboration gained through Lesson Study. Each report includes an abbreviated plan of the specific research lesson that led to the new insights, which readers can draw from to replicate the powerful learning in their own community. The case examples of this book are from Lesson Study in mathematics, elementary to lower secondary grade levels, focused on what teachers and educators have learned about improving mathematics teaching and learning; but many ideas from each report can be applied to other subjects and different grade levels. This unique book will be an excellent resource for mathematics teachers in training and practice who seek to improve mathematics teaching and learning in their own and others’ classrooms, including researchers and school administrators who lead professional development.

Offering a rich, critical investigation of how technology can be used to strengthen and promote lesson study in both virtual and hybrid environments, this edited book presents insights into the numerous challenges as well as opportunities for supporting teachers’ and teacher educators’ professional learning in such a novel setting. Providing an international perspective, research in this book highlights on the one hand the necessity of exploring how the known theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches for researching on lesson study and effective characteristics of conducting lesson study can be adapted to the new environments. On the other hand, further analysis reveals the benefits of using various advanced technologies in lesson study, the new practice of professional development of teachers and teacher educators, and also documents related issues of conducting lesson study in such complex contexts. The chapters focus on online cross-cultural lesson study; the key aspects of conducting online lesson study and the effectiveness of it. Features of facilitation and the development of facilitators for online lesson study are explored, alongside the ways in which online lesson study can help address various problems of practice such as implementing equitable teaching, facilitating student interaction in virtual environments, and migration to remote teaching in STEM. This resourceful text provides needed support to both researchers and practitioners, from primary to higher education, with special attention to both teacher and student learning.