Creating a "good lesson" in a Japanese special education lesson study group

Abstract

The complex nature of teacher work has been highlighted in literature. In both Japan and Australia, special education classroom teachers have shared ecological commonalities: They work with groups of children including those with autistic spectrum disorders and with groups of other educators. However, they appeared to have functional differences in how they work in these structurally similar settings. A cross-cultural case study was used to investigate teacher work and practice with children with ASD of special education classroom teachers in Japanese and Australian primary school settings. In this presentation, observations of a series of lesson study teacher meetings were used to examine how Japanese special education teachers talked about their lessons in a group. It was found that these teachers tried to create a “good lesson” for those children through a group process. These meetings were examined in terms of contexts (i.e., who, when, and where) as well as contents (i.e., why and how).