We are becoming more and more aware of the marks our human existence is leaving on our global environment: the Anthropocene as discourse of that awareness is turning into a living and lived-in reality. I argue that such discourse cannot remain the purview of the natural and social sciences alone: culture must be recognized in its pivotal role of…

Purpose: This study aims to develop a self-reflection scale useful for teachers to improve their skills and to clarify the Japanese teachers' characteristics during mathematics lesson observation (MLO). In MLO, it is important to understand the lesson plan in advance to clarify observation points, and we aim to develop a scale including these…

To encourage students' self-regulated learning at home, developing skills for textbook use to overcome learning-related impasses is crucial. This study examined the effects of providing mathematics class sessions that combined teacher instruction on appropriate textbook use with peer instruction, aimed at promoting students' spontaneity and…

In this paper, we analyse a grade 8 (age 13-14) Japanese problem-solving lesson involving angles associated with parallel lines, taught by a highly regarded, expert Japanese mathematics teacher. The focus of our observation was on how the teacher used carefully planned board work to support a rich and extensive plenary discussion (neriage) in…

This paper is a critical systematic literature review of empirical work on creative pedagogies from 1990 to 2018. It responds to the increased international attention being afforded creativity and creative pedagogies in research, policy and practice and examines the evidence regarding creative pedagogical practices and the potential impact of…

Active learning is the outcome of a series of higher education policy reforms conducted in the late 2000s and early 2010s in Japan. This approach gained momentum after it was prioritised in a comprehensive report produced by the Central Council of Education (an advisory board of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology).…

The use of four-skills language exams to support the achievement of curriculum goals in Japan is an under-researched yet critical topic. This study focuses on washback from the Cambridge B1 Preliminary and B2 First exams, which were used as fixed-point tests at a senior high school. A mixed-methods approach was adopted, utilizing data from…

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…

An interesting Sangaku problem was chosen and a multidirectional study was performed, which included finding the locus of a circle's center moving while being tangent to two circles. It also included finding the radius of that circle given the datum that it is also tangent to the side of an isosceles triangle. Two different proofs are presented of…

While various innovative pedagogical methods have been proven effective in facilitating the development of students' English language skills in different contexts, this study explores the implementation of several innovative methods in one EMI course, which includes collaborative online international learning (COIL), content language integrated…

In mechanical drawing class, it is a problem that a lecturer has students get a wide range of knowledge and skills in a class whose time and place are limited in a semester. The situation surrounding the classes has led to insufficient understanding of students. Accordingly, it has been desired to reveal an effective learning method in mechanical…

Background: The assessment of cross-curricular skills is gaining attention in many countries. In Japan, the 'Information Literacy Survey for Upper Secondary Students' (the ILSUS) was designed to measure information literacy through Computer-Based Testing (CBT). It was the first large-scale survey based on Item Response Theory (IRT) implemented by…

This research work will review at-hand literature about the use of Quality Circle model to assist teachers in higher education to integrate critical thinking skills into the classroom setting. The study could lead to enhanced insights into human behavior conduct within the educational settings in order to promote greater skills in decision making…

Research on pre-task planning to date has mainly focused on task performance. However, the effects of planning are contingent on what learners actually do during planning time. One important factor that may determine the quality and usefulness of planning is whether it is done in the first language (L1) or the second language (L2). This research…

This paper reports on a study of collaborative group work in mathematics. Although collaborative group work is known as one of the important approaches in education, it is still uncertain how group thinking can be measured in various learning contexts. We used the Group Thinking Measure (GTM) test developed by [Wegerif, R., T. Fujita, J. Doney, J.…