Researching Planning in Elementary Social Studies in the Digital Age : Exploring the Potential of Lesson Study to Energize Teachers and Revitalize a Field

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This article reports on the use of Lesson Study as a professional practice and as a form of professional development in the USA. It explores the context of American education and research on instructional planning in order to offer reasons why Lesson Study has not been adopted more widely in social studies education despite documented student success in schools using Lesson Study in other curricular areas. It suggests that researcher and teacher educator collaboration is key to making research-based findings on children's thinking important to teachers as they plan instruction. It proposes that Internet-based professional communities can provide social studies teachers, teacher educators, and researchers with colleagues, and a place, to have Lesson Study - like conversations about effective teaching of social studies in today's world with today's children.