This paper suggests principals for designing Lesson Study at Education Colleges in Myanmar, that traditionally or socially lack collaborative and collegial relationships among teachers as is common in other developing countries. Interview data was used to identify and clarify elements, factors and processes that develop collaborative and collegial relationship among teachers. Lesson Study functions under a condition with collaborative and collegial relationships among teachers. However, instructors at Education Colleges in Myanmar are comfortable working in isolation and are not familiar with collaborating with others for professional development. This paper identifies factors and processes in designing Lesson Study that are needed to develop collaborative and collegial relationships and is based on teacher participation in Lesson Study at Education Colleges (EC) in Myanmar. The data were collected from interviews of twenty-four EC instructors at six Education Colleges. Quantitative analysis of the interview data generated seven categories related to these factors and processes. The seven categories were grouped into three stages; (1) Transforming the negative image of Lesson Study to a positive one, (2) Reconstructing the concept of Learner Centered Approach (LCA), and (3) Having shared responsibilities in Lesson Study, to explain the factors and processes through which teachers developed collaborative and collegial relationship among teachers. Based on the findings, the authors suggested three principals for designing Lesson Study: (A) setting up rules for mutual interaction to have constructive discussion, (B) assessing various LCA methods and (C) having shared responsibilities for demonstration lessons.

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The purpose of the study was to examine the efficacy of self-explanation for helping elementary school students solve mathematical word problems through computer-based support over one year. Seventy-one fifth graders participated in the study as the training condition. The students solved worked-out examples for thirty minutes once a week in four three-week training sessions. Then they completed a word problem test. Sixty-two fifth-graders were used as the control condition who did not self-explain the solution steps. The results showed that all of the students gradually solved more word problems correctly than before. We classified students in the training condition into three groups according to the patterns of their test scores. Students in the upper group, who had consistently higher scores, self-explained their solution processes using inferences. Some students in the rising group, who were gradually increasing their scores, self-explained their solution processes using inferences. Most students in the lower group, who had consistently low scores, only took notes on the results of their past records about solution steps. Self-explanation as a metacognitive strategy is discussed.

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The purpose of this research is to clarify 1) factors that determine English learning motivation, 2) differences (of English learning motivation) between Japan and South Korea, 3) the influence that English learning motivation has on student class evaluation and 4) the different results of covariance structure analysis in Japan and South Korea. The results of a study involving 414 Japanese and 470 Korean fifth and sixth grade students showed that English learning motivation is composed of four factors and that Korean students were at a significantly higher level than Japanese students in three of the four factors. And covariance structure analyses demonstrated that student efforts and understanding were affected by usefulness, intrinsic and exchange desire motivation. Intrinsic motivation affects student efforts and understanding in accordance with a positive impression of and degree of satisfaction with the English classes. Furthermore, through simultaneous analysis of multiple populations, it was also determined that intrinsic motivation directly influences student efforts and understanding in Japan; however, no influence was detected in South Korea.

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The information industry is hoping that universities will provide project management education so that good project managers will become available within a short time. This paper describes project management education given by a university in the form of a role play exercise based on PBL (Project-Based Learning). Providing a role play exercise poses several problems: (1) it requires considerable preparation, (2) it is subject to constraints in time and place, (3) it is difficult to evaluate the effect of the exercise, and (4) there is a shortage of mentors. To solve these problems, the authors have developed an on-line role play exercise system and a software agent that participates in the exercise as a mentor, and have provided role-play exercises for students. This paper presents ways to evaluate both students and exercises based on students' action logs, which record chat messages exchanged by students during exercises, and also assesses the effectiveness of the agent.

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This study investigated how to support teachers who tried to conduct "lesson study" in the field of international educational development. The authors applied activity theory as a framework of interpretation on school based professional development in order to intervene in the process of lesson study. This study was conducted at Palestinian refugee basic schools in Syria. The research utilized interviews and participant observation for data collection. In the process of lesson study, teachers encountered conflicts and tried to resolve them. The authors identified two conflicts, which were "conflict on the power relationship among teachers and school supervisors" and "conflict on changing learning attitude from passive to active." The respective conflicts come under "subject-rules" and "subject-division of labor". To resolve these conflicts, the authors intervened (A) by using a role model to illustrate how to collaboratively teach during lesson study against the first conflict, and (B) to utilize active members as facilitators in lesson study to resolve second conflict. These interventions helped resolve conflicts and advance lesson study.

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This research deals with real-world practice concerning the application of the online environment "Aloha!" to dialogues related to on-the-job problems faced by beginning university teachers. "Aloha!" is based on the dialogue rules established by Kato (2009), which adopt a narrative approach framework, and makes possible dialogue through a videoconferencing chat format. It was clearly demonstrated that the interaction made possible by the use of "Aloha!" in the practice was linked to the ability of the beginning teachers to cope with their problems either by discovering solutions to them or by changing their "perspectives" concerning these problems. Furthermore, it was shown that among the factors facilitating dialogue through this practice-in addition to the actual functions of "Aloha!"-was the fact that the beginning teachers engaged in the dialogues were on an equal footing, which allowed them to participate in these dialogues with a sense of security.

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Two televisions, a high definition television (HDTV) and a conventional type of television, both with the same size screen and displaying the same images, were set up side-by-side and shown to kindergarteners aged 3-5 years old. As their behavior was observed, i.e., which television they got closer to, the kindergarteners were asked which television they preferred and why. Each child moved closer to the HDTV and said they preferred that television. As their age increased, kindergartners who gave the quality of the image of the HDTV as their reason, increased.

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We developed a video annotation system VISCO which supports collaborative lesson improvement by a network composed of a number of teachers from widely dispersed locations. This system supports participants (elementaly school teachers) to correlate a scene in a video that illustrates a problem in the classroom (problem scene) with a scene that does not display a problem (associated scene). Although we have tested VISCO and reported on its possibilities for usefulness, only the results of practice sessions have been reported; conclusions have not yet been drawn. In this paper, we present the results of an evaluation of whether the use of VISCO affects lesson improvement, as measured by the contents of the discussion log and the results of interviews. As a result, we confirm that the use of VISCO has some effect on teachers' acquisition of new awareness, improvement in instruction during lessons, and improvement of teaching methods.

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Student evaluation of teaching would be fruitful only when it leads to an enhancement in teaching. Using basic statistics, classifications and regression trees to measure student satisfaction, and association rules to mine data and text, we develop an effective feedback system to analyze student evaluations and provide their results to concerned faculties. The system provides faculties with information they may use for further improvement of their teaching. An opinion survey conducted among the faculties who used the feedback system revealed that, by and large, the system was perceived to be useful towards class improvement. Moreover, the function employing the association rule for free descriptions was considered to be an effective tool for enhancing education. The binary tree analysis, on the other hand, did not receive a high appraisal on account of the presentation of the result and the fact that the teachers were not familiar with the concept. Given that the evaluation questions addressing visibility and understandability were scored relatively lower, the system will be improved in the near future through a modification to its interface.

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In order to discuss quantitatively the effect and progress of learning, we introduce a definition of learning effect. We intend to estimate quantitatively the proficiency of learning tasks by suitable measurement. The learning effect has been usually evaluated by the percentage of correct answers in a test/examination at the end of a learning course. However, human intellectual actions are also controlled by their cerebral nervous systems, and the learning effect can be evaluated by the measured data from their brain activities. In this paper, we adopt a change of the correct answer ratios as the definition of the learning effect. We estimate the change of the ratios by observing the changes of the electrical signals from brains. The learning effect reflects the proficiency of the learner during the process of a learning task. We first propose a model for estimating the learning effect from the brain activities. Next we analyze the experimental data of the tasks selecting one from three choices. From the data analysis we determine parameters that are used in the model. EEGs (ElectroEncephaloGrams) are electrical signals from brains that are activated by stimuli. They have a fine time resolution. An ERP (Event-Related Potential) is the average of EEGs. We use ERPs to measure brain activities caused by the tasks. Then we evaluate the usefulness of the parameters adopted in the model. This approach is an attempt to quantify the learning effect by physiological parameters.

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This study attempts to elucidate characteristic thinking of the expert workshop designers' workshop design process. A study using the think-aloud method was performed on two pairs, each consisting of an expert and a novice. First, the transitions of utterances were compared between the two pairs. Second, the features common to both experts were investigated. Consequently, a particular transition was found in the experts' utterances: they developed the concept after considering and interpreting the request. Specifically, this research demonstrates five cognitive characteristics of expert workshop designers: They (1) carefully ascertain the contents of the request, (2) use their own design models, (3) make flexible decisions to leave a room for deferments and change, (4) are highly conscious of the staff's upbringing and (5) design a workshop on the basis of their previous experiences. Furthermore, the findings indicate that experts have their personal practice theories.

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This paper presents a practical study with design-based research that focuses on producing better educational practice through a cycle of constant improvements in learning design. With a story-centered curriculum (SCC), which is a new learning design approach in our country, we explored the possibilities and clues to apply an SCC in a preexisting curriculum, then summarized the knowledge we attained from our practice aiming at bringing deeper learning outcomes. Through constant improvement in the learning design in 2008 and 2009, we found that the SCC approach helped to facilitate the learners' reflection and to support their understanding of the contents. This resulted in an effect on both individual learners and the learners' community of this practice. To validate our practice and improve the design principle to widen the leverage of learning approaches, our plan is to collect the learners' voices about this SCC practice.

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This article investigates student development through participation in CoPs (communities of practice) and the use of Bridge Learning (linking out-of-class to in-class study). I classified 431 undergraduate students (participants in a survey conducted in 2010 in WAVOC (The Hirayama Ikuo Volunteer Centre in Waseda University)) into four groups. Students who studied in an out-of-class CoP and created bridges to in-class learning succeeded in balancing their campus activities and scored significantly higher on self-reports of knowledge and skill acquisition. I therefore conclude that CoPs and Bridge Learning are important for student learning.

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