This study aimed to examine the impact of using virtual reality (VR) materials in pre-learning activities for school trips at special needs schools for students with intellectual disabilities. This study included seven third-year junior high school students. The VR content was presented using head-mounted displays. Two types of learning materials were prepared using photographs: VR and slide-based materials. The participants were divided into two groups: one learning with VR materials and the other with slide-based materials. The results from the pre-learning tests, pre-tests, and post-tests were analyzed. The tests consisted of two types of questions: those assessing knowledge of the destination and those examining perceptions of the destination. The findings revealed that (1) there was no significant difference between the types of materials in terms of knowledge acquisition about the destination, and (2) VR materials might be effective when learning about spatial concepts, such as room dimensions. Future research should investigate the effectiveness of VR materials by considering various factors, such as student characteristics and methods for developing teaching materials.

This study clarifies the transformation of mid-career teachers’ beliefs based on constructivist instructional approaches to improving lessons with colleagues using the “Three Levels of Experiment” framework of reflective practice. The results of TEA analysis of interview data from 12 mid-career teachers, who participated in a class improvement project with colleagues on the theme of educational evaluation, revealed the processes that led to the transformation of their views of teaching. The process that led to the most changes was examined from the “Three Levels of Experiment” framework, which consists of four stages of reflection on the improvement of teaching and its realization, the improvements necessary to realize the understanding of a theme, the improvements necessary to realize the content of that understanding, and confirming that reflection and understanding were made. The study also explored the transformation process of a teacher’s beliefs based on constructivist instructional approaches. This results suggested the need to consider factors that promote or hinder the transformation of teachers’ beliefs, such as the importance of securing time for in-school research.

In this paper, we developed and evaluated a support system for undergraduate students that supports "structural integration," a reading and writing process in which integrated understanding is obtained by associating and integrating components identified from documents. The system we developed consists of a “highlighting function” that identifies the components of a document and describes them, and a “suggestion function” that provides hints for students to review and revise their own decompositions made with the highlighting function. The suggestion function was implemented by using the GPT API to generate questions that require students to answer the difference between the decompositions performed by the student and the assignment designer who created the assignment. In an evaluation experiment, undergraduate students wrote summaries based on the content of the documents by reviewing the structure of the documents they had found themselves in an interactive process with the suggestions generated by the system. This suggested that the system was effective in eliciting structural integration from the undergraduate students.

This study aimed to clarify how teachers in charge of lower grades in elementary schools accept the use of one device per student and identify the aspects of school initiatives influence teachers’ acceptance. A case study was conducted and qualitatively analyzed. Teachers are influenced by both external and internal factors, progressing towards device utilization, despite developing perceptions that did not lead to device use. The causes responsible for these perceptions include factors specific to lower grades, factors more likely to occur in lower grades, and factors not exclusive to lower grades. Teachers formed their classroom image and conducted lessons through six elements and their interactions: their own experiences from the previous year when students of third-grade and above used devices, self-gathered information, communication among teachers, materials easily usable by students, conducting open classes, and participating in open classes. As teachers recognized the improvement in students’ utilization skills and the effectiveness of device use, they developed perceptions that led to increased utilization and partially reduced the perceptions that did not lead to device use.

Teaching practice leads to learning not only for teaching interns but also for the supervising teachers who are responsible for teaching them. However, these findings have only been discussed in case-descriptive studies from the perspective of and data collected from the supervisor. In this study, we investigated whether there were differences in teachers' autonomous learning attitudes and teacher efficacy based on whether they accepted teaching interns. We measured autonomous learning attitudes and teacher efficacy among 542 teachers by using propensity scores and adding covariates such as sex, age, and years of teaching experience. The results showed that supervising teachers who had accepted teaching interns displayed significantly higher levels of autonomous learning attitudes, such as a positive attitude toward challenges and self-reflection, and teacher efficacy in terms of ICT use than teachers who had not. These findings are discussed from the perspective of the teacher education function of practice being a key factor in teacher education.