What Japanese and U.S. Teachers Think About When Constructing Mathematics Lessons: A Preliminary Investigation

Japanese (N = 25) and U.S. fifth‐ to eighth‐grade teachers (N = 36) participated in pre‐ and postlesson interviews to assess what they thought about when constructing mathematics lessons. To understand the details of this thinking and how it might support classroom instruction, we structured interviews around a specific lesson teachers taught in their classrooms. Japanese teachers’ thinking was more focused on ensuring that students discover concepts and develop productive dispositions toward learning, whereas U.S. teachers’ thinking tended to emphasize that students learn specific mathematical content. The Japanese teachers also saw lesson planning as a more complex process than did the U.S. teachers. We discuss how these findings can elucidate the different approaches to teaching mathematics that prior research has shown that Japanese and U.S. teachers tend to employ.