The authors comment on the article by Morris and Hiebert in three ways. First, they add thoughts about why improvement efforts often focus on teachers, rather than teaching. Second, they offer evidence from U.S. lesson study research that focus on teaching can improve both students’ learning and teachers’ learning. Finally, they suggest that the instructional products and common assessments advocated by Hiebert and Morris are not sufficient, and that they need to be accompanied by practice-based, collegial learning in which teachers build shared knowledge and commitments for the hard work of improvement. Their research indicates that lesson study focuses on teaching, but improves teachers as well, increasing mathematical knowledge and beliefs that support instructional improvement, as well as improving student learning.

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Lesson study augyou kentvut4) has spread outside .Ibpan in the last decade, provicEng qpportunities to see how lesson study fares in countries whene the instructionai practices and curriculum materials dgfi?ir.litom those in .lapan, 711zis stucly ieports an eiementai:y mathematics lesson stucly cycle .firom the Uitited States. 7b investigate the nature of the support for teacheKs ' learning during the curriculum study ("kyouzai kenkyuu 'V phase qf'lesson stucije we.first conzpared a CIS. andJbpanese teacher is manual in their tneatment ofarea of quadrilaterals. T;lie coding scheme captured.fZ3atures ltJ/pothesized to injZuence teachers ' learning.fhom curriculum including injbrmation on stucient thinking learning trojectoiy and rationale for peclagogical decisions (ZBall & Cohen, 199a). PZhile the UIS teacher ls manuaiprovided more cornect student answers and more oj7en suggested aclaptations for particuiar categories of students (b.g., English-languqge learnensi, the lapanese manual provided more varied indlvidual student responses and more rationaie for peclagogicat choices. PPle provided the Jdpanese curriculum and teacher ls manual to a CLS. Iesson group and observed them during lesson stucly; LLS, teachers found some .lapanese curricuiumfaatures usojitl (le.g., student thinkingy andother.featunes chaUenging (b.g.. focus on a singie problenz). A comparison of the CLS. teacheKy 'preand post-lesson stucly aycle lesson plans suggested that the teaehers more thoroughly anticipated student thinking qfrer working with the .lapanese textbooks and teacherls manuals. P}le suggest that kyouzai kenkyuu on a welldesigned teacherS manual may enable "coherent curriculum" at the policy level to be enacted in the classroom. lntroduction Lesson study originated in Japan and has been

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