Joshua S. Wilson

Purpose: This study aimed to explore teachers' learning processes through a hybrid cross-cultural lesson study (LS) because little is known about the learning process through this novel and promising LS approach.Design/methodology/approach: This cross-cultural LS lasted over six months focusing on developing a research lesson (RL) related to linear functions/equations by addressing a commonly concerned student learning difficulty. The data collected were lesson plans, videos of RLs, cross-culture sharing meetings and post-lesson study teacher interviews. A cultural-history activity theory (CHAT) perspective (Engeström, 2001) was used as a theoretical and analytical framework, and contradictions were viewed as driving forces of teachers' learning. The data were analyzed to identify contradictions and consequent teachers' learning by resolving these contradictions.Findings: The results revealed four contradictions occurring during the hybrid cross-cultural LS that are related to the preferred teaching approach, culturally relevant tasks, making sense of the specific topic and enactment of the RL. By addressing these contradictions, the participating teachers perceived their learning in cultural beliefs, pedagogical practice and organization of the lesson.Research limitations/implications: This study details teachers' collaborative learning processes through hybrid cross-cultural LS and provides implications for effectively conducting cross-cultural LS. However, how the potential learning opportunity revealed from this case could be actualized at a larger scale in different cultures and the actual impact on local practices by adapting effective practices from another culture are important questions to be investigated further.Originality/value: This study expands teacher learning through cross-cultural LS by focusing on contradictions cross-culturally as driving forces.

Young Internet users engage in risky or inappropriate behavior online that could either be embarrassing or harmful to their future. As importantly, young Internet users engage in online activities that reveal a great deal about the cost to serve them and their willingness to pay for goods and services, which could be used against them by well-informed sellers. Educational applications that collect users’ information are becoming ubiquitous in the classroom, presenting the opportunity for students’ data to be mined. We are not aware of prior studies that examine parental or students’ attitudes and preferences toward data mining of educational application accounts, and how these attitudes differ across several countries. We used three survey instruments to measure parents’ and students’ attitudes toward data mining of educational applications. Parents in all countries studied prefer far less data mining of students’ online activities than seems to be the current practice. Most importantly, aversion to data mining does not seem to be correlated with awareness of current practices of data mining of teens’ activities. This study highlights regulatory alternatives and suggests future research and future data requirements for designing appropriate regulatory interventions. The nature of the intervention will be guided by the nature of the causes of inappropriate online behavior and inappropriate selection of educational software. Intervention could range from no regulation needed, through providing greater transparency, to new and detailed legal requirements that software providers must meet.