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We discuss how collaborative relationships may develop in lesson study groups, paying attention to the critical incidents that may arise. This qualitative research study is based on two lesson studies with primary and middle school teachers. Data were collected through a researcher's journal, audio records of working sessions, video records of research lessons, post lesson reflections, and individual interviews. In the two cases, the collaborative relationships developed as common aims and ways of productive joint work emerged. In the development of these relationships, several critical incidents had a strong influence, in some cases positive and in other cases negative. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education professionals face countless problems in their practice. Instead of waiting for external solutions, many of them investigate directly those problems. This paper discusses the meaning of such investigation for teacher education and constructing professional knowledge. To illustrate such perspective, I analyse the journey of Grupo de Trabalho de Investigação (GTI) of the Associação de Professores de Matemática (APM), presenting two cases of teachers' investigations about their own practice. I also discuss problematic issues in this kind of investigation, notably paradigmatic kinship, methodology, role and characteristic difficulties of collaboration and the institutional conditions and professional culture necessary to undertake it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]