Teacher Noticing in Diverse Educational Contexts: Concepts,Research,and Future Pathways

Introduction

The last two decades have witnessed a surge of interest in the concept of teacher noticing within mathematics education research, positioning it as a cornerstone for understanding and advancing teaching quality (Dindyal et al., 2021; Jacobs et al., 2010; Mason, 2002; van Es & Sherin, 2002). Recent large-scale reviews (König et al., 2022; Wei et al., 2023; Weyers et al., 2024) confirm that teacher noticing is now recognized as a fundamental professional competency, essential for responsive and effective mathematics instruction across the globe. Teacher noticing encompasses the processes by which teachers attend to, interpret, and respond to significant classroom events—especially those involving student thinking and learning. While the basic notion appears universal, new systematic reviews highlight that the field has moved well beyond purely cognitive or individualistic models (Dindyal et al., 2021; König et al., 2022). Instead, there is growing consensus that noticing is deeply embedded within broader social, cultural, and institutional contexts (Louie et al., 2021; Weyers et al., 2024). However, much of our current notions of teacher noticing evolved in Western or Euro-centric contexts, which may have differing notions of effective mathematics instruction from researchers in Asia or other parts of the world. This Special Issue brings together five empirical studies from China, India, Sweden, Spain, and Germany, each contributing new insights into how mathematics teachers (including preservice and in-service teachers) notice, interpret, and respond to student thinking within and across different cultural frames, to generate dialogues between the East and the West. This commentary synthesizes these studies—including Chen et al. (2025), which offers a direct comparison of noticing frameworks in China—and situates their contributions within the broader international literature, as well as the wider international literature, to discuss conceptual frameworks, research themes, methodological innovations and challenges, and future directions for the field.

Conceptualizing teacher noticing across contexts

Promoting effective teaching and nurturing teachers’ learning to teach are universal goals of many teacher education programs. However, as van Es and Sherin (2002) noted, conventional initial teacher education programs often overemphasize technical teaching strategies while neglecting the cultivation of teachers’ abilities to observe and interpret classroom phenomena. Recent research has underscored teacher noticing as a critical component of teacher expertise, attracting growing attention in educational scholarship (Amador & Weston, 2024; König et al., 2022; Wei et al., 2023). Scholars have further recognized that merely attending to and interpreting key classroom events is insufficient; the ability to respond appropriately based on observation is equally crucial (Choy, 2016; Jacobs et al., 2010; König et al., 2022).

Despite theoretical advancements, substantial variation persists in how core concepts and dimensions are defined across noticing frameworks (Amador & Weston, 2024; Bruns, 2024; König et al., 2022). Nevertheless, a consistent theme in both empirical and review literature is the three-part structure of teacher noticing—attending to salient classroom events, interpreting their pedagogical and mathematical significance, and responding through instructional action (Jacobs et al., 2010; König et al., 2022; van Es & Sherin, 2021). This triadic AIR (Attending–Interpreting–Responding) model (see Figure 1) underpins much of the empirical work in this Special Issue and continues to shape intervention and assessment design (Chen et al., 2025; Weyers et al., 2024).

Figure 1.

A cycle of teacher noticing.

However, as highlighted by König et al. (2022) and Dindyal et al. (2021), robust evidence now demonstrates that noticing is not merely an individual cognitive skill but is fundamentally shaped by context. Context includes cultural norms, professional communities, and language (Goodwin, 1994; Sherin et al., 2011; Weyers et al., 2024). For example, Chen et al. (2025) compared two noticing frameworks—an Open Framework (adapted from the Learning to Notice framework by van Es & Sherin, 2002) and a Focused Framework (which integrates the Chinese Three-point framework with Western noticing concepts, adapted from the Noticing Matrix by Lee & Choy, 2017). Their findings illustrate the importance of culturally adapted frameworks: Chinese in-service teachers using the Focused Framework demonstrated deeper and broader attention to students’ mathematical thinking and were more adept at connecting noticing to instructional decisions compared to those using the Open Framework.

The literature further shows that conceptualizations of teacher noticing have diversified to include cognitive, psychological, sociocultural, discursive, and even sociopolitical dimensions (König et al., 2022; Louie et al., 2021). Zuo and Qi (2025) revealed, through framing theory, that Chinese teacher noticing is often shaped by exam-oriented priorities but can shift through collaborative development. Raval et al. (2025), drawing on discourse theory (Sfard, 2008), showed that teacher noticing is mediated by the mathematical language and discourse practices of their educational communities. Ivars et al. (2025) demonstrated that even within Europe, distinct “course cultures” in Spanish and German teacher education influence what is noticed and how it is acted upon.

These findings, aligning with systematic reviews (Dindyal et al., 2021; Weyers et al., 2024), emphasize that noticing is both learnable and deeply situated. In this context, culturally responsive noticing—attending to students’ diverse mathematical, cultural, and linguistic resources—emerges as a vital goal (Louie et al., 2021).

Research themes and methodologies

A prominent theme across the studies in this Special Issue is the role of teacher noticing in professional growth. Whether examining experienced Chinese teachers (Chen et al., 2025; Zhang et al., 2025; Zuo & Qi, 2025) or preservice teachers in India, Sweden, Spain, and Germany (Ivars et al., 2025; Raval et al., 2025), all studies emphasized that noticing develops through experience, professional development, and intentional reflection. Noticing is both a product and a driver of reflective and adaptive teaching. Chen et al. (2025) and Zuo and Qi (2025) demonstrated that structured frameworks and collaborative lesson study can shift teachers’ attention from teacher-centered direct instruction to focusing on student thinking, especially when frameworks are culturally and contextually responsive. Across the Special Issue, explicit prompts—such as focusing on students’ learning difficulties and starting points—are shown to be crucial for moving teachers’ attention toward deeper aspects of student thinking (Chen et al., 2025).

Comparative and cross-cultural analysis is another major theme, revealing that what teachers notice is profoundly shaped by their educational backgrounds, local norms, and languages of instruction. For example, in the Spanish-German comparison, the same student error in fraction subtraction was interpreted through different pedagogical lenses, resulting in different instructional responses (Ivars et al., 2025). This creates an interesting conundrum: What constitutes a mathematically or pedagogically productive response is highly dependent on the specific contexts. Chen et al. (2025) further highlighted that even within China, existing teacher training practices—often centered on unstructured observation—do not reliably support the development of more sophisticated noticing skills. What is needed to address these gaps, as they argue, is to adapt existing noticing frameworks to be more culturally and contextually relevant, so that teachers’ responses can better fit the instructional contexts.

Methodologically, the five studies in this issue employ qualitative case studies (Zhang et al., 2025), cross-cultural comparisons (Ivars et al., 2025; Raval et al., 2025), lesson study cycles (Zuo & Qi, 2025), and, centrally, vignette-based tasks (Ivars et al., 2025; Raval et al., 2025; Zhang et al., 2025), utilizing video, cartoon, or text formats (see Table 1). Chen et al. (2025) notably permitted teachers to self-select between frameworks, offering insights into both teacher preferences and the impact of framework structure on noticing outcomes. Data sources, which include written teacher responses, interviews, classroom videos, and lesson plans, were analyzed through inductive coding, established noticing frameworks, and cross-cultural comparison.

Table 1.

Participants and methods used in papers.

Authors	Subjects	Methods for data collection
Chen et al. (2025)	In-service teachers	Exemplary teaching videos
Zuo and Qi (2025)	In-service teachers	Questionnaires in Chinese lesson study
Raval et al. (2025)	Preservice teachers	Japanese video vignette
Zhang et al. (2025)	In-service teachers	Lesson plans
Ivars et al. (2025)	Preservice teachers	Cartoon-based vignette

Culturally responsive noticing: Examples in this Special Issue

Culturally responsive noticing entails attending to and valuing the mathematical thinking and participation of students from diverse cultural, linguistic, and experiential backgrounds (Louie et al., 2021). Extant literature, along with the articles in this Special Issue, provides increasing evidence and illustrative cases of this practice. For example, Louie et al. (2021) described how U.S. teachers, through guided video reflection, learn to recognize and appreciate non-traditional problem-solving strategies contributed by students from different linguistic backgrounds. In this Special Issue, Zuo and Qi (2025) showed that after structured lesson study cycles, Chinese teachers began to notice and build upon students’ creative strategies—previously overlooked due to test-driven norms. Chen et al. (2025) reported that Chinese teachers using the Focused Framework are prompted to consider students’ starting points, learning difficulties, and critical points for instructional intervention. This led to finer-grained attention to students’ mathematical reasoning, which resulted in teachers adopting more adaptive, student-centered strategies—an indicator of culturally responsive noticing. In contrast, the Open Framework led teachers to focus more on their own teaching and less on student thinking, which is more reflective of the teacher-centered and exam-driven culture in China.

Raval et al. (2025) document how Indian and Swedish preservice teachers reflected on Japanese students’ collective problem-posing and discussion—practices that initially seemed unfamiliar but were eventually recognized as valuable and culturally grounded approaches to mathematics learning. Specifically, Indian teachers, encountering Japanese students’ use of informal diagrams and collaborative problem posing, initially found these methods unfamiliar, but through discussion, began to appreciate them as evidence of student agency and deep understanding—expanding their own definition of mathematical success (Raval et al., 2025). Swedish teachers, on the other hand, noticed how Japanese classroom norms of collective discussion and public reasoning created opportunities for all students to engage, prompting reflection on their own classroom norms. Spanish teachers emphasized supporting students in understanding the meaning of fractions before addressing their errors, while German teachers were more likely to praise partial successes and encourage students to share their reasoning with peers. Both approaches reflect a responsiveness to students’ needs and strengths (Ivars et al., 2025).

Thus, these studies in the Special Issue affirm that culturally responsive noticing is not simply about correcting errors, but about perceiving and leveraging the full range of students’ mathematical activities, strengths, reasoning, and participation styles within specific cultural and institutional contexts (König et al., 2022; Weyers et al., 2024).

The use of vignettes in cross-cultural research

Vignettes—short, carefully constructed scenarios depicting instructional moments—have become a prominent tool for eliciting and assessing teacher noticing (Buchbinder & Kuntze, 2018; Herbst & Kosko, 2014). In this Special Issue, vignettes enabled researchers to present comparable instructional dilemmas to teachers from very different backgrounds. For example, Ivars et al. (2025) used a cartoon vignette about fraction subtraction to probe preservice teachers’ interpretations and responses across Spain and Germany, revealing both shared insights and striking differences.

However, the use of vignettes in cross-cultural studies comes with significant limitations. First, vignettes are necessarily reductions of real classroom complexity: They omit the full range of gestures, tone, classroom relationships, and histories that shape live teaching and learning (Dreher et al., 2021; Friesen & Kuntze, 2018). As a result, what teachers notice in a vignette may differ substantially from what they would notice in their own classrooms, limiting ecological validity.

Second, vignettes are often constructed with implicit cultural assumptions—about what constitutes “good” teaching, what kinds of errors are significant, or what counts as reasonable student thinking. These assumptions may not be shared by teachers from different cultures. Dreher et al. (2021) found that when researchers from Germany and Chinese Taiwan were given the same vignette, they identified different breaches of classroom norms, highlighting the danger of assuming cross-cultural equivalence.

Third, language and translation pose additional challenges. Mathematical language, classroom discourse norms, and even the structure of the vignette itself may not translate cleanly across languages, risking misinterpretation or shallow responses (Raval et al., 2025). For instance, a mathematical justification that is valued in one context may be ignored or misunderstood in another context due to linguistic or cultural differences. Finally, there is a risk of “priming” effects—where the design of the vignette or the prompts provided subtly steer participants to focus on certain elements, reflecting the biases of the researchers or the dominant educational culture from which the vignette originates (Ivars et al., 2025). This can be compounded when participants are aware they are being assessed, leading to responses that reflect perceived expectations rather than authentic noticing.

In sum, while vignettes are valuable for standardizing stimuli and sparking reflection, researchers must interpret results with caution, supplement vignettes with richer data sources, and, where possible, co-design vignettes with educators from different cultural backgrounds to ensure relevance and fairness.

The need for longitudinal and interventional studies

Current reviews and empirical studies highlight the need for longitudinal and interventional research designs to advance the field (König et al., 2022; Weyers et al., 2024). Most existing studies, including those in this Special Issue, are cross-sectional or based on single vignettes or reflection cycles. While these provide valuable snapshots, they cannot reveal how noticing develops and is sustained over time, or how changes in noticing practice impact classroom instruction and student learning.

Longitudinal studies are essential for understanding how teacher noticing develops over time, how it is shaped by ongoing experience, and how changes in noticing relate to changes in teaching practice and student learning outcomes (Santagata & Yeh, 2016; Yang et al., 2019). For example, studies have found that experienced teachers demonstrate more nuanced and flexible noticing than novices, but the pathways through which this expertise develops—whether through deliberate reflection, mentoring, or shifts in cultural frames—remain underexplored (Zhang et al., 2025; Zuo & Qi, 2025). Chen et al. (2025) suggested that sustained use of focused frameworks in video-based professional development could lead to lasting improvements in Chinese teachers’ sensitivity to student thinking, but this hypothesis requires empirical validation.

Interventional studies, such as those testing the impact of structured lesson study, video clubs, or targeted noticing modules, can provide causal evidence of what works to enhance teacher noticing. Recent research has shown that interventions can shift teachers’ focus from surface features to deeper student thinking, promote cultural responsiveness, and lead to more adaptive and effective instruction (Amador & Weston, 2024; Bruns, 2024; Lee, 2021; Santagata & Yeh, 2016; van Es & Sherin, 2021). For example, Zuo and Qi (2025) observed that through multiple cycles of collaborative lesson study, Chinese teachers gradually moved from an exam-oriented to a student-centered frame of noticing, resulting in more mathematically meaningful classroom practices. Moreover, only longitudinal or interventional designs can reveal sustained changes in noticing—whether teachers maintain new noticing practices over time, and whether these lead to improvements in student engagement, understanding, or equity. Without such evidence, it is difficult to know whether observed differences in noticing are stable, context-dependent, or merely artifacts of the research design.

Finally, longitudinal and interventional studies allow for the examination of “noticing trajectories” across different cultural and institutional settings, helping to identify both universal patterns and context-specific pathways of professional learning. This is especially important in a globalized era, where teachers increasingly work in diverse, multilingual, and rapidly changing environments.

Implications for mathematics teacher education and research

The findings synthesized in this Special Issue offer several important implications for mathematics teacher education and research.

First, there is a clear need for culturally responsive teacher preparation. Programmes should explicitly engage future teachers in reflecting on their own cultural frames, learning to notice and value the diverse mathematical strengths students bring to the classroom, while considering how cultural, linguistic, and institutional factors shape both student thinking and instructional practice. As Chen et al. (2025) showed, teacher noticing frameworks must be contextually adapted—Eurocentric models cannot simply be transplanted—for use in a culturally different contexts such as China.

Second, teacher educators should make strategic use of vignettes and video analysis, but always in conjunction with authentic classroom experiences, collaborative reflection, and opportunities for teachers to test and refine their noticing in practice. Teacher noticing should be developed not as a generic skill, but as a practice that is context-sensitive, adaptive, and responsive to student diversity.

Third, research on teacher noticing should increasingly examine the impact of noticing on student learning, classroom equity, and teacher well-being—moving beyond self-report or hypothetical scenarios to real-world outcomes. This requires mixed-methods approaches and close collaboration between researchers, teachers, and school communities. Finally, the international research community should prioritize the design and dissemination of longitudinal and interventional studies that examine how noticing develops, how it can be supported, and how it interacts with other aspects of professional competence across diverse educational systems.

Conclusion

This Special Issue, themed “Teacher Noticing in Mathematics Teaching: A Cross-Cultural Dialogue,” demonstrates that teacher noticing is both a universal and deeply contextualized practice. While the cognitive acts of attending, interpreting, and responding provide a common analytic language, what teachers actually notice and value is shaped by their experiences, professional traditions, and cultural frames. As Lampert aptly stated, “When classroom culture is taken into consideration, it becomes clear that teaching is not only about teaching what is conventionally called content. It is also teaching students what a lesson is and how to participate in it” (Lampert, 1990, pp. 34–35). Culturally responsive noticing, which recognizes and leverages the mathematical resources of all students, is essential for equitable and effective mathematics instruction. At the same time, the use of vignettes, while valuable, has methodological limits, especially in cross-cultural research. As Biggs and Watkins (2001) have cautioned, teaching and learning traditions that may work well in a certain culture may not necessarily be effective in another. Nevertheless, practices such as teacher noticing, when examined in international contexts, can offer valuable insights and opportunities for improving practice elsewhere, especially when contexts and cultures are taken into consideration. This is one of the main reasons we have curated this collection of research articles, aiming to address teacher noticing in practice in diverse cultural settings. To truly understand and support the development of teacher noticing, the field must move toward longitudinal and interventional research that captures the complexities of classroom life and the trajectories of teacher learning. Only then can we fully understand how mathematics teachers notice—and how to help them notice in ways that support all learners, everywhere.