Lesson Study: The Core of Japanese Professional Development
Every principal who has tried implementing a change in teaching culture and methods in her school knows just how difficult it can be. With the pressures of running and teaching in a school, comes a natural resistance to new and alien ideas. And yet, it is this resistance that the leader must overcome to create the Art of Transformation. Lesson Study, a widespread practice in Japan brings hope to leaders who aspire to create a masterpiece in their schools.
Our View: There are several web and print based resources available for teachers these days. As described in this article there are new methods being used to developed lesson plans. An interesting point discussed here is recording classroom sessions and using the student responses as leads to creating new lesson plans. Do teachers make use of these research-based tools?
Are classrooms a monotonous delivery of textual content?
Do teachers look at themselves as resources or facilitators who help students discover new material available outside the classroom?
Catherine Lewis, a leading educational researcher, has studied the practice of Lesson Study in the Japanese school education system. She was introduced to the practice when she realised that teachers all across Japan are very effective at teaching Science. When she asked a large number of teachers where they learnt how to teach Science, she got the same answer: “jugyou kenkyuu” – lesson study or research lessons.
Research Lessons, as Lewis describes them, are actual classroom lessons which share the following characteristics:
1. Research Lessons are planned for a long time.
2. Research Lessons are observed by other teachers.
3. Research Lessons are designed to bring to life a particular goal or vision of education.
4. Research Lessons are recorded.
5. Research Lessons are discussed.
In essence, the practice of lesson study involves a group of teachers carefully planning a lesson on a particular topic with the aim of bringing to life a particular goal or vision (for example, a student-centered classroom). These teachers actually conduct the lesson which is both observed by other teachers and recorded for future reference. This is followed by a seminar in which the teachers discuss, dissect and share the learnings from the experiment.
As an example, Catherine Lewis describes in detail a research lesson on levers from the Komae School no. 7 a normal public school. The vision that was being implemented in this lesson was “letting students value friendship and yet build their own perspectives and ways of thinking.” In this context, the teachers chose to “introduce levers in a way that really motivates the student’s desire to learn, and that encourages and emboldens them to develop their own perspectives.” In the process of planning the lesson, the teachers share various ways in which they have taught the lesson before and discuss which ways will help them reach their goal. They decide to challenge students by asking them to lift 100 kg bag of sand, and then group the students with similar ideas together to put their thoughts into practice. The teachers have never tried this before, and wish to find out if this will help promote individual thinking.
On the day of the lesson, many teachers from the school are observing. While the plan is put into action, teachers take note of how it goes, and record student interactions, questions, etc. After the lesson, a colloquium is organized where the teachers who planned and conducted a session speak about their experience and then open the forum for discussion. In this process, the lesson gets discussed in detail, and different points of view about what students learnt get shared.
1. Individual Professional Development
2. Teachers learning to see children
3. Spread of new content and approaches
4. Honouring the Central Role of Teachers
This is an abridged version of Lewis C. “Lesson Study: The Core of Japanese Professional Development” – Invited address to the Special Interest Group in Mathematics Education – American Educational Research Association Meetings, New Orleans, 2000.
(The transcript of the original talk can be found at www.lessonresearch.net/aera2000.pdf)
5 Comments to Lesson Study: The Core of Japanese Professional Development
Leave a comment
Official Websites
Recent Comments
- Who is the greatest teacher of the world? | Educational Initiatives Blog on Greatest Teachers!
- NITISHA on ASSET Question A Day
- Dentist in Los Angeles on The Creativity Crisis – For the first time, research shows that American creativity is declining. What went wrong—and how we can fix it.
- ketki on ASSET Question A Day
- Aditya on ASSET Question A Day
hi! iam sure the new innovative learning techniques in class would make the lessons interesting but there are so many restrictions and limitations that one hesitates to implement them .If teachers are given more flexibility things would change . But is this an El Dorado when we come to think about the lengthy syllabus ?
hi! i feel that trend in teaching methodologies have undergone a drastic change. teachers need to be facilitators and above all good learners. innovative method is the only way by which the teacher can captivate and sustain the interest of the students.
Dear all,
I feel that all the teachers must be prepaed for changing trends in education.The conventional class room teaching has to be avoided to sustain the interest of the students.
K.Lakshmi Rao
The Jain International school
Hyderabad
The Lesson study approach works wonders! Seeing it in action showed me a two fold advantage..
1. of course the students benefit from a a well thought out lesson plan and a teacher who is cognitively tuned in to the student’s learning path.
2. this to me is a greater advantage – teachers open up to learning from each other – becoming listeners ourselves and for once accepting that not all is known to us – the collective energy and intellect of teh stuydy group teachers is appreciated far more and with openess. The ego takes a backseat and the stage is no longer a one person domain
thanks
-Reshma
i think that the children should get proper teachers to make the children’s dream come trueso asset should be there for the children living in villages for thier sake
of good.