Lesson study

Teachers learn how to improve instruction

By Joan Richardson

Tools for Schools, February/March 2004

When Becky LaChapelle and Nancy Sundberg joined a lesson study team in Rochester, N.Y., two years ago, they were expecting to learn how to improve their ability to teach mathematics. What they didn't expect was how much they would learn about improving student learning.

"It has totally changed my practice. I don't look at a lesson the same way. Every lesson I do, whether it's a study lesson or a day-to-day lesson, I always think 'What is the student response going to be?', 'What do I want students to show so I will know they have learned this?'," said LaChapelle, math specialist at Kodak Park School in Rochester.

The process of lesson study--a practice imported to the U.S. from Japan - stands apart from many professional development practices because it focuses on "our children in our classrooms," said Sundberg, a 4th-grade teacher at the Children's School of Rochester.

In the words of Catherine Lewis, one of the leading U.S. researchers on lesson study, "tests and student work may offer information about what to improve, (but) lesson study also sheds light on how to improve."

"Lesson study" is different from "lesson planning" because it focuses on what teachers want students to learn rather than on what teachers plan to teach. In lesson study, a group of teachers develops a lesson together and ultimately one of them teaches the lesson while the others observe the student learning. The entire group comes together to debrief the lesson and often revises and re-teaches the lesson to incorporate what has been learned.

Lesson study is as much a culture as a professional development activity, said Tad Watanabe, a professor of mathematics education at Pennsylvania State University who worked with the Rochester lesson study group. Being successful at lesson study requires teachers to feel comfortable sharing with each other and observing each other teaching. Having a collaborative culture in the first place benefits a group's ability to engage in lesson study, he said. But lesson study may also show teachers the value of working together more closely.

Developing the lesson as a team signals that the lesson is owned by all participants. It is the lesson and the learning that it generates that is being evaluated during the observation, not the teacher. Observers are told to watch for evidence of student thinking, student learning, and student confusion. They make notes on what students say, whether they are collaborating, whether they are engaged during the lesson, and the work they produce as a result of the lesson.

Lesson study is one of those professional development strategies that is deceptively simple on the surface and remarkably complex as you begin to probe beneath the surface. What follows is an overview of the steps involved in lesson study, each of which can be expanded greatly.

7 steps of lesson study

1. Form a lesson study team.
Begin by recruiting teachers interested in the concept of lesson study and who work with a similar group of students or a similar topic. For example, lesson study teams might be composed of 4th-grade teachers who work in three different schools, teachers of 8th-grade American history in one middle school, or specialists who help other teachers integrate technology into their instruction.

In Rochester, 15 teachers from several schools worked on two different lesson studies for two years. All of the participants were elementary school teachers who had been part of a summer Thinking Math institute offered by the American Federation of Teachers. Facilitator Alice Gill, associate director in AFT's educational issues department, suggested lesson study as a way to follow-up and transfer what teachers had learned in the institute. Because Gill works in Washington, D.C., much of the team discussion about the lessons occurred online, but the team did re-assemble in order to observe and debrief the completed lesson.

One of the teachers can facilitate the team or, as in Rochester's case, an outside person may be facilitator.

Each lesson study team also needs a "knowledgeable other" to provide perspective and a broader view of the issues. These individuals may also be known as outside commentator, evaluator, or outside advisor. Typically, knowledgeable others are university professors who bring a depth of expertise in the given content area but they could be districtwide curriculum specialists or specialists from a regional education agency.

Watanabe was Rochester's knowledgeable other. He cautions that anyone who is selected for that role should come in with the mindset of being a learner. "You have something to share but you have to have this notion that you are also there so you can learn from it," he said. When knowledgeable others have that learning mindset, he said, it sends a message that lesson study is a process for professional learning.

2. Focus the lesson study.
The lesson study team selects a research theme that captures schoolwide goals as well as the academic content goals for students. If the teachers in the group are from a single grade level, they will choose a subject area in which to focus their work.

Then, the team identifies a unit or lesson on which to focus. They thoroughly discuss the unit and agree about what they are trying to achieve with the lesson. The crucial question is: What do we want students to know and be able to do when this lesson is concluded? In order to answer this question, teachers also must understand how this lesson links to others in the subject, both in this grade and future grades.

One of Rochester's study lessons was "What happens to area when you double the sides of a square?" The second was "What is the value of 25 in 2,500?"

This part of the work could take from one to four meetings.

3. Plan the study lesson.
The bulk of the lesson study team's work occurs in the planning of the lesson. This may require between three and six face-to-face meetings or several months of online discussion.

As they begin, teachers share and discuss their existing lessons related to the topic, explaining what they believe has been successful and where they believe the lessons could be improved.

The facilitator keeps the conversation moving by focusing the discussion on the lesson that these teachers will develop together.

Developing the lesson as a group signals that the lesson is owned by all participants. This is key because it sets the stage for the observation in which the lesson - the product of the entire team - and the learning that it generates is being evaluated and not the teacher who is presenting the lesson as a representative of the team.

A crucial piece of planning the lesson includes anticipating student responses to various aspects of the lesson and preparing appropriate teacher responses: If the student does or asks X, then the teacher does Y. The group also identifies what students will say and do that will signal that they have learned what the teacher intends to have them learn.

In assisting the planning, the facilitator and the knowledgeable other walk a fine line when guiding teachers, Gill said. In her Rochester experience, for example, she realized teachers were making an inaccurate assumption. Gill refrained from pointing out their error, believing that they would learn by discovering the error on their own.

"These are adults. You have to respect what wonderful experiences they have and all of that. You can't leave it all so wide open that they wander off and over a cliff. But you do have to allow them to make the decisions," Gill said.

4. Prepare for the observation.
The lesson study team may want to invite additional observers--such as the superintendent, union president, and lead teachers--to the study lesson. The team ensures that each person at the observation knows the expectations of the lesson study and the ground rules for observing the lesson. All observers will collect data that will be shared in the debriefing. The "data" are the comments of students and the work students produce during the lesson.

In some situations, the team assigns certain observers to closely watch the work and comments of particular students.

The lesson study team prepares copies of the lesson plan, seating chart, and any worksheets that students will be using.

The lesson study team prepares the classroom so observers can circulate freely among students or stand comfortably around the periphery during whole-class instruction.

5. Teaching and observing the lesson. On the day of the study lesson, all of the observers gather in one area in advance and everyone goes to the room together. The teacher probably will introduce the observers as a group before beginning the lesson.

Having observers in the room is what enables the team to learn so much about the lesson being taught. As Rochester facilitator Alice Gill said, "it's 14 pairs of eyes observing in the classroom and seeing what one teacher simply cannot pick up if she's the only one person in front of that classroom."

"A teacher could not possibly have walked around and written down the comments of all 25 students. But the other adults who were observing were writing down the conversations they overheard," said LaChapelle.

"Even though it's a study lesson, we're still managing the classroom. Someone has to go to the bathroom or somebody doesn't have a glue stick and the teacher has to handle that. But everyone else was free to just observe. They could really hone in on the conversation and what students were thinking and doing," Sundberg said.

6. Debriefing the lesson. Rochester teacher Nancy Sundberg calls the debriefing "the meat of lesson study" because this is the time when the lesson study teams share their learning from the observation.

The entire lesson study team plus any additional observers gather following the lesson to begin the debriefing. Some groups may choose to continue the debriefing in later meetings as well. See Page 6 for a more detailed structure for the debriefing.

7. Reflect and plan the next steps.
Depending on what teachers learn in the debriefing, the team may decide to revise and re-teach the lesson. Calendar issues and other circumstances may make that difficult in some schools.

Lesson Study Cycle

1. Goal-setting and planning

Select planning team.
Identify goals for student learning and long-term development.
Collaboratively plan instruction designed to bring these goals to life, including a "research" or "study" lesson that will be observed.

2. Research or study lesson

One planning team member teaches classroom lesson while other team members collect data on student thinking, learning, engagement, behavior, etc

3. Lesson debriefing

Share and analyze data collected at research or study lesson.
What is the evidence that goals for student learning and development were fostered?
What improvements to the lesson and to instruction more generally should be considered?

4. Consolidation of learning

If desired, refine and re-teach the lesson and study it again.
Write report that includes the lesson plan, student data, and reflections about what was learned.
Share the lesson with all