Between now and the end of this academic year we are planning to facilitate and engage in another round of the Lesson Study programme of action research as a way of pursuing our ‘continued professional learning’. This blog posts aims to reinforce (for those familiar with the programme) or introduce (for those that are not) the Lesson Study concept and programme and to explain how we at Newlands will be engaging with the Lesson Study concept.
What is it? Lesson Study is a ‘highly specified form of classroom action research involving groups of teachers collaboratively planning, teaching, observing and analysing learning and teaching in ‘research lessons”. Pete Dudley, the man responsible for bring Lesson Study to the United Kingdom paints a picture of the origins, rationale and impact of Lesson Study over the past decade in this excellent blog post: ‘Lesson Study: professional learning for our time’.
How does it work? The process involves the following stages:
1. Analyse your data and identify your focus Use data from day to day assessment to agree a focus for pupils’ learning and progress. The research focus will always look something like: ‘We want to learn how to improve the way we teach…..X.. to Y.’
2. Identify your lesson study group Two, three or more people with dedicated time and support. Set ground rules for assessed risk taking and joint ownership of the research lessons.
3. Connect with, and draw on, what is already known about your focus before you start work Carry out a review of relevant research (including previous lesson studies), to identify a tried and tested teaching technique to develop or improve the agreed area of focus. *The focus for our Lesson Study triads this year will be ‘Growth’ as laid out in the school’s Teaching and Learning vision.
4. Identify 3 case pupils (or multiples of 3) Identify 3 case pupils. Each should typify a group of learners in the class – for example, high, middle and low attaining in the strand being taught and developed.
5. Jointly plan a research lesson based on the needs of the case pupils Jointly plan a ‘study lesson’ which uses, develops and closely studies the effects of the identified technique – while keeping in mind the case study pupils.
6. Teach and jointly observe the study lesson Focus on the case pupils’ learning and progress. Think about and agree key points you want to gather data on. Record this. Think about and plan who will be doing what and when. What questions do you plan to ask?
7. Interview the case pupils Gather the insights of the case pupils into the study lesson.
8. Hold a post lesson discussion Hold this discussion as soon as possible after the study lesson. Discuss how the case study pupils responded to the techniques, what progress they made and what can be learned about the application of the technique. What each person feels they have learned.
9. Find ways of helping others to learn from your Lesson Study By planning to share learning with others, you are ensuring the learning doesn’t just stay with you. People have found that by presenting their learning to others, they further their own learning and deepen their understanding of what they have learned. You can present your findings in a number of ways eg. through a public research lesson (as in Japan), a presentation, writing a case study which can be disseminated on this site. Dudley, P 2008, ‘Improving practice and progression through Lesson Study’ Routledge
Our focus All Lesson Study groups will have the research focus of ‘Growth’ as laid out in the Teaching and Learning Vision and introduced as part of this years Staff Training in sessions delivered by Will Ord, Helen Walker and Craig Lucas.
What stage our we at? As is hopefully clear from the staged framework above we are currently entering stage, 2. Identify your lesson study group, where we will be arranging ourselves into triads.
What next? We will have ‘dedicated time’ to share and carry out our review of research (associated with Growth), and to begin to collaboratively plan a lesson/ sequence of learning that will be used as part of the process on Monday 8th June (15.15 – 16.15).
Further Reading Should you wish to read up further about the programme the Lesson Study UK website is a great starting place: http://lessonstudy.co.uk, as is the Lesson Study Handbook (2014) available here: ‘Lesson Study Handbook (2014)’
Newlands Girls' School 