Introduction to Lesson

Study

Presenter: Mr. Kifle Yilma

Regional SMASEE Trainer

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 Components of the session
1. Rationale of the session

2. Objectives of the session

3. Session plan

4. What is a lesson study?

5. Basic components of lesson study

6. The purpose of lesson study

7. Examples of countries implementing lesson study

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 1. Rationale of the session
• The baseline survey found out:
– M&S lessons of our schools were still teacher-
centered, and student’s participation is limited and their
learning tends to be a passive way;
– teacher’s skill gap in teaching methods, facilitation,
communication, utilization of teaching and learning
aids, lesson planning and assessment.
• Therefore, in order to realize and promote “active
learning” in our classrooms, an intervention
should be provided for all these areas as a
continuous form of training, by employing lesson
study approach.
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 2. Objectives of the session
After the end of the presentation , the
participants will be able to:
• Describe the importance and procedure of lesson
study approach;

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 3. Session plan
Activities Time
1 Presentation by facilitator and 40 min
(Video show)
2 Discussion / Q&A 20 min

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 4. What is a lesson study?
• Ls is a teacher-led instructional improvement
cycle in which teachers work collaboratively
to: Formulate goals for student learning, plan
a lesson , teach and /or observe the lesson,
reflect on the gathered evidence, revise the
lesson for improvement, and re-teach the
revised lesson.

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• .. Following the lesson , a two-hour reflection
session will be conducted. The teacher who
taught the lesson spoke first, reflecting on the
lesson noting what went well, and difficulties
in the lesson before others shared their
reflection, next members who assisted in
planning the lesson shared their onbservation
notes reflecting on the goals for the student s.

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 5. Basic components of lesson study
 Consider
requirements of
syllabus
3. Evaluate 1. Plan  Study
available
Reflect and resources
analysis of the  Explore the
lesson based on contents of the
observation with topics
colleagues
Practical 2. Implement Implement the lesson in
suggestions to classroom setting
improve the Observe the lesson and
lesson collect data on student
learning and devt.
Observers evaluate the
lesson based on the
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specific items of concern
 6. The purpose of lesson study
• Professional development;
• Sharing good practices among teachers;
• Improving teaching skills through reflective practice;
• Enhancing content knowledge;
• Building a learning community through collaborative
work among teachers;
• Reducing the gap between intended curriculum
(syllabus) and implemented curriculum (lessons);
and implemented curriculum (lessons) and attained
curriculum (attainment by students).
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7. Examples countries of implementing
lesson study
LS has been implemented in Japan, America, Australia,
Philippines and Malaysia and has been found to be
effective for improving classroom teaching.

Zambia
•The Ministry of Education of Zambia introduced this
approach in their in-service teacher training programme
called “School-Based Continuous Professional
Development (SBCPD)” programme in 2005.
•After the pilot phase of three years, some degree of
improvement was observed in science lessons as follows:

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7. Examples of countries implementing
lesson study
Small-scale case study in Ethiopia
• It was implemented in one of the cluster
(consisting of one center school and four cluster
schools) in Oromia Region.
• As discussed in the research paper by Dr. Jeilu,
remarkable differences in achievement of the
students were observed before and after the
intervention as follows:

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 Schools Students Pre-test Post-test
Dhankaka CRC No. of students sat for test 274 274

Mean scores achieved 4.91 7.31

No. of students passed 140 234
No. of students failed 134 30
Dhankaka No.2 No. of students sat for test 100 100

Mean scores achieved 5.02 6.59

No. of students passed 64 91
No. of students failed 36 9
Gubasaye No. of students sat for test 46 46
Mean scores achieved 5.38 6.62
No. of students passed 32 42
No. of students failed 14 2
Giche No. of students sat for test 27 27
Mean scores achieved 5.93 7.26
No. of students passed 25 27
No. of students failed 2 0
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Video Show!

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• Although research on lesson study is still in its
infancy, there are considerable efforts at
implementation of LS occurring around the
globe.
• LS is a complex professional learning approach
• LS is a collaboration-based teacher professional
devt. approach that originated in Japan.

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• Despite the rapid rate of interest in this
approach to professional development, LS
remains new to countries outside of Japan,
and most schools and teachers are at the early
stage of adoption ( take it as it is)and
implementation of the innovation
 LS incorporates many characteristics of
effective professional development programs
identified in prior research
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• It is site- based, practice- oriented, focused on
student learning, collaboration-based, and
research oriented.
• The idea is simple: teachers originally come
together with a shared question regarding
their students’ learning, plan a lesson to
make a student learning visible, and examine
and discussed what they observe.

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 LS typically follows the steps outlined below
After identifying a lesson goal, teachers plan a
lesson. The goals can be general at first ( e.g.,
how students understand equivalent
fractions), and are increasing refined and
focused throughout the lesson study process
to be specific research question by the
end(e.g., strategies students use to compare
2/4 and3/6), teachers choose and/or design a
teaching approach to make student learning
visible, keeping their goal in mind.
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 Cont’d
• The main purpose of this step is not to plan a
perfect lesson but to test a teaching approach
in a live context to study how students learn.
During planning , teachers also have an
opportunity to study curricular materials,
which can help teachers content knowledge
devt. During the lesson, teachers attend to
student approach.

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 Cont’d
• In the debriefing after the lesson, teachers
discuss student learning based on the data
they have collected during the observation.
• There are other professional devt. Programs
that incorporates many of the characteristics
of lesson study (e.g., action research, teacher
research).
• In Japan lesson study has been widely used
for over a century.
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 LS Focuses on student learning
• Teaching is viewed as an interactive process in
which student learning and content come
together through effective teacher facilitation.
• When experienced teachers come together
and observe a live lesson , their expert
knowledge comes to the surface as they
interact the effectiveness of the lesson and
discuss it in the debriefing

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 Teacher learning
• LS also provides opportunities for teachers to
develop their pedagogical content knowledge.
Different types of knowledge(e.g., knowledge
of content ,curricula, and student learning)
come together and interact together with one
another during the lesson study cycle.Often in
traditional professional devlopment, these
different types of knowledge are learned
separetly (e.g., attending a lecture on math
content, reading a book on classroom
management). 21
 Cont’d
• In a lesson study , they come together and
work interdependently to support student
learning in a very practice of teaching , thus
helping teachers experience different types of
knowledge in coherent and related whole.

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 Research on lesson study (The case of US)

Teacher
Lesson study
activity learning Outcomes
Knowledge base
1. Plan a lesson 1. Increased
based on
objectives knowledge and
connections
2. Observe the
lesson and collect among
data on student Support knowledge(e.g., Lead to Improved
learning . content
3 use these data to knowledge,
classroom
reflect on the pedagogical
lesson knowledge,
4. If desired , revise knowledge of
and re-teach the
student practice
lesson to a new
group of students learning.

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 Learning About LS Together
1. LS is centered around teachers’ interests.
2. Lesson study is student focused.
3. LS has a research lesson
4. Ls is a reflexive process.
5. Lesson study is collaborative

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 Summary
• Ls is a teacher-led instructional improvement
cycle in which teachers work collaboratively
to: Formulate goals for student learning, plan
a lesson , teach and /or observe the lesson,
reflect on the gathered evidence, revise the
lesson for improvement, and re-teach the
revised lesson.

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• .. Following the lesson , a two-hour reflection
session will be conducted. The teacher who
taught the lesson spoke first, reflecting on the
lesson noting what went well, and difficulties
in the lesson before others shared their
reflection, next members who assisted in
planning the lesson shared their onbservation
notes reflecting on the goals for the student s.

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 4. What is a lesson study?
• A lesson study is a problem solving process whereby
teachers work together for improving classroom lessons,
employing “Plan – Implement – Evaluate” principle.
• In this approach, groups of teachers will plan a lesson, a
designated teacher gives the lesson based on the lesson
plan in the presence of observers, and after the lesson the
teacher and the observers discuss it to identify opportunities
for improvement.
• Learning from other teacher’s experiences and practices
using actual lessons allow teachers to develop knowledge
and skills of utilizing teaching and learning materials
effectively and of assessing and understanding the
students.
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