Lesson Study:
How and why it improves
teaching and learning so
powerfully
Peter Dudley
Lesson Study MLD Project Launch
Exeter
25 - 26th November 2010
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Aims
• To find out what Lesson Study is
• To learn about how it works
• To understand this in the wider context of
teacher professional knowledge & learning
• To understand something about why it
works – and what makes it distinct from
other forms of professional learning
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Two traditional professional
learning environments
Teachers
Centre
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Operating
Theatre
Discussion activity – critique
1. Work in fours and allocate each A,B,C,D.
2. A – Boxes sheet – B - Booklet p.5. 6 & 7.
3. C p.8, 9 & 10 D – p11, 12, 13.
4. Read and make notes, questions,
reflections (5 minutes)
5. Each feeds back to the group for 2
minutes – and each takes turns to make
the notes
UNIVERSITY
OFpoints
CAMBRIDGE as a group or feedback
6. Agree
3
Faculty of Education
Latest research – what makes
the most difference?
School Leadership and Student Outcomes: Identifying What Works and Why
Best Evidence Synthesis, by Viviane Robinson, Margie Hohepa, Claire Lloyd
(The University of Auckland), published by the New Zealand Ministry of
Education 2009.
Promoting and participating in professional learning about teaching and learning is the most
effective thing school leaders can do, to have the greatest impact on pupils’ learning, progress and
attainment.
Leaders who promote and participate in teachers’ professional learning:
• have a focus on teaching and learning are able to support improvements in the quality of teaching
and learning because they build up a shared understanding of what is working and why, what
needs to be improved and how to do this, including freeing up time for CPD
• help to generate a collective, constructive approach to problem solving as part of an effective
school improvement strategy
• encourage teachers to use ‘smart tools’ that help to improve teaching and learning.
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
5
What forms of professional learning make
the most difference to pupil learning?
• Classroom Collaborative Professional Learning
– EPPI reviews (2003,4,5)
– LH2L (2005)
– TDA State of the Nation Report (2009-10)
• Evidence that Lesson Study results in:
–
–
–
–
Raised expectations for underachieving pupils
Improved understanding of their needs
Improved PCK of techniques which will work for them
Lasting changes in practice
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
‘We must place ourselves inside the heads
of our students colleagues (as they
assess, plan and teach) and try to
understand as far as possible the sources
and strengths of their conceptions’
While bearing in mind the
nature of teacher practice
knowledge…
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Improving schools requires us all to
understand what teachers believe and
think – ‘it is as simple and as complex
as that’ – Fullan
But…….
Teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and practice do not
always coincide
Classrooms are complex working environments
Teacher practice knowledge is 90% tacit
….and ‘expert’ knowledge is different again!
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Pedagogical Content Knowledge
• Common content knowledge
– e.g. knowing how to calculate (x) x (y)
• Specialised content knowledge
– e.g. subject and knowledge/skill unique to teaching
– how and why the place value system works– self
conscious SK
• Knowledge of content and of students
– Combines knowing about students and knowing
about mathematics
‘Ability to hear and interpret students emerging and
incomplete thinking as expressed in the ways that
students use language’
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
(Ball, Hoover-Thames & Phelps, 2008)
Learning
Participation or Construction
• Learning happens through:
– joining in,
– social interaction
– talk,
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Learning in a Community of
Practice involves:
• Learning in the place
where the work is being
done
• Negotiation of meaning
• Reification
• The agency of boundary
workers
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Classrooms
Knowledge + Structured,
unfettered, accountable
talk
Standard tools (lesson
plans, observation
proforma, video,
pupils’ work)
Subject leads, D/Hs
principals, (Leading
Teachers)..pupils…
Lave and Wenger, 2002
What makes LS distinct?
• Drawing on external (researched) evidence of
what works well
• Multiple perspectives – slow down the classroom
• Joint ownership – reduces ‘ego involvement’
• Case pupils - sharpen the focus
• Eliciting practice to share with others – ‘meta’
level re-articulation stabilises new knowledge.
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Determining the focus of a Lesson
Study
Pupil learning to be improved/ developed.
Curricular content to
be taught
Teaching approach to
be developed, refined
or innovated
Jointly plan,
teach/observe
analyse, share
Focus
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
on pupils’
learning
(not teachers’ teaching)
• Important issues emerged
from the Lesson Study
pilot:
– the formal involvement of
pupils in Lesson Study
– the nature of teacher
learning in the pilot study
– school leadership of
Lesson Study
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
‘..you view the video afterwards
and you see what you're doing
and sometimes you don’t even
know you're doing it, you do it
automatically and you can like
think, ‘Oh I've done that wrong, I
can like improve on that later on,
next lesson maybe’ or
something’. (JG Project Y9
pupil)
‘..they see that learning is a
process that they can have an
impact on, that changes, that’s
dynamic and from that they
begin to take ownership of the
whole learning process, they
take responsibility for it and also
they're helped. It's amazing
because … they're engaging
with us, in helping us to help
them to learn. Incredible stuff
really, incredible stuff’. (PM
Project teacher)
Case pupils
• Represent typical learner groups
• Are a focus for planning, observation, analysis
discussion
• Resonate with teachers’ use of ‘steering groups’
in day to day teaching (Clark & Peterson, 1986)
• Deflect the attention from the teacher (less ego
involving)
• Focus attention on the specifics of what is/not
being learned by particular kinds of learner
• Create micro – level accountability
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Draft findings (PD phase 2
research)
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Categories of teacher talk
Disputational
/
Qualificatory
Organisational
Understanding
Structuring
Dudley, 2010 forthcoming adapted from
Mercer 1995
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Cumulative
Exploratory
Relationships of Exploratory Talk Interaction Functions to
observed teacher learning
(Accept)
Reason
Rehearse
Develop
Observe
Propose
Exploratory
Talk
Summarise
Hypothesise
Challenge
Justify
Suggest
Reflect
Knowledge Generating Interaction Sequence
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Observing case pupils helps to change
long held beliefs
• ‘Yeh I went round and filmed a few things and
what really came out was if you have paired
pupils up correctly it is really helpful. A (a case
pupil) was with K (another case pupil). And K
was explaining. And K was getting it slightly
wrong. And as he was explaining it to A he
realised he was going wrong. And he explained
it again. So K not only got it clear in his head
because he was having to explain it to A. A
learned from K too. So you're right.’ (Dudley, P,.
forthcoming)
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Knowledge from Research Lessons
• Focuses on PCK
• Is mainly communicated, hypothesised – co-constructed
through ‘rehearsal’ simulation
• Replaces previous pupil assessments and pupil
knowledge (during post lesson analysis discussion)
• Is complex and detailed and jointly owned
• Evaporates quickly
• Can be ‘captured’ longer term by coaching-on,
presenting to others or public teaching / open house
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education
Common fields of knowledge
reference
Knowledge
Knowledge
gained from
research lesson
observation,
notes, pupil
work etc
Knowledge of
the child
Motivation
Knowledge of
pedagogy
gained from
pupil interviews
after the
research lesson
Learning
opportunities
Optimum pupil
and teacher
learning
Knowledge of
Feedback
curriculum
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Explicit
Faculty of Education
PCK gained
from K.G.I.S. &
simulation
Dudley, 2010
forthcoming adapted
from Dudley, TES,
2008
Shift from individual ‘ego involvement’ in
research lesson to joint ownership
Individuals as
stakeholders in
the research
lesson
Group ownership
of the research
lesson
This opens up the disposition to take risks, to
accept challenge, to adjust own thinking and
eventually beliefs - in order to make the joint
endeavour succeed.
And THIS
isOFwhat
builds ‘learning community’!
UNIVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE
Faculty of Education