hiebert and stigler 2000

A Proposal for Improving Classroom Teaching: Lessons from the TIMSS Video StudyAuthor(s): James Hiebert and James W. StiglerSource: The Elementary School Journal, Vol. 101, No. 1 (Sep., 2000), pp. 3-20Published by: The University of Chicago PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1002332Accessed: 03/12/2008 19:30

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A Proposal for Improving Classroom Teaching: Lessons from the TIMSS Video Study

James Hiebert University of Delaware

James W. Stigler University of California, Los Angeles

The Elementary School Journal Volume 101, Number 1 ? 2000 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0013-5984/2001/10101-0001$02.00

Abstract

Results from the Third International Mathemat- ics and Science Study (TIMSS) Video Study of Teaching show that many teachers in the United States believe they are changing the way they teach while they retain the core of traditional practice. Results from the video study, which also included teachers from Germany and Japan, along with comparisons of teacher development systems, help to explain the persistence of traditional teaching methods and point to a new model for improving teaching. After presenting results from the video study regarding teachers' perceptions of the effects of recent reforms on their practice, we propose a research and development system for improving teaching that builds on the Japanese process of lesson study. We describe the process as it works in Japan and outline the conditions that would enable such a process to function effectively in the United States.

Results from the Video Study of Teaching, conducted as part of the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), confirm what has been reported in many observation and case studies: efforts to reform education in the United States often influence classroom teaching at the margins, if at all (Cuban, 1993; Education Evaluation and Policy Analysis [EEPA], 1990; Ferrini- Mundy & Schram, 1997; Griffin, 1995; McLeod, Stake, Schappelle, Mellissinos, & Gierl, 1996; Spillane & Jennings, 1997; Stake & Easley, 1978; Stigler, Gonzales, Kawanaka, Knoll, & Serrano, 1999; Stigler & Hiebert, 1997, 1999; Tyack & Cuban, 1995). In this article we present data from the TIMSS Video Study on teachers' views of how the reform movement in mathematics education has affected their teaching and then abstract from the study an explanation for the

4 THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL JOURNAL

apparent mismatch between what teachers say and what they do. Based on these observations and on a comparison of teaching improvement systems in Japan and the United States, we propose a model for improving teaching that requires a fundamental shift away from traditional American methods of reform.

The TIMSS Video Study The video study of classroom mathematics teaching was included as part of TIMSS because the study planners were interested in collecting information on school factors that might be related to the anticipated achieve- ment differences. Instructional practices were assumed to be a central feature of schooling. The goals of the video study were (1) to learn how eighth-grade mathematics is taught in the United States, (2) to compare American teaching with teaching in Germany and Japan, and (3) to examine the influence of the reform recommendations on classroom practice.

Overview of Methods

Sample. The video sample was con- structed to be nationally representative by drawing a random subsample from the full TIMSS sample. Not only were specific teachers selected but specific class periods as well. No substitutions were allowed, either by another teacher within the same school or by another class period with the same teacher. The final video sample included 231 classrooms (one lesson per classroom): 100 in Germany, 50 in Japan, and 81 in the United States.

Data collection. Data were collected during the 1994-1995 school year and included the videotaped lesson and the teacher's responses on a questionnaire. To get useful, comparable video in all classrooms, numerous videography issues, such as where to point the camera at any given moment, had to be anticipated and resolved in advance. Standardized procedures for camera use were developed, tested, and revised, and videographers were trained.

Only one camera was used in each classroom, and it focused on what an ideal student would be focusing on-usually the teacher.

Teachers filled out a questionnaire about the taped lesson describing the goal of the lesson, its place within the current sequence of lessons, and how typical the lesson was. The questionnaire also asked how aware the teacher was of "current ideas" on teaching and how the taped lesson matched those ideas.

Lesson coding. Tapes were encoded and stored digitally on CD-ROM and were accessed and analyzed using multimedia database software developed for this project. All lessons were transcribed and then analyzed on a number of dimensions by teams of coders who were native speakers of the three languages.

The coding scheme was designed to cap- ture those aspects that might make a real difference in the mathematics the students were learning and to yield valid and infor- mative descriptions of instruction across the three cultures. The first goal was addressed by consulting the research on teaching and learning mathematics as well as reform documents such as Professional Standards for Teaching Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics [NCTM], 1991). To address the second goal, a team of six code developers, two from each country, spent the summer of 1994 watching and discussing 27 field test tapes. Out of these intensive discussions emerged the initial coding system. The system was refined regularly as the primary coding team began applying it to the actual study tapes and as intercoder reliability checks revealed categories needing further definition. (For more information on background, sampling, and procedures of the video study, see Stigler et al. [19991.)

Results: Believing in Reform but Retaining Practice

Beliefs about implementing reform recommendations. Based on teachers' re-

SEPTEMBER 2000

IMPROVING TEACHING 5

sponses on the questionnaire, most U.S. teachers are aware of "current ideas about

teaching and learning mathematics" and believe that these ideas are reflected in their

teaching. Interestingly, more U.S. teachers

responded positively to these questions than did their German and Japanese col-

leagues. Figure 1 shows that 95% of U.S. teachers

said they were somewhat or very aware of current ideas about teaching mathematics.

Responding to open-ended questions, they said that outside-of-school workshops and seminars, and school-based programs were the most likely sources of information about current ideas. Most U.S. teachers (59%) mentioned the NCTM Standards (NCTM, 1989, 1991) or another NCTM publication when asked what they had read to stay informed about current ideas.

Not only did U.S. teachers profess awareness of current ideas, most believed

they were implementing such ideas in their

teaching, including in the lesson that was

videotaped. As seen in Figure 2, 70% of U.S. teachers said that the videotaped lesson was at least a "fair amount" in accord with these ideas. Again, this percentage was

higher than for their German and Japanese colleagues.

Classroom practice. Despite the

strength of U.S. teachers' beliefs that they know about current ideas, as expressed in the NCTM Standards, for example, and are

100 0ONot at all aware

~ 80 mNot very aware

S *Somewhat aware

E"lVery aware 57

(. 60- 55 -

D 39 39 c 40 30 34

o 22 r(D 20

0 6

_ o5

0

Germany Jaoan United States

FIG. 1.-Teachers' ratings of how aware they are of current ideas about the teaching and learning of mathematics.

100 ONot at all IMA little

80 S0

A fair amount

0 60- 0 43

0 CD 377

g-40 6 232

0 0 0

Germany Jaoan United States

FIG. 2.-Teachers' perceptions regarding the extent to which the videotaped lesson was in accord with current ideas about the teaching and learning of mathematics.

implementing them in their classrooms, the evidence from their actual practice suggests otherwise. Full reports of the video data, as well as summaries, are available elsewhere (Manaster, 1998; Stigler et al., 1999; Stigler & Hiebert, 1997, 1998b, 1999), but a few in- dices will convey the nature of the results.

One indicator showed that, in the U.S. lessons, teachers usually just stated mathematical concepts rather than developing them (see Fig. 3). For example, U.S. teachers were more inclined simply to state the rule for adding exponents when multiplying al-

gebraic expressions than to show why the rule makes sense. The reverse tendency was found in other countries.

A second indicator revealed no instances of working through proofs or reasoning de-

ductively in U.S. lessons. In contrast, 10% of

0 Stated

100 -- EDeveloped S83.0

S 76.9 78.1 g 80-I 0 4 60

8 40

40

Germany JaDan United States

FIG. 3.-Average percentage of topics in the lessons that contained concepts that were stated or developed.


German lessons and 53% of Japanese lessons included proofs. A third indicator showed that almost all of U.S. students' time during seat work (96%) was devoted to practicing procedures. Japanese students, in contrast, split their time evenly between practicing procedures and doing original work-inventing procedures or analyzing mathematical situations in new ways.

Changes at the margins. How is it that classroom practice in the United States seems to be at odds with the core of current ideas of teaching-in how mathematical ideas are developed and in the kind of thinking in which students engage (NCTM, 1989, 1991)-when many teachers believe they are faithful to these ideas? Additional findings from the video study provide some initial clues. When teachers who believed their taped lesson was consistent with current ideas were asked to describe specific aspects of the lesson that exemplified these ideas, they identified a wide range of features, the vast majority of which could be classified into three categories: 38% of responses focused on real-world and/or hands-on activities; 31% described cooperative learning; and 19% talked about mathematical thinking and problem solving. This means that more than two-thirds of the teachers focused on activities or organizational features of the classrooms, features that can be implemented easily without al-

tering the way in which students and teachers do mathematics.

To investigate further, the lessons of two groups of U.S. teachers were reanalyzed: those who responded "a lot" when asked the degree to which the taped lesson was in accord with current ideas (N = 22) and those who answered either "a little" or "not at all" (N = 19). No significant differences were found between these groups on any of the indicators described earlier. Across all indicators, only the following statistically significant differences appeared.

The first group, the "reformers," allo- cated a higher percentage of lesson time to

seat work (43%) than did the second group, the "nonreformers" (29%). Furthermore, 66% of the reformers arranged students in small groups at some point during this seat work time, whereas only 24% of the nonreformers did so. Finally, the reformers used the textbook less often (18% of lessons) than the nonreformers (63% of the lessons). Although the absence of other between- group differences might have been due, in part, to the lack of statistical power because of the small sample size, we do not believe this is the primary reason. In our judgment, there were few distinctions between the lessons of these two groups of teachers. The distinctions that did exist, like those above, were at the margins.

An example helps to clarify the point. In one lesson we videotaped, the teacher asked students to work in groups to "try to figure out the name of a three-dimensional object with 12 faces." The students had been studying properties of polyhedra. The students queried each other within their groups about whether anyone knew the name. One student did and informed her group mates; the rest of the students did not. In either case, the discussions in most groups turned quickly to nonmathematical topics. The teacher then asked the groups to volunteer their "findings." One group suggested dodecahedron; the other groups reported that they had not been able to think of the name. The task, of course, simply asked students to recall a label, so no reasoning was required, or even possible. Although students were working in groups, the nature of the mathematics they were doing had not changed. Arranging students in small groups was a change at the margins.

The fact that teachers' practice can be aligned with their descriptions only in su- perficial ways is not a new finding. Many researchers have found similar occurrences, especially in this era of educational reform (EEPA, 1990; Ferrini-Mundy & Schram, 1997; Griffin, 1995; Spillane & Jennings, 1997). Why is this so common?

SEPTEMBER 2000


Lessons about the Nature of Teaching Two truths about teaching, identified by a number of educators in a variety of contexts, find new meaning in the video data and help to explain the resiliency of traditional instruction. One is that teaching is a system of interacting elements, not just a collection of features (Jackson, 1968; Sarason, 1997). The second is that this system is embedded in a cultural context that overdetermines its nature (Cazden, 1988; Cazden, John, &

Hymes, 1972; Gallimore, 1996; Tyack & Cuban, 1995).

Teaching Is a System The act of teaching is a complex inter-

action of numerous elements: the behaviors of the teacher, the expectations and behaviors of the students, the physical setting, the

participation structures that guide social interactions and discourse, the lesson activities, the curriculum, the materials, and so on. When the system runs smoothly, these all reinforce each other and move the system toward shared goals. This makes it difficult to change just one element. If the

changed element does not function in the same way as its predecessor, either the system will be impaired or it will swallow up the new element and run as before.

An example of changes impairing the

system comes from a group of teachers who were meeting regularly to analyze video-

tapes of alternative mathematics instruction. One sixth-grade teacher decided to

change his traditional approach to a more

problem-solving approach shown in the

tapes. He carefully planned a new lesson to

try out the approach. Instead of asking short-answer questions, he began his lesson

by presenting a challenging problem and

asking students to spend 10 minutes work-

ing on a solution. Although the teacher

changed his behavior to correspond with the teacher on the videotape, the students, not having seen the videotape and dis- cussed its implications for them, did not change their behavior. They waited for the

teacher to show them how to solve the

problem. The lesson did not succeed. The kinds of changes envisioned by re-

formers require changes not only in the features of instruction but in the very goals of the teaching system. Although some teachers in the video study did change features of their instruction, very few appeared to shift their goals toward deeper mathematical understanding. One item on the questionnaire asked, "What was the main thing you wanted students to learn from today's lesson?" As seen in Figure 4, 61% of U.S. teachers focused on the development and execution of skills. It is no wonder that the

changes they wrote about in their questionnaire responses ended up looking superfi- cial in practice; many teachers were work-

ing toward the same goals. The videotaped lesson summarized ear-

lier is a good example. Students were work-

ing together in small groups and were asked to share their thinking, lesson features that could be vehicles for engaging mathematics in a deeper way. But the teacher's goal still was rather narrow-

learning terms and definitions-so these classroom changes became changes about form rather than substance.

Teaching Is a Cultural Activity Cultural activities are common every-

day routines that have evolved, in ways that are consistent with underlying as-

sumptions and beliefs, to deal with recur-

0 Germany

100l IJapan G United States

i 80

0 61 60 55

40 40 --- 31 20 -2

Skills Thinkina Skills Thinkina

FIG. 4.--Teachers' responses, on the questionnaire, to the question, "What was the main thing you wanted students to learn from today's lesson?"


ring tasks. Grocery shopping, driving cars, and family dinners are all cultural activities for many Americans. A significant feature of cultural activities is that they are so

widely shared that they are nearly invisible. People do not stop to think about them unless they differ significantly from their ex-

pectations, as might occur when traveling to a different culture.

In our view, teaching is a cultural activ-

ity in just this sense (Stigler & Hiebert, 1998a, 1999). Teaching has evolved, in ways consistent with society's most common beliefs about how and what students should learn, to deal with the task of one teacher

educating 30 students during 50-minute lessons. The way in which teaching is conducted within a culture is so widely shared that anyone who has grown up in the culture probably could enter a classroom to- morrow and act like a teacher. (Indeed, that is the explicit presumption of many alternative teaching certification programs that

require little or no pedagogical training.) This "script" for teaching, that everyone shares, is so common that it is invisible, at least in part, even to those who teach. This yields a pregnant irony in American education: although teachers presumably are free to create their own teaching methods, they are, in fact, bound by the U.S. cultural script for teaching.

Evidence for cultural scripts of teaching is contained in the patterns of teaching that are visible across the lessons within countries. When we began the video study, we were not aware of the strong pull of cultural scripts and we expected to see great vari- ability in teaching methods in the United States. And there was variation. Some teachers began the lesson with warm-up activities, others by checking homework, still others by working the examples for the day. Some teachers demonstrated procedures to solve problems in a lecture form, others by asking students to fill in the next step, still others by passing out a reference sheet and walking students through the examples. Some teachers asked students to work on

the assigned problems in small groups; others asked students to work independently. What did not strike us, until we watched lessons from other countries, is that U.S. teachers almost always showed students what to do, with relatively little mathematical development, and then assigned problems similar to the worked examples. This pattern took on real significance when we detected very different patterns in the other two countries (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). In the end, the differences within countries paled in comparison to the differences among countries.

The Need for a New Model of Improvement

The Tradition of Reform, American Style One way of explaining America's con-

tinuing dilemma of reforming again and again with relatively little change in classroom practice (Cuban, 1990, 1993; Elmore & McLaughlin, 1988; Fullan, 1991; House, 1996; Knapp, 1997) is that many reformers in the United States have been using methods of change suited to noncultural activities. Noncultural activities can be character- ized, in part, as those that are learned only through deliberate, systematic study, such as filing taxes for a new small business or, for older persons, using a computer. The methods traditionally used to improve teaching are more appropriate for these kinds of activities, methods such as com- posing and distributing written documents from experts; analyzing the activity into separate parts and replacing individual parts (e.g., the curriculum, classroom organization, such as cooperative groups, and so on); dividing labor so that some people create the new recommendations and others implement them; and assuming that methods that work well in one context will work well in another.

Improving Systemic, Cultural Practices

Improving teaching at its core-in the way students and teachers interact about

SEPTEMBER 2000


subject matter-will require methods at- tuned to complex cultural activities. These will be methods that take a long-term view, that recognize the gradual and incremental nature of change (Gallimore, 1996; Tyack & Cuban, 1995). In spite of the waves of reform, this is, in fact, how teaching has changed. Dramatic and fundamental improvements can occur, but these will result from accumulating small changes in core classroom processes over time.

Methods that are most effective will place a premium on working out shared goals for the system (Joyce, Wolf, & Cal- houn, 1993; Simon, 1996). Educators gen- erally agree that improving students' learning is the ultimate goal, but this goal is lost as particular features of instruction become ends in themselves. Success is judged mis- takenly on whether teachers are using, say, cooperative groups or real-life problems. When these changes become ends in themselves, they can be implemented without touching the core processes in the classroom (Cuban, 1993; EEPA, 1990). They become changes at the margins that have little effect on students' learning. Joyce and colleagues (1993) noted, after reviewing school reform efforts, that they did not find a single case in the literature where students' learning increased without such increase having been a central goal of the reform.

In addition, effective methods will afford opportunities for teachers to learn in context (Borko & Putnam, 1998; Darling- Hammond, 1998; Darling-Hammond & Sykes, 1999; Lave, 1988). It is widely agreed that students learn best when taught in the context in which their knowledge is to be applied. But this principle has not been applied when teachers are the learners. Teach- ers perform their work in classrooms but rarely does their training occur in classrooms (Sarason, 1983; Schaefer, 1967).

Finally, methods that work will place decision-making power in the hands of those who have the best information. In analyzing how complex systems function most effectively for achieving their goals,

Simon (1996) argues that a major challenge is managing the information-processing limitations. No one person in the system can have access to, or process, all of the information. Systems improve their func- tioning by locating decisions where the most relevant information is available. This principle is rarely employed in education. Rather than locating substantive decisions for improving teaching within the schools and classrooms, where teaching occurs, the analysis and recommendations often are pushed up the bureaucratic ladder (Sarason, 1997).

Methods that instantiate these principles for improving classroom teaching have been demonstrated in a variety of local settings, usually initiated by special research and development efforts (Borko & Putnam, 1998; Brown, Smith, & Stein, 1996; Cobb et al., 1991; Cognition and Technol- ogy Group at Vanderbilt [CTGV], 1997; Darling-Hammond, 1998; Elmore, Peter- son, & McCarthey, 1996; Fennema et al., 1996; Little, 1982, 1993; Schifter & Fosnot, 1993; Swafford, Jones, & Thornton, 1997; Tharp & Gallimore, 1988). Unfortunately, the average teacher in the United States still does not have access to these essential learning opportunities (Ball, 1996; Cohen & Hill, 1998; Darling-Hammond, 1997; Elmore, 1996; Lubeck, 1996). How can a system for improving teaching be built that would extend the opportunity for all teachers to improve classroom teaching gradually?

A Research and Development System for Improving Teaching A successful research and development system for improving teaching must not only be effective for individual teachers and schools who receive intensive assistance, it must also be capable of scaling up. There must be a way to start small and gradually expand. This requires two things. First, the system must be able to learn from its own experiences. Unfortunately, the American educational system is better known for its


pendulum swings than for its ability to show cumulative progress (Wilson & Daviss, 1994). As Sarason (1997) noted, "There are no means, procedures, forums through which the system 'learns' " (p. 37). But im-

proving teaching on a large scale requires precisely such means. There must be a way of accumulating the knowledge gained over time and sharing it across space and time.

The second requirement for scaling up is that the system must be modular. It must be capable of working well, as a system, on a small scale and then growing cumula-

tively, working equally well on a larger scale, until it can serve the entire state or nation.

The challenge, then, is to design a research and development (R & D) system for

improving teaching consistent with the general principles outlined earlier, with local instantiations containing the features al-

ready found to be effective for professional development but with an activity structure for teachers that affords shareable knowl-

edge and scaling up.

Lesson Study: Japan's Countrywide System of Improvement One way to imagine alternatives to U.S.

models for teaching improvement is to step outside the American culture and look at how others handle similar issues. Japan provides an eye-opening contrast for several reasons. One is that the video study found many high-quality lessons in Japan, lessons that were, in some ways, more consistent with current reform recommendations than lessons in the United States. How do teachers learn to teach in this way? A second reason for considering Japan's re-

sponse to improving teaching is that they have institutionalized a system of improvement built squarely on the idea that teach-

ing is a complex, cultural activity. Their countrywide system is consistent with the principles proposed earlier for changing cultural activities and manifests the features of effective teacher development found in

this country. This makes the contrast especially intriguing.

The process of lesson study. Many Jap- anese teachers participate, throughout their careers, in a continuing in-service program built around the lesson-study group (Lewis & Tsuchida, 1997, 1998; Shimahara, 1998; Shimahara & Sakai, 1995; Takemura & Shimizu, 1993; Yoshida, 1999). Small

groups of teachers meet regularly, once a week for several hours, to collaboratively plan, implement, evaluate, and revise lessons. Many groups focus on only a few lessons over the year with the aim of perfecting these. A group of fourth-grade teachers, for example, might be dissatisfied with their current lessons on adding fractions with un- like denominators. They begin the process of improving them by reading about what other teachers have done, what ideas are recommended by various educational

groups, what has been reported on students' learning of this topic, and so on. They design several lessons, one group member tries them out while the others observe and evaluate what works and what does not, and they revise the lessons. They often base their changes on specific misunderstand-

ings students evidence as the lesson pro- gresses. They might change the wording of the opening problem, or the kinds of follow-

up questions they ask, or they might use the information about the methods the students are likely to invent to change the order in which methods are presented during the whole-class discussion. Then, they try out the lessons again, perhaps with other teachers watching. This process may go on for several months, or several years. When the

replacement lessons are ready, complete with development and test information, in-

cluding expected student responses for each question and problem, they are shared with other teachers and other schools.

Lesson as the unit of analysis and improvement. All efforts to improve teaching must start somewhere in their attempts to change the system. For example, Cogni- tively Guided Instruction helps teachers un-

SEPTEMBER 2000


derstand students' thinking in particular mathematical domains (Fennema et al., 1996). The Jasper Project emphasizes the nature of the curriculum and the environ- mental supports needed to engage students in solving genuine problems (CTGV, 1997). Japan's approach is somewhat different. Japanese teachers see the lesson as the place where all of the relevant factors are woven together-goals for students'

learning, attention to students' thinking, analyses of curriculum and pedagogy, and so on. Lesson study requires focusing on the interactions among these elements. These different approaches to dealing with the systemic nature of teaching raise an impor- tant question: What is the most appropriate unit for analyzing and improving teaching?

We believe the approach of the Japanese teachers is worth pursuing because, given the way teaching is practiced in most countries, the classroom lesson becomes the smallest unit that preserves the system of teaching. The lesson is where the interactions occur among all the individual features of teaching. Students' thinking, curriculum projects, pedagogical moves all must come together in a lesson. Multilesson top- ical units or other larger entities also would contain these interactions but they can over- whelm efforts to analyze classroom processes in detail. The classroom lesson seems just at the right level-large enough to cap- ture the system, small enough to afford analysis and improvement.

Of course, teaching is more than individual lessons. Lessons must be sequenced and connected in ways that allow large ideas to be developed over time. Lesson study attends to relations between lessons as well as the makeup of individual lessons. But the individual lesson is the primary unit.

A corollary of the fact that lessons cap- ture the system of teaching is that lessons afford teachers the opportunity of working toward improving teaching through careful planning rather than relying solely on be- coming more skillful on-the-fly decision

makers. Planning that includes anticipated student responses and productive interactions is impossible if individual features of teaching, for example, learning to ask higher-order questions, or using a new ma- terial, are singled out. Detailed planning requires anticipating how the individual features will work together. Lessons contain these interactions but are manageable for designing, testing, revising, testing again, and refining. Through this process, teachers learn what kinds of interactions they are likely to have and they can plan how to weave these together to address the points they wish to make.

It is useful to notice that the process of lesson study would have yielded something different from the failed lesson on problem solving described earlier. Because much attention is given to anticipating students' responses, the collective knowledge of teachers would have predicted, almost certainly, that the students were not yet prepared to respond in the new ways the lesson de- manded.

Lesson study generates shareable knowledge. Sharing knowledge about teaching is not a simple task. Codifying dis- coveries as written recommendations dis- tributed in research and policy reports has produced disappointing results. Teachers interpret the recommendations in widely different ways and have trouble adapting them to the realities of classroom life. Pull- ing out specific tips and techniques and fa- vorite activities for sharing during workshops can lead to the changes at the margins described earlier.

The lesson study process, as practiced in Japan, involves collecting and sharing information in a very different form. The report of a group's 1-2-year effort contains descriptions of the learning goals and activities, the rationale for the lesson design, anticipated responses of students, and suggested responses by the teacher. These reports are theories linked with examples. Hypotheses about how to help students reach particular learning goals are linked to


actual lessons and students; practical sug- gestions are linked to the teachers' theoretical analysis of the learning goals and ways in which students might achieve them. This blend of theory and example gives other teachers the information they need to relate the work to their own classrooms and to think through the changes that might be re-

quired to achieve the goals in different contexts.

The knowledge being shared through lesson study is not just collections of lesson

plans that teachers can pull off the shelves and use. The goal of lesson study is not just to produce lessons that can be copied but to produce knowledge about teaching upon which colleagues can build (see Ball & Cohen, 1996). Such a knowledge base

grows as teachers reflect on and improve what others have done, working to under- stand the basis for the improvements.

Lesson study as teacher development. As practiced in Japan, lesson study reverses the relation prevalent in the United States between improving teaching and improving teachers. Working on improving teach-

ing yields teacher development, rather than vice versa. Designing and testing lessons provides a rich context in which teachers can improve their own knowledge and skills. While teachers are producing shareable work, they are engaged in exactly the kind of learning that they need to become more effective teachers. They must learn more about the subject, about their students' thinking, about alternative pedagogies. The lesson study process assumes this kind of learning and offers opportunities to learn through collaboration with and observation of colleagues, as well as time for study and reflection.

Not surprisingly, lesson study provides the backbone for Japan's system of teacher development (Lewis & Tsuchida, 1997, 1998; Shimahara, 1998; Shimahara & Sakai, 1995; Takemura & Shimizu, 1993; Yoshida, 1999). The full system of school-based professional development is referred to as kounaikenshuu. This includes informal or

teacher-initiated activities as well as for- mal, government-mandated programs. Perhaps the most common and valued as-

pect of kounaikenshuu, at least at the elementary and middle school level, is teacher-initiated lesson study (jugyou kenk- yuu). It is through this process that many Japanese teachers believe they learn to teach and, indeed, become teachers. As one Japanese teacher said, when asked why she invests so much time in improving lessons, "Why do we do research lessons? I don't think there are any laws. But if we didn't do research lessons, we wouldn't be teachers" (Lewis, 1997, p. 3).

Lesson Study: The Engine for an R & D

System in the United States Can the process of lesson study, or

something like it, work in the United States? There is reason for skepticism, because it would require significant changes in the culture of U.S. schools. More than that, it would require changes in the way teachers think about teaching and planning for

teaching. Many teachers in the United States do not plan instruction by construct- ing detailed lesson plans linked to learning goals (Jackson, 1968; Richardson, 1994; Shavelson & Stern, 1981).

At the same time, there are reasons for optimism. Lesson study fits well with two features of the current American educational landscape. One is the spreading culture of teacher as researcher (Burnaford, Fischer, & Hobson, 1996; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1990, 1993; Franke, Carpenter, Fen- nema, Ansell, & Behrend, 1998; Hollings- worth & Sockett, 1994; Richardson, 1990, 1994; Wagner, 1997). The lesson study process is consistent with building a disposi- tion of inquiry among teachers, a disposi- tion toward investigating one's own practice.

A second feature of the current Ameri- can educational scene is that islands of change are springing up around the country. Individual schools and districts are setting priorities on improving teaching and

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on enhancing teachers' opportunities to learn. Although some are using traditional workshops (McDiarmid & Kelly, 1997), others are finding that alternative forms for learning are more effective. The local forms differ from each other in some respects, but, as cited earlier, many are consistent with the principles for improving complex human practices. Northeastern Elementary School (Elmore et al., 1996) and Portsmouth Middle School (Stein, Silver, & Smith, 1998), for example, independently developed school-based, collaborative, curriculum- linked, ongoing professional development programs. Although neither is identical to the lesson study process we described, the process would fit well within the emerging traditions at such schools.

There is another reason for optimism about the feasibility of lesson study in the United States. The lesson study process would appeal to teachers caught in a persistent dilemma, now heightened by calls for reform-minded instruction (NCTM, 1991). On the one hand, teachers under- standably choose methods that they feel they can master and implement effectively (Doyle & Ponder, 1977; Smith, 1996). On the other hand, the new methods are said to involve, necessarily, a great deal of uncertainty (Ball, 1993, 1996; Cohen, 1988; Lampert, 1985; McDonald, 1992; Schifter, 1996; Schifter & Fosnot, 1993). Students are encouraged to become active participants in the classroom and this, presumably, means that teachers must expect the unexpected. This more ambitious teaching places a premium on the individual teacher's skill in or- chestrating the unpredictable.

Lesson study provides a way of dealing with this dilemma by shifting a large part of the burden from extemporaneous decision making during the lesson to careful investigation and planning before the lesson. Possessing information about how students are likely to respond at critical points allows the teacher to implement adventurous lessons (for the students) while retaining control. Lesson study allows teachers to reduce

uncertainty through collaborative preparation rather than through compromising their learning goals for students.

There is likely to be resistance to this resolution, stemming largely from an unfortunate notion in the United States that reducing uncertainty in teaching is synon- ymous with teacher-proofing the classroom and deskilling teachers (Eisner, 1979; McDonald, 1992). The coupling of these no- tions may be due, in part, to the U.S. tradition of reform, which often has attempted to impose teaching practices from outside the classroom. It is an unfortunate coupling because it reinforces the belief that improvement depends on the extemporaneous, natural artistry of individual teachers. Once the tradition of imposing teaching practices is changed and teachers are allowed to improve teaching through exten- sive, collaborative preparation, testing, and refinement of lessons, then it is possible to see that reducing uncertainty empowers teachers rather than deskills them.

What Else Does the R & D System Need? It would be foolish to expect a lesson

study process to work effectively if dropped into the current U.S. culture of educational improvement, even with the trends noted above. Several initiatives need to be launched concomitantly to enable lesson study to take hold.

Set clear learning goals for students. Lessons are improved only with respect to specific learning goals. The standards movement in the United States is, in part, an effort to set learning goals for students. The contribution of this activity to improving teaching depends on whether the standards are expressed clearly enough that teachers can use them for planning instruction.

Not only must the learning goals be clear, they also must be widely accepted. The success of the lesson study process depends on teachers working together, with the same goals in mind. Otherwise, the


products of one group are of little value to others. The United States does not have national learning goals and, in some cases, learning goals are not even shared within a district (Spillane, 1998). Policy makers tend to rationalize this situation by referring to local and individual needs of different

groups of students in different parts of the

country and even in different schools and classrooms. Although local contexts may differ in some respects, shared learning goals are a minimum requirement for teachers to collaborate effectively. This does not mean that a set of national goals needs to be enforced, but it does mean that shared

goals must be developed at least at the district level.

It should be noted that lesson study, as we propose it, is driven by achieving clear

learning goals for students, not by implementing particular pedagogies or curricula, nor even by meeting specific sets of teach-

ing standards. Due to the nature of the lesson study process, pedagogies and curricula that most effectively help students achieve the learning goals will become, over time, the ones that are most widely shared and implemented. If the learning goals ac-

cepted within a school district are narrow sets of skills, for example, it is likely that lesson study would yield more effective versions of some traditional lessons. If, however, the district adopts more ambitious learning goals that include conceptual understanding and critical reasoning, it is

likely that lesson study would yield, over time, lessons that employ more ambitious curricula and pedagogies.

Given the fact that in the United States curricula and assessments usually are cho- sen at the district or state level, not by individual teachers, it follows that lesson study can work well only if the district's curricula and assessments are consistent with the learning goals. If teachers are to work on lessons that more effectively help students achieve the goals, they must have access to curriculum materials designed for this purpose. Otherwise, teachers must de-

sign lessons to achieve one set of learning goals using curriculum suited for a different set.

Similarly, teachers must be able to mea- sure students' progress toward the goals us-

ing assessments aligned with these goals. The critical function of appropriate assessments may not be immediately apparent but cannot be overstated because assessment information is the primary means by which teachers can evaluate their instruction. If teachers are to improve their practice, they must have access to a steady flow of information about the effectiveness of their lessons. They must be able to sort out

improvements from mere changes. Clear

goals, linked to assessments, and both tied to the curriculum, provide the context teachers need to plan and evaluate their

teaching. Restructure schools as places where

teachers can learn. An underappreciated fact in educational change is that every rec- ommendation for improving teaching re-

quires teachers to learn (Cohen & Barnes, 1993). From the principles for improving complex human practices, such learning makes most sense in the context of practice. This points to schools as the ideal sites for

learning (Eisner, 1979; Sarason, 1983; Schaefer, 1967). But the concept of schools as places for teachers to learn is nearly for-

eign in American education. "Schools have no well-defined structures for helping teachers learn from the everyday experience of teaching" (Nemser, 1983, p. 163). This may be explained, in part, by a set of cultural beliefs about teachers and teaching that minimize the importance of teacher

learning. Good teachers are "naturals"; they are born, not made. "We regard in-

spired and demanding teaching as an individual trait, much like hair color or shoe size, rather than as a professional norm" (Elmore, 1996, p. 5). This attitude under- mines support for investing in ongoing learning opportunities for teachers.

In order for schools to become sites for teacher learning, numerous changes are

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needed, changes that must be supported by key personnel-parents, principals, super- intendents, and school board members. We mention here only issues of time and the leadership role of the district in restructuring. (For a more complete treatment of these issues with respect to developing a culture of lesson study, see Stigler & Hiebert [1999].)

Schools will not become learning places for teachers unless teachers have time- time for collaborative planning and inves-

tigation, time to work together to analyze and design and test new lessons. This time must be built into their weekly schedules. But finding the time presents a challenge to the typical school district. The cost seems prohibitive. However, there are low-cost options that can work and that are working in a number of school districts across the country. Darling-Hammond (1997) details the way in which a variety of school districts have created time for teacher learning. For example, New York City's Community District No. 2 has targeted teachers' development as its highest priority and has re- structured schools to provide time for teacher collaboration and even cross-school observations.

It is worth noting that significant changes can be achieved without additional resources. Now imagine what would hap- pen if Americans took the millions of dol- lars spent every year to reform education and used them to provide the time and resources teachers need to improve teaching. The United States could support a vigorous, highly focused research and development system.

Only if districts take the lead is it likely that schools will be able to implement the changes needed to enable teachers to collaborate productively. For several reasons, the district probably is the smallest unit that can restructure successfully (Joyce et al., 1993). First, the district office is where most of the budgetary control resides, so decisions about funding and staff allocations usually are made here. Second, district- wide support provides teachers with a criti-

cal but often overlooked opportunity for professional growth. The R & D system we propose asks teachers to take on a challenging task-to improve the quality of teaching. This means more than improving teaching in their own classrooms; it means raising the standard of good teaching within the profession. This demands that teachers work together, sharing what they learn in their classrooms to leverage improvements on a wider scale. Improving the professional norm requires that teachers see themselves as part of this larger effort, as responsible for building the knowledge base for teaching. Teachers must have the opportunity to enlarge their horizons, to see beyond their own classrooms and even their own schools. They must experience the power of sharing knowledge across schools.

Foster a steady infusion of new ideas. Systems, and individuals, have a difficult time learning without a steady diet of vari- ability (Siegler, 1996). Innovations, alternative images, different ways of doing things, new information, all are needed to create new experiences from which the system can learn. Yet, because teaching is a cultural activity, based on methods widely practiced within a culture, teachers will not fre- quently encounter unique and different ways of teaching. New ideas must be sought out.

Fortunately, new ideas for teaching in the United States emerge from a variety of sources. Individual teachers who have bro- ken from convention and experimented with alternatives are prime sources. Most research centers on teaching and learning have candidates for improved instruction ready and waiting. New, more ambitious curricula are appearing at a rapid rate. Rad- ically different approaches to teaching also can be found in other cultures. Looking across cultures can be especially useful because it helps to break outside of the famil- iar cultural model of teaching.

The problem, of course, is that new ideas for teaching, from whatever source, usually


have had little effect on classroom practice. Teachers in the United States have had no mechanism by which they could process the ideas, try them out, refine them, and share the new information. The R & D system we are proposing, and the lesson study process, provides one solution to this problem. New ideas are fed into the process, lessons are designed that turn the ideas into practice, and feedback is collected.

In addition to the intellectual benefits of this process, it also resolves a persistent po- litical problem. In the old tradition of reform, high status was ascribed to those who developed the ideas and low status to those who implemented them (Johnson, 1987; Lagemann, 1996). This, among other things, created a reaction against importing ideas for teaching from the outside and bol- stered the view that teachers must generate their own ideas (McDonald, 1992). We agree that teachers have good ideas for improving teaching, but we believe that all ideas with promise should be considered, regardless of their source. Lesson study in- vites all good ideas into the process and gives teachers the responsibility and free- dom to digest and test them. The politics surrounding the source of ideas disappears.

Scalability Revisted Elmore (1996) identifies scalability as the

most serious problem facing educational reformers. Pockets of exemplary practice al- ready exist around the country, but they have not touched the average classroom. How do small, intensive efforts scale up? We argued earlier that such efforts require two things: (1) they must learn from their own experience and what they learn must be shareable; and (2) they must be modular in the sense that they can be combined and accumulated to yield large-scale systems that work as well as small ones. We proposed an R & D system, built on lesson study, with these requirements in mind. Does such a system scale up?

What makes the lesson study process especially appealing is that it satisfies these

requirements in multiple ways. First, the fact that the daily classroom lesson serves as the unit of analysis and improvement places the process at the intersection of these two requirements. With respect to preserving teachers' learning and sharing it with others, the full reports of lessons serve as ideal repositories because they contain information on students' thinking, the curriculum, pedagogy, and how these interact, all in a form that is meaningful to other teachers.

Sharing knowledge of the kind con- structed through lesson study is relatively straightforward because all teachers teach lessons. Demand for this knowledge will increase to the extent that teachers share learning goals and a curriculum and thus expect to teach similar lessons. New tech- nologically enhanced ways of sharing the knowledge have recently become reality. Video examples of classroom lessons, linked with evolving theoretical under- standings of teaching, could be stored in large digital libraries. Video, audio, images of student work, and commentary by teachers/researchers could be merged into a single, integrated database accessible over the Internet. Teacher groups could post the results of their work and actually collaborate with other groups working on similar lessons. It is not unreasonable to think that these technologies could play an exciting role in the scaling up process.

Lessons also are modular. Because the lesson preserves the interactions between the features of teaching and because almost all teachers teach through daily lessons, lessons can be accumulated, from many lesson study groups, to gradually extend the effects of lesson study across the school year. This modular characteristic does not hold for some of the "units" that have been used to study and improve teaching, such as the nature of teachers' questions. Results cannot be combined with results from studies of other features, such as instructional tasks, in a straightforward way because these features interact. They slice the teaching sys-

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tem into nonmodular forms. But lessons can be connected, with appropriate transitions, in ways that allow work on individual lessons to fit together; connecting lessons does not require the work on individual lessons to be completely redone.

A second way in which lesson study meets the scaling up requirements is through its role as professional development. The Japanese experience suggests that teachers can learn more general knowledge and skills, of exactly the kind they need, by working deeply with a few lessons. Improving teaching does not de- pend on eventually perfecting 182 lessons but rather on engaging intensively with the issues involved in teaching any lesson. Ac- cording to Japanese teachers, the yearlong process of perfecting a few lessons helps them teach other lessons more effectively (Lewis & Tsuchida, 1998; Takemura & Shimizu, 1993).

Finally, the R & D system we propose meets the scalability requirement of modularity in an institutional sense. The system can start in a single district and gradually spread as districts link with each other. This institutional modularity is crucial because change inevitably will begin within individual schools and districts. Then, as new districts take on the challenge, there will be more and more experienced districts to collaborate and form expanding networks. This affords increasing opportunities for teachers to share and receive the work of colleagues, which means that the lesson study process gains even more strength.

An Idea Worth Pursuing, Not a Template for Sure Success

Applying ideas gained through cross- cultural comparisons is always tricky. On the one hand, it is foolish to think that programs simply can be imported and show the same results in their new home. On the other hand, it is equally foolish to dismiss promising ideas that lie behind these programs simply because they are working well in a different culture. Whether the no-

tion of lesson study can be the catalyst for developing an effective R & D system in the United States for improving teaching is an open question. But, because lesson study is consistent with the cultural, systemic nature of teaching and because it shares many of the principles found in a variety of recent, effective teacher development efforts in the United States, we believe it is an idea worth examining.

Chances of success, however, are closely tied to society's willingness to recalibrate its expectations for change. Reforms in the United States come with imperatives to show quick and dramatic change. But the R & D system proposed here will show gradual, incremental change. Such changes can add up to something, over time, that completely reshapes teaching, but the changes will not come quickly. If the United States is in a hurry, it should take the first step soon to establish a long-term improvement strategy that guarantees teaching will be more effective in the future, not 1 year from now but 20 years from now.

Note

The TIMSS Video Study was funded by the U.S. Department of Education's National Cen- ter for Education Statistics. The study was conducted in collaboration with Jirgen Baumert and Rainer Lehmann in Germany, and Toshio Sawada in Japan. In addition, Patrick Gonzales, Takako Kawanaka, Steffen Knoll, and Ana Serrano functioned as primary researchers on the study, and Eric Derghazarian, Gundula Huber, Fumiko Ichioka, and Nicole Kersting served as primary coders.

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