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Strengthening the effectiveness of teaching placements: opening the pedagogic black box through Japanese lesson study

Wasyl Cajkler Phil Wood University of LeicesterLesson Study Research Group (wc4@le.ac.uk)

TEAN 17 May 2013Aston University

What is lesson study?Iterative cyclical process by a group of teachers who:

1. identify a learning challenge

2. collaboratively plan a ‘research lesson’

3. teach the research lesson (one teacher)

4. observe with focus on case students

5. jointly evaluate

6. re-teach improved lesson (Trad. LS cycle)

• focus on gradual building of ‘teaching’ (Stigler and Hiebert 1999)

Leicester Approach to integrating lesson study into teaching placements

1. The LS group is agreed, with mentor, student-teacher and other collaborating teacher(s). Briefing from University tutor. 2. Mentor, student-

teacher and, if applicable other teacher, (the LS group) identify a specific challenge that their students have with an aspect of learning.

3. The LS group plan a 'research lesson' in detail, focusing on the intended learning of three case students, identified as the focus for observation of learning.

4. The first research lesson is taught by the mentor, the experienced practitioner. The student-teacher and other teacher observe the learning of the 3 case students

5. The LS group evaluates the lesson, focusing on evidence from the observation of three case students' learning.

6. Reflection on the research lesson led to amendments and re-teaching of the lesson to a different group by the trainee, followed by collaborative evaluation to begin the next research cycle if possible.

Rationale: effective development…. helping students acquire the tools they will need to

learn to teach rather than the finished competencies of effective teaching.

(Hiebert, Morris and Glass 2003: 202)

…..creating a profession of teaching in which teachers have the opportunity for continual learning is the likeliest way to inspire greater achievement for children.

(Darling-Hammond 2003: 281).

effective teacher development(Garet et al. 2001; Hiebert 1999:15)

Quality development results from:

(a) collaboration (mutual engagement)

(b) explicit goal of improving students' achievement

(c) attention to students' thinking, curriculum, and pedagogy

(d) access to alternative ideas/methods plus observation in action and reflection on why effective ...

Communities of Practice in Lesson Study • mutual engagement (Wenger 1998)

• ‘joint enterprise’

• development of ‘shared repertoire’ (Wenger 2000: 227)

• integration of student-teachers into pedagogic practices (centrifugal force)

Guiding questions

1. How do mentors and trainees collaborate (mutually engage)?

2. How does LS help to integrate trainees into the work of teaching in their departments?

3. How does participants’ thinking about students, curriculum, and pedagogy develop as a result of LS?

Emergent narrative

Lesson study in ITE research

• US literature, plus Canada, HK, Ireland

• Some studies of full cycles, usually mathematics

• Adaptations of LS e.g. micro-teaching lesson study

• One UK study (Davies & Dunnill 2008, learning study)

• Positive impacts with reservations

• Great variability in methods/contexts

• Logistical challenges

Cases (2012-13)

14 cases in two 8-week placements in Phase A and B

Open invitation: if school volunteered, trainee participation invited (14 acceptances from 19)

7 geography and 7 modern languages 2 schools: two cases of two cycles of two lessons 1 school: one cycle of 3 lessons Enormous variation in conduct of cycles (e.g. some

interviewed case students, adding a 7th stage to the process)

Data capture and analysis

• Unit of analysis: collective learning and practice development of Lesson Study group

• Analysis: community of practice; qualitative and inductive (on-going)

Initial Findings

a flavour from planning meetings

RQ 1 How do mentors and trainees collaborate (mutually engage)?

planning meeting discourse

• Window on mentor/trainee discourse

• No fixed structure; often messy

• Co-building (mutual engagement) heavily nurtured by mentor

• Significant amount of advice, prediction and rehearsal: modelling (expert-novice relationship in evidence)

• PCK discussed: objectives, scaffolding, differentiation, AfL, approaches to teaching and linguistic/geographical content, tasks, likely student responses, possible problems predicted.

• Meetings took a variety of forms

stage driven planning meeting structure

Stanza 1 Establishing the focus and topic (2%)

Stanza 2 Setting objectives (19%)

Stanza 3 Identifying/clarifying content (14%)

Stanza 4 Lesson structure: starter (9%)

Stanza 5 Main activities phase (49%)

Stanza 6 Planning plenary final stage (5%)

Stanza 7 Final check (2%)

plan/content driven planning

Stanza 1 Setting the scene for the lesson 8.5%

Stanza 2 Presenting vocabulary 11.5%

Stanza 3 Moving into tasks 35.4%

Stanza 4 Conversation activity 12%

Stanza 5 AfL discussion 3.5%

Stanza 6 Mentor advice phase 8.7%

Stanza 7 Review of lesson 8.3%

Stanza 8 Final checks: review of lesson traits using lesson plan format to check coverage 12.1%

straddled exploratory approach to planning1. Establishing the learning challenge (mentor) 4.5%

2. Starter 28%3. Objectives check (what are we teaching?) 7.4%

4. How to present content/ideas swapping/rehearsal 7%

5. Ideas for the plenary 1.4%

4. How to present content/ideas swapping/rehearsal 10.2%

6. Discussion of tasks/use of questions 16.1%

7. Linguistic objectives check (cf. 3 above) 4.2%

6. Discussion of tasks/use of questions 12.7%

8. Review against pupil ability levels (learning challenge) 7.3%

9. Closing comment (mentor) 1.2%

Planning meeting characteristics

• facilitated by mentors

• frequent key questions to elicit ideas

• content dominated by learning challenge and how to teach

• student-teachers asked questions about content, approach and structure (exploring pedagogy)

• I felt comfortable and confident…. I felt that my opinions would be valid …. (A, ML trainee)

Participant perspectives on lesson study in ITE

A flavour of mentor and trainee responses

Emerging themes:

RQ2: How does LS help to integrate trainees into the work of teaching in their departments?

RQ3: How does participants’ thinking about students, curriculum, and pedagogy develop as a result of LS?

Integration in dept community• You’re not a student, you’re actually a member of the

department. Your advice is as important as anyone else’s. I actually respect what you’ve got to say because you actually see things in observations that I don’t because I’m thinking of other things like OfSTED …. progress …..

……What it does is it allows me to use your eyes and your interviewing [of case students]. ……. I need to depend on you [observing]. (geography mentor)

(joint enterprise)

‘We’ inclusive approach to planning

• ‘You’re discussing it so…aren’t you, so you know exactly what should be coming out of the lesson, not what is coming out of your lesson because of what you have decided to teach.’ (H Geography student-teacher)

(mutual engagement/shared repertoire)

Trainee progress• ‘a whole new way of looking at guiding student-

teachers’ (geography mentor)

• Things that would normally take a long time……suddenly they just accelerated after that observed lesson and the feedback she got …….

• She started thinking: how can I get all the kids engaged? …..There was a huge change.

Mentor learning

• It’s just literally been a revelation for me. I’ve never really had the chance to sit with one of my groups that I teach and be able to get to know them in that way, because it’s a shame really that there’s not more room for it because I’ve learnt now that X ….has got quite a high sense of what’s fair and what’s not and that needs to be addressed……..

(Modern languages mentor)

Strong focus on learning• think about it in more depth ……….. you sort of think

well what they, what are the sort of things that are going to run through their minds when they look at that picture…… (E Geography trainee)

• it’s all about the learners and it made me really sort of adjust how I taught them in future (H ML trainee) (seating plan)

(development of ‘shared repertoire’)

Pedagogy

• …in the end I felt like I wasn’t really doing much of the teaching. Because I read the statement, didn’t say anything else and let everyone get on with it and then I said right, this is what you’ve got to do, you’ve got to debate x, y and z. And I just left them to it and they were arguing amongst themselves, and it was quite controlled, they didn’t chip in over one another, it was quite nice about how respectful they were to each other, but I had to do nothing. (E Geog trainee)

Observation

• I didn’t really concentrate on M [mentor] at all, I was just concentrating on the three students so I was just looking at what they were doing, ……..so I was just literally writing the name and what they did. (H Geog trainee)

• Yeah, it was strange at first, but then it was useful to actually see if they were working throughout and then I interviewed them to see if they actually, how they thought they worked. (H Geog trainee)

Observation challenge

• In terms of observing the students, I think the point was what exactly am I meant to be observing? I can see how many times they’re putting their hands up, are they fidgeting… one thing I didn’t do which XXX mentioned afterwards, I should have been noting down what they were writing on their paper, which I didn’t, but that had never crossed my mind. (E Geog trainee)

• I was literally ticking off going ‘he’s not doing that how he said’, or he has done that and he actually did it really, really well. He was spot on with how he taught it. (E Geog trainee)

Inherent complexity

• But I’m struggling to think what I got from it, because at the time I still couldn’t work out how it [teaching] all worked and what the benefit of lesson study was. It was interesting to talk about learning and everyone’s own opinions which then make you think about things differently, but it was only after… thinking about what the students were doing and what the actual reasoning behind the activity is …(E Geog trainee)

• I think before when planning lessons I’d thought this would be a nice activity, ….. but I’d never really thought about the purpose, is it repetitive already?

Principal benefits• confronts complexity of teaching and learning early in TP

• mentor and student-teacher as learning partners (mutual engagement)

• ‘we’ inclusive perspective (but mentors lead)

• detailed collaborative exploration (joint enterprise) of classroom-oriented processes, the ‘pedagogic black-box’

• greater understanding of curriculum content and student needs

• increased confidence (decisional autonomy)

• less teacher-centred approaches (shared repertoire)

• critical-holistic model

ChallengesTime and observation

• time

• knowing what to look for….

Compatibility of ‘slow burn’ lesson study process and the standards-driven demands of ITE

effective teacher development (Garet et al. 2001; Hiebert, 1999:15)

Lesson Study supports:

(a) collaboration (mutual engagement)

(b) explicit goal of improving students' achievement

(c) attention to students' thinking, curriculum, and pedagogy (sharing of solutions)

(d) observation in action and reflection on why effective ... (joint enterprise)

Thus, opening up the pedagogic black box and development of professional capital

References

Microsoft Office Word Document

Contact: wc4@le.ac.ukpbw2@le.ac.uk

May 2013