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The
Lesson Study Process The
process begins with the teachers watching a teacher teach a selected
CORE Lesson from the Research Lesson collection.
The teachers take detailed notes on the teaching (what the teacher
says and does and what the students say and do), sometimes moving around
the room. In Makoto Yoshida’s work in Patterson, New Jersey, the teachers
watched two teachers teach the same Lesson. After the Lesson is complete,
the teachers engage in a debriefing. The teachers or teacher who taught the Lesson
presents his/her debriefing of what happened. Then teachers ask questions,
add their own observations, pointing to ways to make the Research Lesson
work better. The focus is on the Lesson and the findings that need to
be recorded about this Lesson. The teachers appear to have in front
of them the text materials used in the Lesson. (Articles from Makoto
Yoshida were distributed describing the Lesson Study process in more
detail, summarizing more of his presentation) At
some point, this discussion of the Research Lesson is turned into written
text for a revised Research Lesson that joins the collection.
At this point the author of the Research Lesson is a rich collaboration
with others teachers. Ownership is collective. The Lesson Study process
at a school site turns the Information in the Research Lesson collection
into Knowledge at the school site, Knowledge built out of the practices
at the site. The community of practice at the school site
is the engine that drives the Knowledge development at the school site. The visits to regional Lesson Study conferences
are useful for acquiring new Information about Lessons and Lesson Study.
But this experience from regional networks lacks the day-to-day community
of practice that exists at the school site. Thus regional networks provide valuable Information, and communities
of practice at a school site provide Knowledge. Lesson Study is the
process for acquiring both. One point I am uncertain abut: Do teachers keep all versions of a Research Lesson? It seems to me they should. Version A, produced by a community of practice at a school site, is Knowledge at one site, and Version B is Knowledge at another site. Question: Makoto help me here. How many Versions are kept?
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