Teacher Learning Through Lesson Study

1. Teacher Learning Through Lesson Study Thomas Tasker English Language Fellow Program Kyiv, Ukraine tct118@psu.edu AUC/NileTESOL Conference Connections: Implications for Students, Teachers and Educational Systems February 2-4, 2110

2. Overview • Theoretical frame: Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) • Inquiry-based approaches to teacher professional development • Lesson Study • Challenges starting a Lesson Study Group

3. Research interests • How do teachers develop through participation in professional development activities? • What is the trajectory of learning?

4. A theory of cognition and development: Activity Theory • Cultural-historical activity theory • Vygotsky & Luria Leontiev • Engestrom • A framework for understanding development • An intervention to change social practices (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006) • Lesson Study is the instrument used in the intervention

5. Professional development • Two broad types • Experts control the content, direct the learning • Workshops, seminars, presentations • Journal articles, books • Bring expert knowledge to the classroom • Experts = legitimate producers of professional knowledge • Teachers = consumers of ‘expert’ knowledge

6. Professional development 2.Teachers control the content, direct their own learning • Inquiry-based approaches • Collaborative, teacher-directed • Meet regularly • Bring teacher knowledge to a wider audience • Teachers = consumers of ‘expert’ knowledge but also legitimate producers of local knowledge

7. Inquiry-based approaches • An general term for school-based professional development. • teacher-driven • often collaborative • answers questions posited by teachers themselves • focuses on improving practice • reshapes teacher understanding of their professional lives (Tasker et al., 2010)

8. Inquiry-based professional development • Collaborative Development (Edge, 2002), • Teacher study groups (Dubetz, 2005), • Critical friends groups (Bambino, 2002; Key, 2006; Franzak, 2002) • Lesson study (Stigler and Hiebert, 1999; Fernandez, 2002).

9. Lesson Study • Lesson Study is a teacher-driven, collaborative professional development activity that encourages teacher investigation into student learning, which can ultimately promote EFL teacher learning. Lesson Study helps teachers pursue issues and solutions that are meaningful to their local contexts, and gives them the opportunity to contribute to the knowledge base of EFL education.

10. The Lesson Study Cycle • Identify gaps in student learning • Create an long-term (overarching) goal • Choose a topic and investigate it • Consider how the topic fits in the curriculum • Create a ‘research’ lesson that begins to address the long-term goal • Teach / observe the research lesson • Critically reflect on and revise the lesson • Teach / observe again, and reflect • Write an evaluation of what was learned • Make the knowledge public

11. Lesson Study in the Czech Republic • The School • 300 teachers (about half NNESTs) • Professional development program in place • Institutional goal to focus on student reading • 4 EFL teachers in the Lesson Study group • American, male, 6 months full-time EFL experience • English, female, 1 year experience (dropped out) • Danish, male, 5 years experience, Senior Teacher • Slovak, female, 4 years experience, Senior Teacher Students are all adults: 18 to 50

12. Lesson Study Cycle: identify gaps • Identify gaps between what students are achieving now and what you would like them to achieve in the long-term. • Independent thinkers, fluent, articulate, motivated learners, good listeners, critical thinkers, accurate, ability to analyze and draw conclusions, ability to work with others, self-confident

13. What student learning issues are you concerned about? • Lenka: they keep forgetting vocabulary because they don’t practice at home. So I mean they are busy, they want to learn quickly but they don’t realize that they won’t learn only in the classroom, that a lot of learning has to be done by themselves that they have to spend time and energy on English and sometimes they expect that it’s like a magic thing that happens and I will teach them and they will learn. So that’s very frustrating when you can’t see any progress.

14. Steve: um kind of the motivation of students. it’s something I’ve had to come to grips with that you know I can go and I can put three hours of planning into every lesson and have an amazing lesson and then I see them again next week and I put three hours into the lesson and it’s an amazing lesson but then they go home … but if they don’t ever do homework or they don’t ever read or watch movies or anything in English than it doesn’t matter how much I put into the lesson. They have to put in something too.

15. 2. The overarching aim • The overarching aim is the long-term goal you would like your students to achieve • Focus on a few of the ideal qualities you would like your students to have. • I would like my students to…

16. The overarching aim “We would like our students to take more responsibility for their English language learning outside of class. We feel that this overarching goal, although broad and difficult to measure, will have the most lasting impact on our students English development in both the short- and long-term” (from the lesson plan, teachers in the Czech Republic)

17. 3. Choose a topic and investigate • What areas are challenging for your students? • What areas are difficult to teach? • Are there weak topics in your curriculum? • Is your institution encouraging the development of a particular skill? • Czech Republic teachers: develop critical reading skills

18. Investigate student learning • Teachers consider their own collective experience • collaborate with content area experts in the area • talk to other teachers • Interview students • examine tests, textbooks and student work • Consult professional literature

19. Investigate student learning • Czech Republic teachers: • Student questionnaires about reading habits (n=30) • teacher questionnaire about teaching reading (n=36) • Professional literature on encouraging student responsibility for learning

20. 4. Consider how the topic fits in the curriculum • How is the topic you picked currently approached or taught in your institution? • Czech Republic teachers: • consulted with the Director of Studies • read a document the School issued about reading guidelines • spoke to other teachers

21. 5. Create a research lesson • Teachers collaboratively create a ‘research’ lesson, situated within the curriculum, that begins to address the overarching goal. Research lesson: how can we improve this one (small) part of our curriculum? Topic within curriculum: How is the topic taught now (and in the past)? Overarching goal: how does the research lesson further our goal?

22. Create a research lesson • Focus: critical reading skills • Research question: How do we encourage our students to be more autonomous learners through the development of critical reading skills? • Ultimately, they wanted their students to become self-motivated critical readers of English

23. Create a research lesson • Teachers create a lesson that begins to address their overarching goal • What artifacts can you introduce into the research lesson that helps students begin to achieve the overarching goal? • What teaching practices do you need to change to help students begin to achieve this goal?

24. Create a research lesson • How do we get student to notice language in the texts they read? How do they begin to become more critical readers? • Creation of activities for students to do while they read at home. • Doing one or more activities at home and later in class focuses the students’ attention on specific language features in the reading • Over time, students begin to attend more to the language features in a text and no longer need to do the activities to focus their attention

25. Characters Before class: As you read the story, choose one character you find interesting. In the margins of the book, write down (or underline) 6 interesting facts about the character (role in the story, personality, job, age, relationship with another character, etc.).   In class: Don’t tell your group who your character is. Read the facts you found to your group and ask them to guess who the character is. Then ask them either to talk about other facts they remember about the character or tell you their opinion of the character.

26. Setting Before class: Pick a setting from the story (house, city, countryside, etc.), and then think of 5 interesting adjectives you would use to describe the setting. You might need to use your dictionary. Using those adjectives, either compare the place you selected to another place in the story, or compare a place in the story to a place you’ve been to. In class: Compare the two places for your group. Then ask the group for their opinion of the places you compared, or other differences / similarities between the two places.

27. Create a research lesson • To encourage autonomy, students should • Choose what they read • Decide how much they would like to read • Select an activity to do at home, while reading • Be given the responsibility to discuss / teach the activity they chose in a small group in class

28. 6. Teach / observe the lesson • Observers focus on critical points in the lesson • Sit apart to see different things, but can move around to see what students are doing • Do not participate; remain silent • The teacher collects student work at the end of the lesson

29. 7. Critically reflect on and revise the lesson • The teacher who taught the lesson talks about the lesson first • The observers then make comments about the lesson, and the success of the materials / artifacts / new teaching practices • The group revises the lesson as needed

30. 8. Teach / observe again, and reflect • A different teacher does the revised lesson with her students • The other teachers observe • Afterwards, the teachers again reflect on the outcome of the lesson

31. 9. Write an evaluation of what you learned • Describe the entire process • Highlight what you did right, and what was less successful • A teacher outside the group should know exactly what you did at each step in the process.

32. 10. Make the knowledge public • Share the results with colleagues • Post your report on-line • Give it to the local teacher professional organizations • Present the results at conferences • Teachers should contribute to the knowledge base

33. Challenges in creating a Lesson Study Group • Different from ‘top-down’ approaches to professional development • Teachers often see themselves as consumers of expert knowledge, not producers • Passive receivers to active participants

34. Challenges in creating a Lesson Study Group • Teachers not excited about the overarching goal • Not enough time spent researching the topic of the research lesson • Too much time spent on the procedure, too little time spent on developing artifacts and teaching practices • Difficult to critique other teachers • Difficult to establish trust in a group

35. And finally… • Lesson Study is “more than just the study of lessons; it is rather a systematic inquiry into teaching practice much more broadly defined, which happens to be carried out by examining lessons” (Fernandez, 2002, p. 394) • Exploring student learning in depth ultimately promotes EFL teacher learning.

36. Questions or comments? Thank you! Research Support: Gil Watz Dissertation Fellowship The Pennsylvania State University: RGSO Dissertation Support Grant tct118@psu.edu

37. A theory of cognition and development: Activity Theory • Cultural-historical activity theory • Vygotsky & Luria Leontiev • Engestrom • A framework for understanding development • An intervention to change social practices (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006) • Lesson study is the instrument used in the intervention

38. Mediating Artifacts An Activity System (Engestrom, 2001) a. Unit of analysis = two systems b. Multi-voiced c. Transforms d. Develops from internal contradictions e. Undergoes expansive transformation Subject Collective Object Rules Community Div. of labor Outcome

39. Mediating Artifacts An Activity System Object = Student Learning: “the relationship between students and the knowledge they are supposed to acquire” (Engestrom, 2002) EFL Teachers Student Learning Rules Community Div. of labor

40. Prof. articles Work shops Other teachers Course books Technology An Activity System • Mediating artifacts: things and ideas that help organize and control the object of our activity. • All of these tools help teachers direct student learning Lesson plans EFL Teachers Student Learning Rules Community Div. of labor

41. Books, other teachers, workshops, etc An Activity System EFL Teachers Student Learning Rules: Explicit and implicit expectations Community: Others who share the same object Div. of labor: Hierarchy in the school; responsibilities Outcome: we are always searching for ways to promote student learning

42. Lesson Study Expert help Books, other teachers, workshops, etc EFL Teachers Student Learning Rules Community Div. of labor Outcome

43. How does learning take place? Expansive learning • Teachers notice a contradiction in student learning • Questioning the established teaching practice(s). • Modeling a new solution. Develop tools and models that could solve the contradiction. • Examining and implementing the model. • Evaluating the process, which shifts the emphasis to the internalization of the new practices.

44. Previous experience; resources top down PD; limited, informal teacher collaboration Teachers in the school Coordinate PD (e.g. reading seminar); materials on Intranet; raising awareness of resources available Student learning; literacy issues Client satisfaction; teacher management; teacher learning: student literacy Division of labor: work alone Academic Management Teachers, texts, peers, etc. Learn English (only in class) Students

45. Mirror data • Lesson Study (other teachers, materials, questionnaires) • 3. Outside expert Student learning 4 LS Teachers Does the process of engaging in Lesson Study mediate the teachers’ transformation from an everyday, classroom-based conceptualization of teaching and student learning towards a more professional or expert conceptualization? Does expansive learning take place?

46. Lesson Study (other teachers, materials, questionnaires) Outside expert Student reading activities Student learning: promote learner autonomy through critical reading skills 4 LS Teachers Division of labor: collaborative; teacher, observer, evaluator • teachers begin to internalize new mediational means , leads to reconceptualization of the object, student learning; changes in teaching practices

47. Questions or comments? Thank you! Research Support: Gil Watz Dissertation Fellowship The Pennsylvania State University: RGSO Dissertation Support Grant tct118@psu.edu