Lesson study: Teacher led professional development in literacy instruction

Hurd, J., & Licciardo-Musso, L. (2005). Lesson study: Teacher-led professional development in literacy instruction. Language Arts, 82(5), 388-395.

Background

Teachers typically have few opportunities to observe other teachers’ classroom teaching. In lesson study, teachers participate in a cycle involving planning, observing, and revising lessons for instructional improvement.

Aims

This article reported on the case of a lesson study team’s work in helping third grade students in identifying main ideas and supporting details in expository texts. The case study was set against the backdrop of a district-wide policy to implement standards-based instruction and differentiated learning.

Sample

The lesson study team comprised two first-grade teachers, four second-grade teachers, and three third-grade teachers in an American elementary school. The language arts coordinator of the county joined the team as the knowledgeable other to deepen the teachers’ understanding of literacy.

Method

The teachers met once a month for two hours after school during the school year. The team began their work by coming to a common understanding of differentiated instruction and defining the goals for professional development and student learning. They explored differentiation of instruction by partnering students of similar abilities, modifying texts for length and complexity, and providing students with the option of two graphic organisers to document their thinking. The collaboratively planned lesson was taught by one of the teachers while the other teachers observed the learning of small groups of students.

Findings

The study found that the cross-grade team helped in the building of common teaching practices across grade levels and their sharing of experiences in using expository texts extended beyond the structured lesson study meetings. Teachers reported that during the lesson observations, they had opportunities to listen closely to student discourse through which they could understand student thinking and misconceptions as well as examine the factors that enabled and hindered learning. During the lesson debriefing, teachers shared their observations and were made more aware of how the teaching procedures could have contributed to student confusion.

Implications

The authors suggested that lesson study could potentially be an effective learning tool for teachers. It offered opportunities for teachers to pool their collective experiences for instructional improvement, develop the ‘eyes’ to see how students learn, and build teacher efficacy.

Original article retrieved from Google Scholar.