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What is successful adaptation of lesson study in the US?

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Abstract

This paper features a case study of one US K-8 school district pioneering the use of “lesson study,” a teacher professional development approach adapted from Japan. The case explores events that occurred in the district over more than 4 years (Spring 2000–Fall 2004) as lesson study spread nationally and within the district. We document four categories of changes that occurred in the district’s lesson study approach, and describe some of the early consequences of these changes as well as conditions that enabled the changes to occur. We argue that this case illustrates much of what we would hope to see in a maturing lesson study effort, and conclude that other US sites may need to go through similar changes, organize similar supports, and persist in their learning about lesson study to successfully adapt this model to their local contexts.

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Notes

  1. The chapter was based on Makoto Yoshida’s ethnographic study of Japanese teachers engaging in lesson study (Yoshida 1999), now available in book form (Fernandez and Yoshida 2004).

  2. See discussions of the term “knowledge for teaching” in Ball et al. (2005) and Ball and Cohen (2006).

  3. Currently, as revisions to the manuscript occur, the district is in its 7th year of lesson study.

  4. An additional 14 teachers participated in the 2001 summer workshop, totalling the 42 teachers shown in Table 1.

  5. These reformers include, for example, individuals responsible for mathematics education in a national teachers’ association, a foundation, and numerous universities.

  6. See (Lewis et al. 2006) for a preliminary description of our lesson study theory.

  7. Lesson study was first tried at Paterson School Two in Paterson, NJ (see Fernandez et al. 2001; Germain-McCarthy 2001; Wang-Iverson et al. 2000).

  8. Bellevue, Washington also began a superintendent-initiated district-wide effort in the same year.

  9. An important exception is Lieberman and Wood’s (2002) study of the National Writing Project.

  10. Additionally, revisions to the original submitted manuscript were informed by work conducted for and supported by the MacArthur-Spencer Meta Study (subtitled Toward Producing Usable Knowledge for the Improvement of Educational Practice; see http://www.lrdc.pitt.edu/metastudy/ for more information). Feedback from Principal Investigators Mary Kay Stein and Cynthia Coburn on that manuscript were invaluable here as well.

  11. Teachers’ comments are identified by the notation “T,” an identification number following the “T,” and a date on which the comment was made. (For example “T19: 10-03-01” would indicate a comment made by Teacher 19 on October 3, 2001). In this manuscript, words in quotation marks or block quotes indicate direct comments by participants, either audio or video-recorded during interviews or observations, or taken down verbatim in observation notes. Words in brackets within these quotes are ours, included to add clarity to participants’ comments.

  12. See Hill and Ball (2004) for a recent description of California’s MPDI program.

  13. The first-year and third-year lesson plan examples were chosen by selecting the groups in which O’Neil—one of the more experienced lesson study practitioners in the district—participated.

  14. See Cohen and Hill (2001) and Perry (1996) for a discussion of how multiple opportunities to learn similar ideas can enhance learning and reform outcomes.

  15. See http://www.cde.ca.gov/ta/ac/ap/ for more information on California’s accountability policies (information retrieved 9-22-06).

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Acknowledgements

This material is based upon research supported by the National Science Foundation under grants REC 9814967 and REC 0207259. Additionally, revisions to the original manuscript submission were informed by work conducted for and supported by the MacArthur-Spencer Meta-Study. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation or the MacArthur-Spencer Meta-Study project. The authors wish to thank the many practitioners involved in the research as well as Mary Kay Stein and Cynthia Coburn for their formative feedback on the substance of the manuscript.

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  1. School of Education, Mills College, 5000 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland, CA, 94613, USA

    Rebecca R. Perry & Catherine C. Lewis

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  1. Rebecca R. Perry
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Perry, R.R., Lewis, C.C. What is successful adaptation of lesson study in the US?. J Educ Change 10, 365–391 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10833-008-9069-7

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