Lesson Study

Domo arigato, Mr. Makoto.

Lesson Study is a professional development process whereby teachers systematically examine their practice, with the goal of becoming more effective educators.

• Define the problem
• Planning the lesson
• Teaching the lesson
• Evaluating the lesson and Reflecting on its Effect
• Revising the lesson
• Teaching the revised lesson
• Evaluating and reflecting again
• Sharing the results

• Select target competencies (decide students should learn)
• Identify present student understanding and misconceptions
• Anticipate student thinking
• Build long term goals
• Teachers formulate the questions and activities that will move students from their current understanding to the desired understanding of the subject matter.

Teachers plan, observe, and reflect upon the lesson under development. In Lesson Study, groups of teachers meet regularly over long periods of time (ranging from several months to a year) to work on the design, implementation, testing, and improvement of one or several “research lessons”.

Woodies charted the different ways they solved a given math problem.

Makoto shows the group how the chalkboard is used in Japan.