Introduction:

Lesson Study is a Japanese instruction approach that is used to improve instruction. In this approach, a team of teachers and experts collaborate to design a single lesson. This same team actually observes the lesson being taught and makes observations, which are used during a debriefing meeting on the unfolding of the lesson and its plan.

Lesson Study involves the following steps:
1. Goal Setting
2. Writing the Research Lesson
3. Watching the Research Lesson
4. Discussing/Reflecting over the Lesson
5. Refining and Re-teaching the Lesson

Specifically teachers write a detailed lesson plan which includes a description of teacher prompts, anticipated student responses, and an overall flow of the entire lesson.

See the links below for examples and resources.

Mokota Yoshida speaking at the Woodrow Wilson Biology Institute. His focus was the Japanese use of the chalkboard.

Lesson Study Template