Sui Lin Goei is Professor at Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, and Assistant Professor at VU Amsterdam, Netherlands. Her research focuses on training teachers’ self-efficacy in inclusive teaching. For this purpose, she uses a professional development strategy known as Lesson Study. She is one of the founding members of the Dutch consortium Lesson Study NL (www.LessonStudyNL.nl), in which eight Dutch universities are united. She was the co-author of the first practical guide on Lesson Study in the Netherlands and is involved in numerous Lesson Study implementation trajectories in schools (inter)nationally. Sui Lin also serves as a member of the Executive Committee in the World Association of Lesson Study (https://www.walsnet.org) where she heads the PhD and Early Researchers group. She was recently appointed Co-Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Lesson and Learning Studies. From 2010-2014, she was a visiting professor at the National Institute of Education (NIE) of Nanyang Technological University of Singapore, where she was first introduced to Lesson Study.

Jia Jia Li is a Chinese PhD candidate in the Department of Educational Studies of the Faculty of Behaviour & Movement Sciences, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam. She received a CRC grant from Jilin University, China. Her research focuses on developing a design thinking-based pedagogy to foster maker mindsets for children in elementary schools engaged in maker education projects. Among others, she uses the Lesson Study approach, in which teachers in STEM Education use DT pedagogy to design maker education projects.

Iris Uffen is a Dutch PhD candidate at the Teacher Education Department of the University of Groningen. Her research project is one of the research grants that the Dutch consortium Lesson Study NL (www.LessonStudyNL.nl) had acquired. Her research focuses on teachers’ learning processes during Lesson Study, and the facilitators’ role in optimizing these learning processes. She is currently in the final stage of her Ph.D. trajectory. The insights from her studies are used in a Dutch handbook for Lesson Study facilitators.

Abstract of Keynote Speech

Teacher Learning through Talk in Lesson Studies

This keynote presentation is the result of a team effort by Sui Lin and two of her PhD students: Jia Jia Li and Iris Uffen. We focus on teachers’ learning from their students’ learning when participating in Lesson Studies. Teachers do so by trying to understand and challenge different perspectives of their students’ learning. Their talk can provide them with an opportunity to explore different perspectives beyond their own already acquired perspective. Teacher talk in Lesson Studies can be a mediating component of teacher learning in this popular professional development approach. An important feature is the collective focus on student learning via teacher dialogue, and activities centered on promoting student learning and development. After an interactive talk about talk during a Lesson Study, I will share examples of teachers’ learning through their talk in several Lesson Study contexts. For instance, one in which teachers try to understand their students’ learning in a subject matter and one in which they focus on the function of behavior when – from their teachers’ perspective–students show disruptive behavior.

In addition, Jia Jia will focus on the findings of a pilot project that used the lesson-study model to redefine project-based Maker Education at a Chinese elementary school. Her focus will be on how three students’ dialogic interactions with the teacher evolved throughout the Lesson Study cycle, and how these changes influenced participating teachers’ understanding of Maker Education. To achieve this, I will provide background information on the project, highlight instances of teacher-student interaction that demonstrated significant changes in the actual classroom, and share excerpts from teachers’ discussions that reflect the concept of “learning.” The outcomes of this project show that closely observing students’ learning processes helps teachers develop customized pedagogical approaches that cater to their specific needs at different levels. These changes are evident in students’ dialogic interactions in real classrooms.

In closing this keynote, Iris Uffen will focus on how a facilitator can contribute to the quality of teacher talk. In particular, she focuses on the post-research lesson discussion: How can facilitators carry out its purpose and how can they organize the discussion in support of its inquiry-oriented nature? Furthermore, she provides a closer look at communicative acts by the facilitator that supports teachers in deepening their understanding and challenging their assumptions about their students’ learning.