In Lesson Study teachers collaborate to test their ideas about improving instruction. At the heart of each inquiry cycle is a “research lesson” that allows educators to carefully observe students’ experience of learning.
The Lesson Study Cycle can be represented in many ways, such as the example below.
1. Study
Content, curriculum and existing research
4. Reflect
Jointly on student learning, implications for future instruction
2. Plan
Lessons and anticipate student thinking
3. Teach Research Lesson
One team member teachers; others collect data on student responses
Educators around the world have adapted Lesson Study to their local needs. Some shared hallmarks of the family of Lesson Study approaches are:
The Lesson Study Process.
Lesson Study allows teachers to jointly study resources related to instruction, content, school culture, and other topics.
Lesson Study provides an opportunity for teachers to jointly study content and curriculum materials, building a deep and shared understanding of content and curriculum, and the opportunity to bring it to life in practice. This section links content and pedagogy resources that teachers have found useful in Lesson Study.
Content Resources (Lesson Study Group at Mills College)
https://lessonresearch.net/resources/content-resources/
Teaching Through Problem-solving in Mathematics
https://lessonresearch.net/teaching-problem-solving/overview/
Conduct a Lesson Study Cycle on Teaching Through Problem-solving in Mathematics
https://lessonresearch.net/course/teaching-through-problem-solving/
Conduct a Lesson Study on Fractions: Self-guided Course with link
https://lessonresearch.net/course/fractions-cycle-revised/
Educating the Whole Child: Tokkatsu https://www.gmsresearch.net/%E3%83%9B%E3%83%BC%E3%83%A0-home/english/tokkatsu/
The International Journal of Learning and Lesson Studies, available free of charge to WALS members, provides an extensive collection of peer-reviewed research on Lesson Study.
The WALS-Routledge Lesson Study book series provides in-depth treatment of diverse facets of Lesson Study.
Lesson Study has been shown to impact student achievement in both mathematics and language arts.
Lesson Study can increase teachers’ subject knowledge, their experience of positive collegial learning, and their belief that students can succeed.
Like any other approach, Lesson Study can be done well or poorly. Research illuminates some lesson study practices associated with positive outcomes for students and teachers.
A downloadable bibliography introduces some research on lesson study effectiveness.
Please help expand this bibliography by suggesting additional resources,