Developing the Habits of Mind for a Successful Lesson Study Community

Abstract

This paper describes development, implementation and teacher change in a Lesson Study project with eight third-grade teachers. In Part 1 of this chapter we discuss how we adapted Lesson Study to fit the special circumstances of the school system. We describe how we implemented Lesson Study over the course of a summer and school year, and how two outside facilitators stimulated teacher thinking with math explorations and probing/what if questioning during planning and debriefing sessions. In Part 2, we describe our research. Using a framework from Fernandez et al. (Teaching and Teacher Education 19:171–185, 2003) in which they identified three critical lenses necessary for rich lesson study work, we engaged in enumerative analysis of video data from the first and last lesson study cycles to determine if the teachers developed (or failed to develop) those critical lenses. After one year, the eight participating teachers demonstrated a qualitatively richer student lens and curriculum developer lens.