Learning While Leading Lesson Study

Abstract

This chapter presents research on how teacher developers in the United States learn to conduct lesson study. In contexts such as the United States where this form of professional development is relatively novel, few teachers have participated in lesson study, so leaders of lesson study groups do not have that prior experience to draw upon for facilitation. To investigate how facilitators learn to lead a practice that is new to them, two novice teacher developers were followed for a period of 18 months, from their first exposure to the literature on lesson study, through their participation in lesson study conferences, apprenticeship with an experienced lesson study leader, and into their independent conduct of lesson study groups. Data show that the facilitators learned to contend with such issues as teacher resistance, the use of time, and the shifting imperatives of directing teachers’ work versus stepping back to give teachers autonomy in determining their collective work. The chapter concludes by suggesting that lesson study functions as a countercultural bulwark in the field of teacher learning by promoting a participant-driven, time-intensive form of professional development and that despite its complexity, teacher developers who are new to lesson study become reasonably skillful facilitators in a surprisingly short period of time if they have strong mathematical and pedagogical backgrounds.