A reply to Charles Clarke by Catherine Lewis

Citation

Lewis, C. (2012), "A reply to Charles Clarke by Catherine Lewis", International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Vol. 1 No. 3. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijlls.2012.57901caa.005

A reply to Charles Clarke by Catherine Lewis

A reply to Charles Clarke by Catherine Lewis

Article Type: Discussion From: International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, Volume 1, Issue 3.

Lesson study as research

Like Charles Clarke, I see research as an essential underpinning of high-quality education, and education as the foundation to develop both individual and societal potential and to create a just society. Four features of lesson study as research give it an edge over educational research methods better known in the West.

What is lesson study?

Lesson study is a translation of the Japanese words jugyou (lesson, lessons, instruction) and kenkyuu (research or study). The term might equally well be translated “instructional research”. Experimental research in education is not well-developed in Japan (Nihon Kyouiku Houhougakkai, 2009). Lesson study – teacher-led collaborative inquiry cycles that include live classroom lessons – might seem a modest vehicle for educational improvement. Yet in Japan, lesson study has produced big educational transformations that stubbornly elude nations with more rigorous systems of educational research. For example, lesson study is credited with the shift from “teaching as telling” to “teaching for understanding” in science (Lewis and Tsuchida, 1997) and the development of highly effective problem-solving-style mathematics (Takahashi et al., 2005). Four features of lesson study give it power to inform policy and transform practice.

1. Attention to variation

Anthony Bryk notes that just about every programme works somewhere and no programme works everywhere. So how are researchers to decide which programmes are effective? Experimental research closely specifies programme content and implementation in order to eliminate most sources of variation. Unfortunately, such close control ignores the wide variation in educational settings and undermines programme adaptation by the educators best-positioned to customize a programme for local success. In contrast, lesson study welcomes and learns from variation. For example, US teachers lesson study practitioners noticed that the table associated with a textbook problem “spoon-fed” students the answer. The teachers eliminated the table from the next research lesson and found that students understood the mathematics better when forced to organise the data themselves (Lewis et al., 2009). By closely studying their own students’ responses, teachers improved upon the problem design in the textbook. In Japan, such teacher-led research constantly improves the curriculum.

2. A mechanism for scale-up

When the teachers just mentioned discovered the power of eliminating the data table, they began to look closely at other lessons and to make sure to design them so that “students do the work, not the teacher”. The teachers shared their work in public research lessons, which provide a natural mechanism for scale-up of innovations. During public research lessons teachers see new curricula and teaching strategies in practice (not just read about them), network with other teachers who can help them make sense of new ideas, build a shared culture of educational improvement and see lessons from the viewpoint of students. Public research lessons rapidly spread teaching innovations and knowledge about student thinking and subject matter (Lewis and Tsuchida, 1997; Lewis et al., 2012).

3. A window on instruction for policy makers

When solar energy was added to the Japanese elementary curriculum, dozens of schools applied to be “designated research schools” for teaching solar energy. Lesson study groups at these schools (joined by university-based researchers) studied available research and curriculum. After a year or so of experimentation, these schools conducted large public research lessons on solar energy that enabled many educators to see and discuss live lessons, ask questions about the rationale for lesson design, see first-hand how students respond, and take home instructional materials. Through these public lessons, knowledge about solar energy and its teaching spread rapidly across Japan – both practical knowledge about the solar toys that make important ideas visible and knowledge of student thinking and subject matter. Policy makers who helped write the solar energy standards attended these lessons, and could see how both teachers and students responded to the new standards. In effect, lesson study provided a window for policy makers to conduct formative research on policy. Contrast this with the situation in the USA, policy makers and educators (or even educators within a school) may have vastly different interpretations of the meaning of terms like “problem solving” in standards.

4. Creating demand for research

Richard Elmore (1996) argues that US education suffers not from inadequate supply of good educational programmes, but inadequate demand for them on the part of practicing teachers: “the primary problem of scale is understanding the conditions under which people working in schools seek new knowledge and actively use it to change […] schooling” (p. 4). Lesson study creates demand for research among educators. Research lessons provide a natural incentive to look closely at what is known about teaching a particular topic, and lesson study provides a structure to work with colleagues in making sense of the research and translating it into classroom instruction. Research indicates that teachers engaged in lesson study increase interest in research and use it to improve instruction (Perry and Lewis, 2010, 2011).

Further reading

Lewis, C. and Hurd, J. (2011), Lesson Study Step by Step: How Teacher Learning Communities Improve Instruction, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH

About the author

Catherine C. Lewis Distinguished Research Scholar at Mills College, in Oakland, California and has served as principal investigator on both federal and private foundation lesson study grants. More information about her work and lesson study is available at: www.lessonresearch.net. This material is based in part upon research supported by the National Science Foundation under grants REC 9814967 and REC 0207259. Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funder. Catherine C. Lewis can be contacted at: clewis@mills.edu