Designing Lesson Study for Sustainability: What Have We Learned Around the World?

Session Type: WERA Symposium

Abstract

Perhaps no problem is more persistent than the need for effective professional learning structures that allow educators to continuously improve teaching and learning–for example, to enact new research-based innovations or changes in standards. Japanese lesson study provides one potential such professional learning structure. This symposium proposes a theoretical model of effective, sustained lesson study and investigates cases of its sustained use outside Japan, in order to improve our theoretical understanding of lesson study and of professional learning more generally. Findings from Hong Kong and Singapore, where some schools have sustained lesson study for more than a decade, illuminate local adaptations that enable effective, sustained lesson study, such as integration into local collaborative structures and inclusion of knowledgeable outsiders.

Sub Unit

• World Education Research Association

Chair

• Shelley Friedkin, Mills College

Papers

• Sustainability of Lesson Study: A Theoretical Model - Catherine C. Lewis, Mills College

• Implementing and Sustaining Lesson Study in Singapore Schools - Christina Tong-Li Ratnam-Lim, Nanyang Technological University - National Institute of Education; Christine K.E. Lee, Nanyang Technological University

• Sustaining Lesson Study in Hong Kong Primary Schools With Leadership for Learning - Yuefeng Ellen Zhang, The Hong Kong Institute of Education

Discussant

• Motoko Akiba, Florida State University