Lesson Study:

What is a lesson study?

On any given day thousands of teachers enter similar classrooms to teach similar, if not identical,
subjects. Despite similar pedagogical goals, approaches and experiences, teachers typically work
alone when planning instructional activities and assignments. Such isolation limits efforts to
improve college teaching on a broader scale, both within and across disciplines. Although
individual teachers may reflect on and improve their practice, there are few occasions to
converse with colleagues about what they discover about teaching and learning. When they do
share their ideas about teaching, it likely takes the form of knowledge they develop from their
experiences in the classroom, and don't tend to focus on how the students are learning (Cerbin &
Kopp, 2006).
Lesson study is a professional learning approach in which teachers work together to: formulate
goals for student learning and long-term development; collaboratively plan a research lesson
designed to bring to life these goals; conduct the lesson in a classroom, with one team member
teaching and others gathering evidence on student learning and development; and discuss the
evidence gathered during the lesson, using it to improve the lesson, the unit, and instruction more
generally (Lewis, 2009)
Why do a lesson study?
Lesson study is a teaching improvement and knowledge building process that has origins in
Japanese elementary education. In Japanese lesson study teachers work in small teams to plan,
teach, observe, analyze, and refine individual class lessons, called research lessons. Nearly all
Japanese teachers participate in a lesson study team during a school year. In addition, they
observe research lessons regularly in their own schools and at schools that host lesson study open
houses. Research lessons are published and widely disseminated throughout the country. In
essence Japanese lesson study is a broad-based, teacher-led system for improvement of teaching
and learning. (Cerbin & Kopp, 2006)
Since any teaching strategy works differently in different contexts with different students,
effective pedagogy requires that teachers inquire into the impact of their teaching on their
students. Inquiry into the teaching-learning relationship can be visualised as a cyclical process
that goes on moment by moment (as teaching takes place), day by day, and over the longer term
(The New Zealand Curriculum, 2007, p.35).
Social constructivism asserts the social nature of knowledge and the belief that knowledge is
constructed through social interaction and is shared rather than an individual experience. By
collaborating with one another during our lesson study we were able to plan, teach and learn with
one another which enhanced our professional learning and pedagogical knowledge.

Why we chose mountain biking:

Mountain biking is an outdoor activity that were not familiar with or experienced in prior to
camp. We believed this would be a challenging activity to teach on camp but knew Michael
would be there to share his expert knowledge. Teachers, who may be virtual novices or seasoned
experts, share their previous experiences teaching the topic, and discuss possible ways to address
the lesson goals (Cerbin & Kopp, 2006). We also know this activity would be physically
demanding but felt as though we were both capable of lasting three days on the bikes. Mountain
biking is an activity that we know is used within schools, especially on camp so felt it would be
beneficial to add this topic to our teaching tool box.
Planning and preparation:
Focus the study:
Michaels mountain biking experience has led him to believe that mountain biking needs to be
challenging. It will take you out of your comfort zone and at times you may have to get off the
bike and push it. This started the ball rolling with ideas on what we could do in our lesson and
guided ideas around how students will learn. We wanted the ride to be challenging but rewarding
so we aimed to create authentic learning experiences that would engage and teach the students
new skills.
What are your assumptions about how students learn?
From our 1st year camp we found mountain biking not rewarding or successful. One course was
too difficult and the other too easy. We knew that we needed to balance the ride with varying
levels of difficulty to extend and support our students. We had made assumptions about the
attitudes of the students towards mountain biking and believed that the majority of students
would enjoy pushing themselves and feel rewarded at the end. Our students are future P.E.
teachers so knew they would be physically and mentally up to the challenge.
How can you get information to test these assumptions?
After deciding to teach mountain biking. We knew the first thing we had to do was physically go
up to Tawharanui and test the tracks. Teachers try to put themselves in the position of a student
and imagine what it would be like to experience the material and lesson activities as a novice, an
approach that fosters the development of pedagogical content knowledge (cerbin & Kopp). We
went out two weeks prior to camp and spend around three hours riding around the whole national
park, and looking at the map to ensure we weren't tackling any dangerous contours.
From this we created three different routes for camp. These took into account a range of biking
abilities and weather conditions (refer to lesson plan).
Lesson planning:

The team creates a lesson intended to bring the goals to life (Lewis, 2000). Our trip out to
Tawharanui enabled us to understand the conditions and terrain that mountain biking will take
place in. From this we were able to create realistic lesson aims and objections (refer to lesson
plan) that would focus on how the students will learn, rather than what they will be learning.
Knowing that we will have diverse group, not only in physical ability but with cultures, ethnicity,
gender and social class we needed to take this into consideration when planning. Our ice
breakers allowed students to bring in their past experiences and personal backgrounds into our
activity. This meant that all students felt valued and could express any concerns and issues when
mountain biking. Integrating diversity into the classroom process not only enhances learning, but
it can increase motivation and facilitates the development of social, cognitive, and
communication skills that are necessary to enter todays multicultural workforce (Lynn 1998)
The tracks we designed were physically challenging (8 kms of riding) so we knew we needed to
create activities that would teach and show them skills while they recovered. For example, after
the first challenging hill we added in a tyre change as this is a really important skills to learn. we
also covered changing gears, riding up and down hills, breaking effectively, carrying a bike
uphill and also the history about where mountain biking originated. We thought this was a
diverse range of learning experiences that we thought would engage and help the students learn
about mountain biking.
Within our planning we needed to ensure we made a sound safety plan that addressed any
possible injuries or medical issues that could occur. Procedures were outlined so if anything did
happen we all felt confident in taking the right steps. We met on several occasions at uni to refine
and develop our lesson plan to ensure we got the most out of the activity. Maureen gave us great
feedback, especially when she suggested to add in some history of the wheel. Students responded
really well to this as it provided a good break in our ride, and taught them extra knowable that we
didn't consider at first. This is one of the many benefits of participating in a lesson study, as all
members have different ideas that can be of value when planning.
Hiring the equipment was another consideration. Michael knew of a reliable hire company that
we used (refer to website).
When asked to define quality teaching, the least important aspect is having an thorough
understanding of the subject. Cochran-Smith (2003) highlighted that the most important aspect
of quality teaching is developing the skill to make material interesting and accessible.
Understanding your students being creative and skillful in designing lessons is being a quality
teacher. We felt that although we weren't knowledgeable on mountain biking we worked as a
team to create a lesson plan that we would feel confident following and also learn as we teach
and observe.

Observations, reflections and modifications:

The primary focus of lesson study is not what students learn, but rather how students learn from
the lesson. To investigate how students learn, teams focus on student thinking during the lesson,
how they make sense of the material, what kinds of difficulties they have, how they answer
questions, how their thinking changes during the lesson and so forth (Cerbin & Kopp, 2006). In
each lesson taught there was one teacher and the rest of our team were the observers. This was
really effective in providing feedback towards how the students were engaging and learning
throughout the ride.
After each lesson we had specific questions that we would answer (refer to website) so that we
could critically reflect on the lesson and hear everyone's ideas on what worked well and what
needs to change. We voice recorded these reflection so we could transcribe these to evaluate how
the students were learning throughout the lessons. We were organised and consistent with
completing these reflection immediately after we returned from the lesson. These discussions
were really effective in helping us to modify the lesson. The critical aspect of this is to ask the
questions how and what do students learn from this activity? and what modifications need to
be made to improve the learning?
Cerbin & Kopp (2006) stated that soon after the lesson is taught the team holds a debriefing
meeting to examine evidence related to the learning goals and to reflect on the experience. They
also stated that following the debriefing session, the lesson study team holds one or more
meetings to organise and analyse the data further and discuss possible changes to the lesson
and/or the study. These are two essential components of a successful lesson study, which we feel
that we achieved.
Lesson studies professional confidence, professional development and improves ability to teach
the lesson and complete a lesson study more effectively (Rock & Wilson, 2005). We found this to
be true in our own lesson study as we now have the confidence and understand what is necessary
to teach for mountain biking.

How we could improved overall:

We feel as though we needed to incorporate different cultures into our lesson. We had included
Te Reo into our lesson plan however we didn't familiarise ourselves with this and completely
glazed over it. To improve this next time we could add a reflection question that address culture
or even ask students at the beginning of the lesson to share any different phrases from another
language. By doing this we acknowledge and embrace diversity to greater extent in our lessons.
How we can use lesson studies in our future teaching:
Lesson study reports allow other people to benefit by having a well researched lesson in their
resources as well as a considered discussion of the issues related to teaching the lesson (Ovens,
2015). This can benefit ourselves when taking students on a mountain biking activity as we now
feel confident taking a diverse groups of students into the outdoors. We now feel confident
completing a lesson study and have recognised the benefits of participating in one for our future
teaching. Other teachers can use this lesson study as a resource, and is the reason why we created
a website so other educators can learn from our experiences and ideas and so they can complete
their own lessons and lesson studies.

References:

Cerbin, W & Kopp, B., (2006). Lesson Study as a Model for Building Pedagogical Knowledge
and Improving Teaching. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher
Education, 18 (3), 250-257.
Gay, G., (2002). Preparing for Culturally Responsive Teaching. Journal of Teacher
Education, 53 (2), 106-116.
Lewis, C. (2005). How do teachers learn during lesson study? In P. Wang-Iverson & M. Yoshida
(Eds.). Building our understanding of lesson study. Philadelphia: Research for Better
Schools, Inc.
Lynn, M. (1998). Teaching through Diversity. College Teaching, 46(4), 123-127.
10.1080/87567559809596255

DOI:

Ovens, A. (2015, March 10). Introduction to Lesson Study. Unpublished lecture notes, University
of Auckland, New Zealand.
Rock, T., Wilson, C. (2005). Improving Teaching through Lesson Study. Teacher Education
Quarterly, 32 (1), 77-92.