HA believed that lesson study was more practical than other CPD approaches, such as the cascade approach.
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But lesson study is practical. I like it because it is practical. You don’t just prepare the lesson, no. You move into the class and actually teach that lesson, and then come back and sit down, criticise the lesson. Again, if you are not satisfied you go back and re-teach. You know until you reach a point where you think now we have developed a standard lesson, you file it even for other teachers who may come later and use it. So, I think there is a difference. It's more practical. (HA)
According to CC, lesson study was different from other CPD approaches because lesson study had no “masters” – those who could exalt themselves as “know it all” individuals. He further stated that, unlike other CPD approaches where one individual attended some training and become a super-teacher, lesson study promoted levelling of understanding among teachers.
What teachers learnt by participating in lesson study
According to CA, HTA and HTB, teachers participating in lesson study learnt how to deliver lessons. According to CA,
Teachers who are participating in the lesson study learn quite a lot. They are looking at the new methods of teaching where you are running away from the usual lesson. What do you call it? Lecture method. But this time around, students are more involved. So those techniques are discussed in more detail. (CA)
The quote from CA resonates with HTB’s comment that teachers learnt “how to approach such a topic, so the delivery method also improves”. Also, HTA stated that even teachers who considered themselves as inadequate in delivering certain topics were helped during lesson study to deliver a lesson more effectively than if they had done it alone.
CC, referring to what teachers participating in lesson study stated, “Approaches change. We no longer feel that a child knows nothing apart from a teacher”. Furthermore, HTB stated that teachers expanded their knowledge in mathematics by participating in lesson study.
They will deepen their knowledge because as you may be aware, they say knowledge is not a preserve of only one person. So maybe one teacher could be well vested
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[knowledgeable] on one topic and that teacher is going to share what he has with the other teachers who might not be very good on that particular topic. (HTB)
HTC said that teachers learnt concepts and skills and, after developing the concepts and skills, could focus better on the real issues.
Concerns about teachers participating in lesson study
According to CC, newly graduated teachers were reluctant to attend lesson study because universities did not inform them about the need to participate in CPD when employed in schools or they felt they already knew it all. HTB was also concerned that some teachers thought lesson study was a waste of time.
HTA reported concerns about inadequate time to engage in lesson study, while at the same time having the challenge of covering the syllabus. He added, “It's only time, [it] doesn’t seem to be adequate to do everything that we want to do”.
HTC was concerned that teachers who did not understand lesson study were focussing on physical benefits, such as the refreshments some schools provided during lesson study. She said that some teachers did not want to participate in the lesson study sessions if the school did not provide refreshments.
4.4.2 School administrators versus in-service providers
As was the case with the in-service providers, school administrators had been exposed to Japanese experts on lesson study, some during training in Japan, and others when participating in the JICA-aided projects in the Central Province of Zambia or Kenya. However, school administrators also mentioned gaining additional information about lesson study from the Teaching Skills Book (MOE & JICA, 2009) and the Implementation Guidelines (MOE & JICA, 2010b). However, school administrators did not mention many of the features of Japanese Lesson Study such as: a long-term goal, a clear research purpose, significant time spent on investigating a wide range of instruction material, engagement of knowledgeable others, the period over which one lesson study cycle was conducted, and sharing of lesson study results. These features are pertinent to Japanese Lesson Study. For example, Takahashi and Yoshida (2004) noted that the meticulous analyses of academic content and teaching materials are
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integral to lesson study as practised in Japan.
Both the school administrators and the in-service providers stated that lesson study would build the expertise of teachers. However, the school administrators mentioned more aspects of lesson study than the in-service providers did. This difference might be explained by the fact that school administrators worked within the environment where lesson study took place.
According to the school administrators, lesson study differed from other CPD approaches because it was more practical than the cascade approach, which involved sending one teacher or a group of teachers, for training, and having to present to their colleagues on their return. The school administrators focussed more on the impartiality of lesson study, stating that all teachers participating had same opportunities to contribute and learn, with no “masters” exalting themselves as having all the knowledge. The in-service providers, on the other hand, focussed more on the lesson study process, that is, the eight steps that teachers must follow, including documenting and sharing of results. They saw the eight steps as rigid, as per the statement in the Implementation Guidelines (MOE & JICA, 2010b, p. 20).
There were no major differences between the perceptions of the school administrators and the in-service providers regarding what teachers learnt when participating in lesson study, with school administrators stating that teachers who participated in lesson study learnt how to approach difficult topics and teach a lesson more effectively. They believed that teachers also no longer felt that students knew nothing apart from the information provided by their teachers, and that teachers expanded their knowledge of mathematics through lesson study.
The school administrators were concerned that many newly graduated teachers from universities were reluctant to attend lesson study, and some teachers thought lesson study was a waste of time, with in-service providers also being concerned about teachers with a poor attitude towards lesson study who were reluctant to participate in lesson study. The school administrators also expressed concern that teachers did not have adequate time to engage in lesson study, while at the same time having to cover the school syllabus, and that teachers were focussing on the monetary and physical benefits of lesson study, such as the refreshments that some schools provided.
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4.5 Mathematics teachers’ interpretations of lesson study
At each of the three case schools, interviews were conducted with the two teachers who taught the research lessons (referred to here as TA1, TA2, TB1, TB2, TC1, and TC2).
4.5.1 Mathematics teachers’ interview responses
This section focusses on the responses of these participants in terms of their understanding of lesson study, sources of information on lesson study, and how lesson study differs from other CPD approaches.
Understanding of lesson study
Teachers expressed various views on lesson study. TA1 saw lesson study mainly as a student-centred approach, which simplified the lesson presentation, and enabled teachers to use the available teaching aids. He added that lesson study was used mostly in mathematics because lesson study helped to translate the abstract terms in mathematics to real-life situations through lesson plans, thereby helping students to understand mathematics.
According to TA2, the objective of lesson study was to improve the effectiveness of lesson preparation. TB1 stated that lesson study is a cycle in which teachers, working as a team, planned the lesson; allowed one teacher to implement the lesson; evaluated the lesson; made amendments; and repeated the same lesson in a different class.
TC1 and TC2 depicted lesson study as being driven by challenging topics or problems. According to TC1, lesson study involved teachers in a department identifying a challenge and assessing whether they could address them. Similarly, TC2 said that in lesson study teachers should look at challenging topics and how best to teach such topics.