Reflections on Implementing Lesson Study in the United States: “Incidental” versus “Purposeful” Learning

by Clea Fernandez with Sonal Chokshi

In this paper, Clea Fernandez and Sonal Chokshi present the importance of establishing a lesson study practice that is goal driven. In order for lesson study to be purposeful and productive in the United States, lesson study goals must serve as the driving and unifying force behind every step of the lesson study process and must be framed by the broad objective of assessing and improving student learning. Without this approach, the lesson study learning experience will tend to be incidental rather than purposeful.

There are many challenges to implementing lesson study, and there is a vast difference between simply doing lesson study and doing it well. It is relatively easy to go through the motions of doing lesson study without making it a rich and purposeful learning experience. Not seeking to minimize the accomplishments of those who have found the time, the courage, and the commitment needed to do lesson study, this paper focuses on the challenges that lie ahead for lesson study practitioners in the United States.

Those who have been doing lesson study for a while in the U.S. are reporting that they are getting a great deal out of this experience. However, most of this learning could be considered “incidental” learning—knowledge acquired as a natural by-product of doing lesson study. American teachers are isolated; they have little opportunity to talk to each other—particularly about their practice—let alone to observe each other teach. The opportunity that lesson study provides for teachers to engage in these types of exchanges is extremely stimulating and enriching.

This “incidental” learning stands in great contrast with the “purposeful” learning that experienced Japanese lesson study practitioners bring to their work. These groups establish, (1) a well-developed set of issues about their practice that they want to explore through their work together, (2) clear plans and approaches for how to engage in this exploration, and (3) a commitment to assessing their lesson study activities against these goals.

A lesson study goal derives from more than just following a prescribed set of activities. A group can select an issue about practice to investigate through lesson study and then engage in the steps of lesson study (i.e., planning, observing, and revising) without necessarily connecting the various components of their work. In order to make the opportunities to learn targeted and systemic, the lesson study goal chosen by teachers must serve as the driving and unifying force behind every step of the lesson study process and must be framed by the broad objective of assessing and improving student learning (Fernandez, Cannon, and Chokshi, 2003).

A concrete example of “purposeful” learning draws on the work of a group of Japanese teachers that Makoto Yoshida and Clea Fernandez have been writing about for a forthcoming book on lesson study (in press). This group of teachers had set out to understand how to get students to generate and share rich and varied problem solution strategies. This lesson study goal provided a clear thrust and direction for much of their work. For example, the decisions these teachers made about the design of their lesson manipulative were filtered through their lesson study goal. In other words, these teachers tried to determine the type of features a lesson manipulative would need in order to allow students to share and compare their solutions strategies.

One feature these teachers identified was that the manipulative would need to leave a clear record of students’ thinking processes. Another feature was that a manipulative should not encourage certain solutions strategies over others. Moreover, as these teachers tested and refined their ideas, through trying out their research lesson in a real classroom, their observations and their interpretations of these observations also focused on their lesson study goal. They devoted much attention to assessing the extent to which children had generated and shared varied solution strategies and why. They also tried to relate these evaluations back to the specific lesson design ideas they had generated during the lesson-planning phase. Their lesson study work was both focused and unified by their lesson study goal, which in turn allowed them to learn a great deal about what it takes to get children to generate and share ideas during lessons.

In order for lesson study in the U.S. to live up to the potential illustrated by the work of these Japanese teachers, teachers must not treat the issues they focus on as token research questions. Our observations of novice lesson study groups in the U.S. suggest that, in many instances, lesson study goals are simply empty captions at the top of lesson plans rather than goals that fuel and underlie lesson study work.

Even when novice lesson study practitioners in the U.S. are mindful and committed to their lesson study goals, we are finding that there is much for them to learn about how to use these goals to direct their work. (Contact Clea Fernandez at lsrg@columbia.edu for the full version of a research paper on this topic). These goals often get lost in the competing demands placed on teachers having to plan and carry out real lessons for real students. It is critical for lesson study groups to rigorously follow through with their research questions at every step of their process. As illustrated above, a group’s lesson study goal should not only outline what aspect of their practice the group of teachers is examining, but should also be used to provide guidelines for how to observe and discuss the lesson.

Understanding the distinction between “incidental” and “purposeful” lesson study learning is essential if U.S. lesson study practitioners are to engage in a deeper, more sustainable lesson study process. Groups could conceivably go through numerous iterations of lesson study without ever becoming aware of or addressing this concern. Lesson study practitioners need to become vigilant monitors of their own work in order to avoid this pitfall. As a community, U.S. lesson study practitioners need to pay explicit attention to thinking and learning about how to achieve a lesson study practice that is purposeful and productive because it is goal driven.

References

This paper was originally published online in August 2003.