Session Information
01 SES 13 C, Action Research and Lesson Study Research
Paper Session
Contribution
Lesson Study (LS) is being utilised globally as a powerful model for teacher professional learning and development. This structured approach to teacher professional learning is based on collaborative group work of teachers researching their teaching practice through joint planning, teaching, observation and discussion of classroom lessons (Dudley, 2014). Having originated in Japan more than a century ago (e.g., Stigler & Hiebert, 1999; Dudley, 2014; Fujii, 2014), LS is becoming popular among teachers and teacher educators worldwide. Elliott (2014) forecasts that as LS is utilised in different contexts worldwide it will shape up in different ways. Though numerous studies report on the benefits of LS in relation to teacher learning, there is still a lack of understanding of how the learning of individual teachers is shaped in LS. More needs to be known about the factors that influence professional learning experiences of individual teachers in the context of LS. This study aims to explore how the learning of individual teachers is shaped in LS looking at multiple level factors, which include individual, group and school factors.
The theoretical framework for this study is based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory (1978), which emphasises human learning as a social process and looks at how the societal context contributes to an individual’s development, and on Valsiner’s Zone Theory (1997) that redefines Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development (ZPD) by suggesting two additional zones, the zone of free movement (ZFM) and the zone of promoted actions (ZPA) that address the roles of context and the goals and actions of an individual. More specifically, Valsiner’s Zone Theory adaptation by Goos (2013) was applied in this study. Goos (2013) interpreted the ZPD as “a set of possibilities for development of new knowledge, beliefs, goals and practices created by the teacher’s interaction with the environment, the people in it, and the resources it offers” (p. 523), the ZFM as the possibilities and constraints within a teacher’s professional environment, and the ZPA as professional activities that a teacher can engage in to develop professionally (both formally and informally). In this study, with reference to Valsiner (1997) and Goos (2013), the ZPD was re-interpreted and defined as the set of personal characteristics of a teacher that can enable or hinder a teacher’s learning experience in LS. As LS is recognised as a collaborative learning approach and teachers work and interact in a group with their colleagues to improve their practices the ZPA was referred to as the LS group context and dynamic. While teachers work within their LS groups, they also function within the wider school context, which can either facilitate or constrain the learning experiences of teachers in their LS groups. Therefore, in this study, the ZFM was defined as the school professional environment. The proposed adaptation of Valsiner’s Zone Theory in the context of LS allowed to explore the individual and environmental factors that can shape individual teachers’ learning experiences in LS considering the collaborative aspect of LS with the focus on an individual teacher.
Method
The study employed an interpretive case study approach exploring experiences and perspectives of twelve teachers involved in four LS groups in two secondary schools in Kazakhstan. The teachers participated in focus group discussions (FGD) and individual semi-structured interviews. Additionally, the participants were invited to share a video recording capturing their lesson planning and post-observation discussion within their LS groups. Based on these video recordings, indirect observation notes were taken. Some teachers also shared their LS artefacts (e.g., lesson plans, reflective reports). Both the video recording notes and the LS artefacts shared by the teachers contributed to the development of narrative descriptions of the teachers’ LS experiences and work processes within their LS groups and served as the sources of triangulation in relation to teachers responses obtained through FGDs and interviews. The data gathered via FGDs and interviews were coded and analysed through emerging themes relevant to individual, group and school factors facilitating or hindering individual teachers’ learning experiences in LS.
Expected Outcomes
The findings demonstrate that the learning of individual teachers in LS appears to be shaped by three aspects: a teacher’s personal characteristics (e.g., a teacher’s background (educational and professional), perception of LS, LS experience, motivation to conduct LS, potential for change, professional goals), the LS group context and dynamic (e.g., the quality of interaction among the group members, the level of established trust, personal compatibility, group leader’s role, group learning atmosphere), and the school professional environment (e.g., school Lesson Study policy, teacher certification (attestation) and school leadership approach to LS). The findings show that teacher learning has a complex multicausal and multidimensional nature and to understand this complexity it is necessary to consider the interaction and interrelation between the teacher, the learning activity (LS in this study) and the school environment. Drawing on the personal and contextual factors within the individual characteristics of a teacher, LS group and school, identified from the learning experiences of twelve teachers from four LS groups at two secondary schools in Kazakhstan, this study proposes Individual Teacher’s Professional Learning in LS Model (developed based on Valsiner’s Zone Theory), which offers a framework for capturing and understanding these fragmented factors together. The findings of this study will contribute to research in the field of LS, specifically in relation to a professional learning model for teachers within secondary education, by providing a better understanding of the factors that facilitate or constrain individual teacher learning within LS group process. Furthermore, the study gives a deeper insight into how interaction within a LS group influences individual teachers and their professional learning and development which will be of interest to teachers, teacher educators and educational scholars in Kazakhstan and internationally.
References
Dudley, P. (2014). How Lesson Study works and why it creates excellent learning and teaching. In P. Dudley (Ed.), Lesson Study: Professional learning for our time (pp. 1-28). Routledge. Elliott, J. (2014). Lesson study, learning theory, and the cultural script of teaching. International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies, 3(3). Fujii, T. (2014). Implementing Japanese lesson study in foreign countries: misconceptions revealed. Mathematics Teacher Education and development, 16(1), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.3316/aeipt.205654 Stigler, J., & Hiebert, J. (1999). The teaching gap: Best ideas from the world’s teachers for improving education in the classroom. New York, NY: The Free Press. Valsiner, J. (1997). Culture and the development of children's action: A theory of human development. New York: John Wiley & Sons. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Interaction between learning and development. Readings on the development of children, 23(3), pp.34-41.
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