2. What is Lesson Study?
• As Lesson Study has been ‘exported’ around the world there has
been a tendency to see it as a fixed process
• In Japan there is no fixed archetypal approach – it is adapted
to fit contextual needs
• However, some foundational elements can be argued to exist:
Collaborative process
Focus on understanding learning to develop practice
Detailed, critical application and reflection on a focused
‘element of learning’
Capture of learning in action (predominantly through
observation)
3. A Perspective From Higher Education
• Still a tendency towards ‘pedagogic solitude’ (Shulman, 1993)
• Discussion over generic pedagogy vs disciplinary specialisms
• New impetus for change through the TEF
• Lesson study - potential for embedding a culture of pedagogic
development and innovation – one tool amongst many
• Scholarship and research base for those interested in HE
teaching and learning
• Insights as a basis for moving beyond Scholarship for Teaching
and Learning
4. Why Can’t Lesson Study Be participatory?
• Work with international masters students (Wood and Cajkler, 2016)
• Addition of student perspectives to a basic lesson study model
5. • Student focus groups and interviews important for developing an
understanding of the complexities of learning processes and
student perceptions
• Some dissonance between observation and interview data
• Complexity of pedagogic and learning processes
• Issues of language and technology use particularly important
• Discussion has also helped us consider learning beyond the seminar
room – reflection on ‘ecologies’ of learning
6. Lesson Study and Distance Learning – A Vehicle for
Sensemaking
Guiding Considerations:
• Many students don’t fill in distance learning evaluations
• Evaluations often too generalised
• Evaluations are inherently retrospective
• Evaluations often focus on activities, tutoring, resources,
environments, but rarely learning and student action.
• Analysis often gets reduced to simplistic reflections on numbers
7. We wanted to develop an approach which allowed for:
• Formative module evaluation
• Linked to curriculum development
• To make distance learning review more than a ‘performative’
activity
• Putting pedagogy (interpenetration of teaching, learning,
curriculum and assessment and their interaction with teachers and
students) at the centre of the process
• Emergence and trialling of new approaches as a standard element
of our work
8. 1. Teacher
group
identifies an
issue as the
‘learning
challenge’
2. OPTIONAL:
teachers
interview
students
concerning
prior learning
and conceptual
understanding
3. The teacher
group
collaboratively
plan a week
long package to
meet the
learning
challenge
4. Students
complete the
week-long work
package &
teachers
interview them
to discuss
learning
experiences
5. The teacher
group meets to
consider the
evidence from
the interviews
6. Insights
from the
evaluation are
considered in
helping plan
the next work
package of
interest
Is this Lesson
Study?
9. • Allows us to develop elements of the curriculum in real time,
with student response and reflection helping shape the content
and approach
• Students value the opportunity to give deeper, more critical
views
• Deeper understanding of the complexities of pedagogies, with
opportunity to respond and use formatively
• Rolling programme of curriculum renewal which is holistic –
measured innovation and emergent understanding of student
experiences/learning
• Synergy with research opportunities
10. ‘Sensemaking is the ability or attempt to make sense of an
ambiguous situation. More exactly, sensemaking is the process of
creating situational awareness and understanding in situations of
high complexity or uncertainty in order to make decisions. It is
“a motivated, continuous effort to understand connections (which
can be among people, places, and events) in order to anticipate
their trajectories and act effectively.’
(Klein, quoted by Snowden http://cognitive-edge.com/blog/what-is-sense-making/)
Moving from Summative Evaluation to Sensemaking
• Seeing Lesson Study in HE as a vehicle for sensemaking
• Contextually relevant and apparent utility for improving
practice
11. Seeing Lesson Study as a Philosophy rather than a Recipe
• Lesson Study has a great deal of potential as a tool (one of
many) to help develop praxis in pedagogy
• Needs to be contextually relevant if it is to have an impact
• But needs to include consideration of basic ideas and
philosophies if it is not to become amorphous
• Being clear and critical about approaches – transparency of
approaches and underlying assumptions
• But at the same time there is no archetypal and single ‘correct’
way of doing lesson study
