Friday 2nd October I had an early start to get to Imperial
College London for 9.30 a.m. to attend the Lesson Study London Conference with
another 350 delegates.
If you haven't heard about Lesson study, here is a link to
Lesson Study.co.uk
Prof. Charles Desforges, Emeritus Professors University of Exeter, opened the conference and discussed how he thought that Lesson Study
was the ‘most promising approach to Professional Learning’ as it closes the gap
between teaching and learning. He went on the say that, we, as educators, need
to deepen our understanding of learning and Lesson Study provides a vehicle to
do this.
Employing a Lesson Study approach allows teachers to start where the
learner is in their learning, and then build on this. It supports teachers to thinking
about ‘thinking’ by being ‘intellectually active’ and learn new skills through
the feedback within the trio. This is consistent with the Teacher Learning Community
approach and always work best when teachers have ‘choice’ about their focus,
taking responsibility and being accountable for their own learning. This, in
turn, leads to a happier workforce who feel they have ownership of their own
learning and are not relying on inputs from other sources. The learning for
teachers comes through the sharing of the process and is a powerful tool to
support improvement. Greater impact could be achieved if a more systemic
approach were adopted, where all teachers use evidence as part of the ‘craft repertoire’
to build a learning experience for pupils which will improve life chances.
A more radical concept of bringing in the students as collaborators on the
learning was touched on. I like this idea as we know all children love to learn
and will be persistent in learning given the correct circumstances. The example
used to illustrate this point was street children, who show amazing entrepreneurial
spirit and learn complex business models without formal education. So children
know about learning, we need to help them and teachers need to develop new vocabulary
to talk to each other about learning. In schools we become too abstract too quickly,
pulling analogies and references to illustrate the point when we should perhaps
be context driven and make the learning relevant.
We need to consider different forms of learning and the challenge each
brings;
Form of Learning Challenge
Incremental/accumulation link new to old
Practice speed
based: reflection
Enrichment/application promote
active knowledge base,,
application skills, 'can-do' attitude
Re-structuring/re-thinking hypothesis testing
Revision all of the above
Prof Desforges finished by saying that Lesson Study is “potentially the
most powerful form of CPD for classroom practice and learning”.
In Workshop 1, Sarah Selenznyov, programme leader from IOE discussed
how she supported the evaluation of the London School Excellence Fund project
to develop leadership in lesson study, led by the Rosendale Children’s’ Centre.
The project involved teachers from Lambeth Council developing leaders of lesson
study. The initial method of developing leaders was through the Cascade model.
Each cycle considered two questions;
Ideally, what
qualities will students have when they graduate from our school?
What are the actual
qualities of our students now?
Akin to one of Covey’s Habits of
Effective People ‘begin with the
end in mind ‘.
The support and challenge for teachers is least often discussed but is
probably the most important aspect, in this model it was found that it was
better to go bottom to top rather than the more usual professional learning
model of top to bottom. Again the importance of the language to articulate learning
was highlighted as a skill that teachers need to continually improve.
Within Lesson Study the role of Koshi (expert) is crucial to support
and challenge the trio by coaching and showing a high degree of emotional
intelligence. The Koshi who uses questioning and listening skills very well to
improve the experience and outcomes for the teachers and thus the pupils.
The main challenges found were the commitment of the SLT. This
commitment comes in many forms but the biggest barrier is when time is not
given to support Lesson Study. This enquiry model requires dedicated time for
planning and evaluation. If this is not available then the impact will reduce
as teachers then pay lip service to the methodology and do not change their practice.
On a gloriously sunny October day sitting outside I have a quick lunchtime
chat with David Weston. We chewed the fat around some commonalities and spaces
where Scottish and English educators can support each other and collaborate.
Workshop 2 was ‘How teachers learn in lesson study: results of
Cambridge research into teachers learning through talk’.
The study involved 60 schools, the researchers recorded and analysed
the evaluation talk of each lesson cycle to focus in on how talk was used as a ‘social
mode of thinking’. The researchers analysed the talk into two moves, dialogic
moves and supportive moves. The conversations were very revealing in the nature
of emotional input from the teachers. The teachers observed initially felt
exposed and needed reassurance and ‘permission’ about the lesson. Once trios
were established this type of conversation moved from the personal to more professional
and the language moved to descriptive processes and interpretative processes of
evaluating lessons.
Final address was from Professor Christine Kim-Eng Lee from National Institute
of Education, Singapore, she discussed how lesson study was being implemented
in Singapore to improve outcomes for our 21st century learners. The
Ministry of Education, Singapore, have detailed a list of 21st
century competencies.
“Globalisation, changing
demographics and technological advancements are some of the key driving forces
of the future. Our students will have to be prepared to face these challenges
and seize the opportunities brought about by these forces.
To help our students thrive in a
fast-changing world, MOE has identified competencies that have become
increasingly important in the 21st Century. These competencies, represented in
the following framework, underpin the holistic education that our schools
provide to better prepare our students for the future. It is envisaged that
schools and parents need to work hand-in-hand to help our students develop
these 21st Century Competencies.”
Framework
for 21st Century Competencies and Student Outcomes
Familiar???
Professor Lee spent some time discussing what were the benefits and
challenges.
The perceived benefits were;
Curricular knowledge
improved
Understanding of
student learning
Opportunities to
learn from colleague
The perceived challenges were;
Competing demands
of time
Capacity of
teachers to facilitate
Lack of tools/artefacts
to support teachers
Lack of Koshi
Teacher ownership
Overall an enjoyable day, with key messages about the power of Lesson
Study if it is done well and time is devoted to allowing this approach to
become embedded practice. But the questions to be addressed are around building
capacity in teachers, finding Kochi who can support and we need to develop our
skills in how we talk about learning.
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