Training Teachers for New Standards: Could the Japanese "Lesson Study" Method Help?
From Elizabeth Murray
There was so much interest in James Stigler’s cross- cultural reflections on the need for American students to struggle more that I wondered what other interesting ideas Professor Stigler might have. For this I only had to look through an article written by Stigler in 2010 for Education Week, entitled “Needed: Fresh Thinking on Teacher Accountability." The article was written in response to a new accountability system favored by Arne Duncan and Bill Gates that developed measures of effectiveness to get rid of bad teachers and increase the pay of good ones. Stigler questioned the wisdom of that policy.

As an alternative, he brought up the method of “Lesson Study” which originated in Japan and is currently used in many countries around the world. Simply put, "Lesson Study" is exactly what it sounds like.  You teach a lesson and study what happens. In Japan, lesson study is employed by groups of teachers (usually a department), not a single teacher, which places the emphasis on the process and the student response, and not on the performance or personality of any individual teacher.  

Lessons are taught, revised, re-taught to another class, revised further, etc. Revisions are made in light of observations in the classroom, as well as pre and post testing, and really, everything you might expect to be grounds for a revision.
The group of teachers involved in the research benefits directly from the knowledge gained, but there is also a system in place to distribute model lessons throughout the school community, both locally and nationally. It's all freely available to any teacher - no purchase from publishers required. As Stigler writes, “In this elegant Japanese accountability system, teachers are given realistic feedback on their performance. But, equally important, they are given a regular context in which, assisted by their colleagues, they can use outcome data to drive improvements in practice.”

Whether or not “Lesson Study” would work as an accountability system in the U.S., there is widespread agreement that a collaborative method like this will be needed to enable teachers to successfully adopt and adjust to the Common Core and other new standards. The Common Core means that teachers must shift their practice and teach more advanced materials to their students in more successful ways. To do this they will need training, and many experts agree that the best professional development comes from those already in our schools—our teachers! The following quotation from another, more recent article in Education Week well articulates Stigler’s belief in the importance of a method like “Lesson Study” for America’s teachers:

“Yet one of the tragic hallmarks of American education is teacher isolation. Too often, teachers do not have sufficient opportunities to work together to examine work and structure interventions within their classrooms. The new standards are an opportunity for greater collaboration, fresher thinking, and a re-articulation of shared goals for teachers and students. By collaborating with each other and with instructional specialists through cycles of examining student work, creating hypotheses about how to implement common-core-aligned lessons, implementing them, and making adjustments in their practice in real time, teachers can find the best ways to help their students reach these higher expectations while still maintaining individual styles and flexibility.
“Teacher Collaboration: The Essential Common-Core Ingredient”

 

If you are interested in reading more, the following link will discuss how James Stigler has modified the Japanese method for use in North America and how that method has been modified even more by individual boards, schools and teachers here in our region.
http://professionallyspeaking.oct.ca/march_2010/features/lesson_study/stigler_hiebert.aspx

Elizabeth Murray is Project Manager of the MIT BLOSSOMS Initiative

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