How Should Research Contribute to Instructional Improvement The Case of Lesson Study.pdf

Features How Should Research Contribute to Instructional Improvement? The Case of Lesson Study by Catherine Lewis, Rebecca Perry, and Aki Murata Lesson study, a Japanese form of professional development that centers Brief Description of Lesson Study on collaborative study of live classroom lessons, has spread rapidly Lesson study is a translation of the Japanese words jugyou in the United States since 1999. Drawing on examples of Japanese (instruction, lessons, or lesson) and kenkyuu (research or study). The and U.S. lesson study, we propose that three types of research are term jugyou kenkyuu encompasses a large family of instructional needed if lesson study is to avoid the fate of so many other once- improvement strategies, the shared feature of which is observation of live classroom lessons by a group of teachers who collect data on promising reforms that were discarded before being fully understood teaching and learning and collaboratively analyze it (Lewis, 2002a, or well implemented. The proposed research includes development 2002b; Lewis Tsuchida, 1997, 1998; Wang-Iverson Yoshida, of a descriptive knowledge base; explication of the innovation’s 2005). The observed lessons, called “research lessons,” are regarded mechanism; and iterative cycles of improvement research. We identify not as an end in themselves but as a window on the larger vision six changes in the structure and norms of educational research that of education shared by the group of teachers, one of whom agrees to teach the