Edge Hill University
Lessons Learned: How Lesson Study can enhance, pupil learning, teacher education, and teacher development
This paper reports on a UKLA-funded Lesson Study (LS) cycle whereby two teachers from a University Technical College (UTC) and a teacher educator collaborated on improving the teaching of reading. LS typically involves a triad of practitioners working together to plan, teach, and evaluate three lessons (Dudley, 2014). This project, however, included a university-based teacher educator as part of the process, which was found to be mutually beneficial.
For teachers, LS can be an empowering vehicle for research-informed practice (Allan et al., 2018), and the input of a university-based teacher educator in this instance offered the practitioners closer links to the latest research in literacy. This was combined with the reflections of the teachers involved, making this a more contemplative approach to research-informed practice, inclusive of the nuances of teaching and learning in a particular context (Hulme and Marsden, 2021). For the teacher educator, the experience of teaching 13-14 year-olds again after being out of the classroom for more than three years provided fresh insight into contemporary teaching practices in reading.
Lessons were learned by all about the teaching of reading, which will be passed onto new teachers at the University, and will be built upon as part of the teachers’ professional development at the UTC. With reading being so vital in improving life chances, we argue that a Lesson Study of this nature would be a valuable learning opportunity to other education settings and teacher education providers.
Allan, D., Boorman, D., O’Doherty, E. and Smalley, P. (2018) Lesson Study. In: T. Cain. ed. Becoming a Research-Informed School: Why? What? How? London: Routledge. pp.159–176.
Dudley, P. (2014) Lesson Study: a handbook.
Hulme, M. and Marsden, R. (2021) Becoming Research Literate. In: M. Hulme, R. Smith and R. O’Sulllivan. Eds. Mastering Teaching: thriving as an Early Career Teacher. London: Open University Press. pp.127-141.