Sharing lesson study results is the main aim of Step 8 in Figure 4.3. The
Implementation Guidelines stated:
After reflections are compiled and shared, a report is forwarded to other relevant officers to enable them to avail it to other stakeholders so that the experiences could further be shared at fora such as Departmental/Section meetings, stakeholder workshops, Subject Association meetings, Education Conferences etc. Further development of such materials could be documented and published in journals or newsletters as alternatives, which have been trialled. (MOE & JICA, 2010, p. 10)
According to this, heads of departments or sections, and head teachers or deputy head teachers are supposed to prepare a report on lesson study and submit it to the district office. The District Education Support Team (DEST) should summarise the content of lesson study reports from schools in the district and share the findings at the next Stakeholders’ Workshop. Furthermore, outstanding practices in lesson study are to be shared at provincial, national, and international conferences.
Regarding sharing lesson study results in Japan, Fujii (2014, p. 4) stated that “Each research lesson and its post-lesson discussion occupy only one day, but the teachers reflect on what they learned at the research lessons and usually write a booklet or long summary report by the end of the school year”.
4.2
Zambian lesson study versus Japanese Lesson Study
Table 4.1 compares the information from the Ministry documents regarding lesson study in Zambia with the Japanese Lesson Study model.
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Table 4.1 A comparison of the Ministry of Education’s definition of lesson study in Zambia with Japanese Lesson Study
Aspect Japanese Lesson Study Zambian model of lesson study Steps in the lesson
study cycle
• Four steps • Eight steps including reteaching the research lesson
Duration of a lesson study cycle
• More than five weeks • Five days at the most
Setting goals for lesson study
• In a school-based lesson study, align research goals with those of the school
• Embedding research lesson in curriculum
• Long-term goals
• Align goals with those of the Ministry of Education • Rationale focussed on content,
value, methods and location of lesson in unit
• Lesson objectives should be written in a behavioural way
Investigating
instructional materials
• Rigorous investigation of a range of instructional materials (kyozaikenkyu)
• Plan carefully for each lesson • Plan by looking at the available
resources Lesson plan • A typical template for a lesson
plan contains 5 items. • Maybe 9 pages
• A template for a lesson plan contains 16 items
• Sample lesson plan appended in the
Implementation Guidelines had 3
pages Approaches used for
delivering research lesson
• Research lessons in mathematics typically use structured problem solving
• Teachers should mix four approaches
Observing the research lesson
• Observers collect data on how the lesson affects students • Lesson observation focusses on
teaching and learning processes. • Focus on how students
responded to the lesson
• Members of the planning team observe and evaluate the lesson. • Each observer should focus on
assigned points
• Focus is on students not teacher
Participation of a knowledgeable other
• Schools invite a knowledgeable
other
• Final comments are given by the knowledgeable other
• External experts include Ministry of Education officers.
• No suggestion that experts provide final comments
Sharing lesson study results
• Teachers write a booklet or long summary report by the end of the school year
• Lesson study reflections are compiled and shared
• DEST summarises the reports from schools and shares at the next Stakeholders’ Workshop. • Outstanding practices in lesson
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In Zambia, an overriding goal of lesson study is to transform teacher-centred lessons to student-centred lessons. To do so, the Ministry expects lesson study groups to align their research lesson objectives with the goals of the Zambian education system.
The value that the Teaching Skills Book places on the investigation of a wide range of instructional material when planning a research lesson is similar to the practice in Japan. Taking into account how students learn, the curriculum requirements, the most appropriate teaching methods, the resources available, and the evaluations of previous lessons is essential to deriving an effective lesson plan in Zambia. Similarly, in Japan, the successful implementation of lesson study depends on kyozaikenkyu – an intensive study of a range of instructional materials, including textbooks, curriculum materials, reports and lesson plans from other lesson studies, together with a study of students’ prior understandings.
In the Zambian model, however, the challenges stated in the Teaching Skills Book regarding research lesson planning might result in the study of teaching materials that is neither profound nor broad. These challenges are inadequate syllabi in some schools, inadequate planning skills of teachers, lack of time to write lesson plans, difficulties related to writing the lesson rationale, and difficulties in instituting a student-centred lesson (MOE & JICA, 2009).
According to the Teaching Skills Book, there was a lack of time to write research lesson plans, as most school departments, especially the science and mathematics departments, were understaffed and so the few teachers available are overloaded.
The Teaching Skills Book stated that teachers should share the points of observation to make sure that all the important aspects of the lesson are observed. Similarly, in Japan, teachers pay careful attention to what they look for in their lesson observation.
In Japan, teachers typically use the structured problem-solving approach to teach mathematics research lessons. In Zambia, however, the Teaching Skills Book stated that teachers should mix four teaching approaches – Mastery Learning Approach, Inquiry- Discovery Approach, ASEI/PDSI Approach and Problem-Solving Approach – when delivering the lessons.
In Zambia, the Implementation Guidelines stated that teachers should invite experts from various educational institutions occasionally as observers at lesson study sessions. In Japan, however, inviting an external expert (an advisor or knowledgeable other) to attend and comment on the lesson study is the usual practice.
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In Zambia, pre-requisite skills and knowledge refers to the concepts that students need to master in advance to accomplish the lesson objectives, and these could be drawn from the objectives of previous lessons. In a similar sense, Japanese Lesson Study involves teachers taking into consideration the current knowledge of students when planning the research lesson. The Teaching Skills Book stated that introducing a pivotal question motivated student discussion or discoveries and clarified major ideas. In Japan, a mathematics lesson is typically designed around solving a single problem to achieve a single objective on a topic.
The Implementation Guidelines stated that teachers should suggest the solutions to the challenging topics they intended to teach. Whereas Japanese teachers anticipate students’ solutions and misconceptions in a given task, the Implementation Guidelines was not explicit about teachers identifying student misconceptions.
4.3 In-service providers’ interpretation of lesson study
Interviews were conducted with two Ministry of Education Officers (MOE1 and MOE2) and six other in-service providers (ISP1-ISP6). This section is based on data from these interviews.
4.3.1 In-service providers’ interview responses
This section focusses on the responses of these participants in terms of their