How The Lesson Study Approach Can Improve Your Teaching

Teaching is one of the best professions out there. You’re gifting knowledge to a fellow being, so take pride in it. Wouldn’t you love to add some salt to the food for your students’ souls? Here at REEDSWS, we give you a way to do just this in a simple way.

CBSE Schools in Coimbatore are constantly looking to improve the quality of their teachers. For all those looking, the lesson study approach can be their go-to one. This is a proven technique that was first established in Japan.

Researchers from United States studied to see why Japanese had a higher frequency of people scoring high scores in Mathematics. They concluded that it could be due to this method being applied.

The Lesson Study approach is a method of professional development that encourages teachers to reflect on their teaching practice through a cyclical process of collaborative lesson planning, lesson observation, and examination of student learning.

When teachers are collaborating, reflecting and enquiring, they are better learners, and in the process, better teachers. They are able to answer better to the needs of the students.

It is a model of teacher-led research in which a triad of teachers work together to target an identified area for development in their students’ learning. Using existing evidence, participants collaboratively research, plan, teach and observe a series of lessons, using ongoing discussion, reflection and expert input to track and refine their interventions.

Teachers function together to form communities, which are groups of people who share a collective experience, or interest. In these communities, teachers organize, interact, construct new knowledge and refine pre-existing one. This is a measure CBSE Schools in Coimbatore can easily take in order to ensure easy flow of knowledge.

The focus of this approach is the collaborative outcome and not individual performances. Legitimization is an important part of implementation of the lesson study approach. It involves the recognition of such a group in the school and emphasise the importance of it.

Support must be provided by the school, in the form of a place to practice these sessions, and to provide an allotted time for these sessions to take place at the school. This should be implemented by schools in Coimbatore, to facilitate better teaching among teachers. 

It aims to improve the lessons not as an end in itself, but as a way to deepen their own content knowledge, their knowledge of student thinking, their understanding of teaching and learning, and their commitment to improvement of their own practice and that of colleagues.

It outlines the discussion of not only the lesson, but also the basics of teaching, student-thinking, habits of observation and learning skills.

The lesson plan approach consists of a cycle that, much like an ouroboros, has no beginning or ending. It involves the following steps:

STUDY

The lesson that is to be taught is studied in detail.

PLAN

A plan is formulated when discussions about the lesson are being passed around the table.

OBSERVE

The plan is then formulated, after which the results are sceptically observed with a hawk-eye.

REFLECT

The results are thought about, and the discussions that ensue are about whether the plan worked in playing its role well.

RE-VISION

The flaws are noted, and a newer more effective plan is drafted. \

RE-TEACH

The newly formed plan is set to action. 

In this way, the cycle of the lesson-plan approach is brought to action.

The word that stands out when a lesson plan approach is resorted to is ‘INQUIRE’. The key to learning new things is the urge to learn. The clear focus you identify for a Lesson Study cycle should propel your desire to investigate, to analyse and study together. Pursuing the questions your group, for example in the CBSE Schools of Coimbatore has identified provides challenge and authentic purpose, which will increase your team’s motivation and engagement. Because you have identified the problem for yourself, the process will have immediate value. 

Lesson Study is not one perfect way to learn, but a collaboration of many that suit best in that environment. It eliminates the use of old out dated methods of teachings, and incorporates all the newest professionally gained insights.

It prevents the stagnation of ideas, and knowledge is churned from the happenings in a classroom that can be taken at a professional level. Schools in Coimbatore should implement this approach at the earliest to polish their already-fine manes.

This approach has helped many all over the world, and we hope you add this to your unique style of teaching…