Wednesday 30 March 2011

Lesson Study

Under the NKRA initiative, the Teacher Division of MOE is introducing lesson study in a big way to help teachers all over Malaysia. In line with MBMMBI policy, plans are in place to create a professional learning community to help teachers enhance their teaching practice and students' performance. Here are some notes and sites I found to be very useful:  


Lesson study* is a professional development process that Japanese teachers engage in to systematically examine their practice, with the goal of becoming more effective. This examination centers on teachers working collaboratively on a small number of "study lessons". Working on these study lessons involves planning, teaching, observing, and critiquing the lessons. To provide focus and direction to this work, the teachers select an overarching goal and related research question that they want to explore. This research question then serves to guide their work on all the study lessons. 

Lesson Study in action in Singapore
While working on a study lesson, teachers jointly draw up a detailed plan for the lesson, which one of the teachers uses to teach the lesson in a real classroom (as other group members observe the lesson). The group then comes together to discuss their observations of the lesson. Often, the group revises the lesson, and another teacher implements it in a second classroom, while group members again look on. The group will come together again to discuss the observed instruction. Finally, the teachers produce a report of what their study lessons have taught them, particularly with respect to their research question. 

*"Derived from the Japanese word jugyokenkyuu, the term 'lesson study' was coined by Makoto Yoshida...it can also be translated in reverse as 'research lesson' [coined by Catherine Lewis], which indicates the level of scrutiny applied to individual lessons." --RBS Currents, Spring/ Summer 2002

(credit: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/lessonstudy/lessonstudy.html)

 The video below is a neat and interesting way to explain the concept behind Lesson Study:


(credit: http://schoolwaxtv.com/lesson-study-cycle)


5 comments:

Roslyn said...

I just came back from a lesson study course in Hotel Promenade, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah (3-6 May 2011). Your blog post is going to be very helpful :)

Rahmah said...

hi roslynn,
i certainly hope they are useful. pls check ur email thanks.

Anonymous said...

I was informed by my LO that we will be visited by Dr Zailah (NKRA) people. I am one of the specialist reference for this program. Any ideas for sharing..

Rahmah said...

dear anonymous,
i'm not sure about your state but we had such a visit last month by bgg officers. your lo or jpn would be the best parties to consult.

andy said...

Dear Mdm Rahmah, I'm Radzuwan, a PhD student in University of Nottingham, UK who is researching on Malaysian teacher professional development. I realize that Lesson Study is the current approach employed by the ministry. I would really appreciate it if you could email to me any document from MOE regarding the implementation of the LS, the list of schools involved, LS artifacts etc and anything that could give me a clear pic of LS in Malaysia context. My email is: andy_hakim85@yahoo.com

Thank you very much.

-The Thinking Student - huhuhu