A major challenge in lesson study is to observe student learning as it takes place during the lesson. This involves observing how students engage and try to make sense of the subject matter. If we know more about how students learn, we should be better able to improve the lesson.
However, focusing on how students learn is unfamiliar territory for many in higher education. We often examine learning after our instruction has taken place, using tests, quizzes, and other assignments. Through pre‐tests and background knowledge probes, we sometimes collect information about what students know before instruction. Lesson study sheds light on what happens during the learning process. Lesson study involves gaining access to the thought process—peering inside the black box—to better understand how college and university students construe the subject, where they stumble, what confuses them, how they put ideas together, how misconceptions develop, how their thinking is affected by different parts of the lesson.
Student interactions and discussions are opportunities to watch students trying to make sense of new material and ideas. When students try to explain an idea, think through a problem out loud or justify a response, they reveal their thought processes. As a teacher you have a chance to “see and hear” what the topic looks like to students, and think about how to plan instruction to better support student thinking.
Tips for observing students during the research lesson.
- As you design the lesson, build in episodes, activities, exercises, interactions through which students externalize their thinking and make it open to observation and analysis. To the extent possible, make students' thinking visible--and audible.
- More evidence is better. Think of lesson study as an exploratory study. You may not know in advance which factors are most important for student performance so it is a good idea to collect a lot of evidence—written work plus observations of students throughout the class period.
A classic book on learning, available for free online reading:
How People Learn: Bridging Research and Practice, "Key Findings" (Chapter 2) (Donovan, Bransford & Pellegrino)- For the original text, visit How People Learn: Brain, Mind, Experience and School (Bransford, Brown and Cocking). Other versions may be found here.
Cerbin & Kopp
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