Lesson Study Resources
End of Cycle Workshop
December 4, 2002
8:00 – 8:30 Breakfast and Coffee
8:30 – 8:40 Opening Remarks
We described the goals of the workshop, namely to share experiences
with the larger group, to learn more about the observation and debriefing
aspect of lesson study, to do math, and to take time to reflect on the
first cycle and to make plans for the next cycle.
8:40 – 9:30 “Sharing Your Work”
Each team was given about 20 minutes to prepare a poster that
described the goal of their lesson, the content/topic of their lesson,
and any materials associated with the lesson that they had brought with
them to the workshop. We then utilized a jigsaw approach to have members
of different teams tour and discuss their posters.
Break
9:40 – 11:10 “Debriefing a Research Lesson”
We began this session having participants read an excerpt from
Catherine Lewis’ handbook about debriefing a research lesson.
We then utilized a video of Akihiko Takahashi teaching a class to a
group of students in San Mateo, California followed by a debriefing
session of the lesson. We used the debriefing session on the video as
a starting point for a discussion on what debriefing could look like
and what kinds of questions could be asked. We concluded the session
by giving participants time to consider how their debriefing session
compared with the video and the reading, and also to consider what they
would like their debriefing to look like in the next cycle.
11:10 – 11:40 Project Business
We used this time to collect end of cycle products from each of the
teams and to do some project paperwork.
Lunch
12:15 – 1:45 “Let’s do some math!”
We created this session because we believe doing math is one of the
best ways not only to learn new math but also to think about what students
know and understand about math. For this session, we utilized a problem
taken from a Japanese research lesson taught at Oizumi Junior High School
during the ICME 2000 conference. We gave participants time to grapple
with the problem on their own and then we discussed the types of questions
we could ask students related to this problem. Check out the math resources
section for a copy of the origami problem.
Break
1:55 – 2:40 “Looking Back, Looking Ahead”
In the first part of this session, participants took time individually
to reflect on their first lesson study cycle utilizing some of the questions
in Catherine Lewis’ handbook. They then shared their reflections
within their teams. In the second part of the session, participants
read an excerpt from an article entitled, “A Practical Guide to
Translating Lesson Study For a U.S. Setting,” by Clea Fernandez
and Sonal Chokshi ( Phi Delta Kappan, October 2002) which suggested
4 elements as the essence of lesson study. Participants then compared
their experience with lesson study to the suggested elements.
2:40 – 3:00 Closing Thoughts
We administered an end of workshop evaluation and encouraged everyone
to celebrate the completion of their first cycle of lesson study work.
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