Experiencing Lesson Study in a collaborative group

challenges and contributions

Abstract

This article explores a professional development initiative centered on collaboration and classroom practice: Lesson Study (LS). LS is organized in cycles in which teachers, working collaboratively, plan, teach, and reflect on a lesson. The aim is to analyze the contributions and challenges faced when LS is developed in the Saturday Group, a collaborative group that gathers school and university teachers interested in studying the processes of learning and teaching mathematics. To develop the LS cycle, the participants were divided into three groups according to different educational stages: Early childhood Education and Elementary School, Junior High-School, and Senior High-School.  Data were three collective interviews carried out with the members of each group at the end of the cycle. Adopting a qualitative approach, a thematic analysis was developed. The challenges identified were related to teamwork dynamics, the interaction between the LS and the school context, and the importance of considering short classroom tasks. Besides, participating in a LS was a demanding endeavor for the teachers. In turn, the analysis revealed important contributions of LS, namely: to enhance teachers’ knowledge, to enrich the planning process when it is conducted collaboratively, to learn from colleagues when observing their classrooms, to experience teaching strategies and dynamics, and to integrate the teacher education initiative with the schools' realities and goals.