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Lesson study in initial teacher education: mentors and trainees collaborating in the pedagogic black box

Cajkler, Wasyl and Wood, PhilUniversity of Leicester Lesson Study Research GroupATEE Conference 2014, University of Minho, 26 August

Initial research questions1. How did a variation of lesson study led by school-

based mentors contributed to student-teacher development?

2. How did it enable student-teachers to engage with pedagogy in teaching placement departments?

Emergent foci

• how student-teacher and mentor worked together to explore pedagogy

• what participants learned from the process

Context and participants (2012-13)

context: 8 secondary schools in an ITE programme

6 trainee teachers of modern languages

6 trainee teachers of geography

9 mentors

12 cases in two 8-week placements in a one-year teacher preparation course (PGCE)

Theoretical framework Four influences

1. Communities of Practice (Wenger 1998)

2. Professional capital (Hargreaves and Fullan 2012)

3. Teacher agency (Ball 2003; Biesta and Tedder 2006)

4. Pedagogic black box and pedagogic literacy (Cajkler and Wood, ATEE 2013)

Interpretive approach

Data capture and analysis

• Unit of analysis: collective learning and practice development of Lesson Study group

• Focus: individual interviews (informant-style, Powney and Watts 1987) and focus group interviews

• Analysis: qualitative and inductive (on-going)

General findings

• Huge variability in approach to LS

• ‘Resistance’ to departure from ‘performative’ procedures

• Evidence of exploration of ‘pedagogic black box’

• Mentor and student-teacher conviction of impact and usefulness

• No consistent revolution in discourse practices

Collaboration about pedagogyHow they worked together:

• Mentor leading

• Power dimension/asymmetry

• Advice phases in all meetings

• Some adherence to traditional approaches

• Wide variation

Planning Meeting Evaluation Meeting

Mentor Trainee Mentor TraineePhase A ML1 84% 16% 76% 24%Phase A ML2 53% 47% 54% 46%Phase A ML3 66% 34% 65% 35%Phase A ML4 86% 14% 64% 36% Phase A Geog1 80% 20% 84% 16% Phase A Geog2 90% 10% 40%

UVT: 31%11%T: 18%

Phase A Geog1 53% 47% 64% 36% Phase B Geog1 83% 2%

CT: 15% 75% 15%

CT: 10%

Phase B Geog2 87% 13% 72% (RL1) 71% (RL2)

28%29%

Phase B ML1 57% 11%T: 32%

50% 14%T: 36%

Phase B ML2 71% 29% 56% (RL 1)77% (RL2)

44% 23%

Distribution of speech in planning and evaluation meetings (first research lesson)

Planning togetherMentor: Okay. So the idea is to get them to answer what should be done about

the dangers of cliff collapse on the Norfolk coast. Any good lesson should have a starter, a main point and see if learning has taken place by doing a plenary as well. If I grab a piece of paper we can sit and we can just look at ideas ………

Trainee: Are we making the whole lesson independent?

Mentor: All the students will be independent learners in that lesson. However, you’re going to monitor three that we will identify and you will just track their progress as to how successful we have taken this lesson and turned it into an independent learning lesson. What do you understand as independent learning?

Trainee: That you’re doing something for yourself. There’s no group work involved.

Mentor: Alright. So there’s no group work. So it’s people thinking for themselves and specifically using…

Trainee: Their own ideas.

Evaluating a Research Lesson

Mentor: Through the lesson as I, as I saw it. First thing is for when you do it. I didn’t have enough time to cut up the cards. So that, that was a key thing that needs to be done, because they … go off-task. … What did you think about the statements? ……

Trainee:Yeah, I thought they were good.

Mentor: From your observation of XXXX… Well, say the two nearest to where you were sitting – maybe YYYY – were those statements adequate?

Trainee:Yeah.

Mentor: It’s really difficult when you’re teaching; you sort of think back to the teaching, and sort of thinking “Right, what did I have to wade in to help with?”

Trainee:They’re a bit, pressure; they’re a bit… That was more J…. than Z…….

Mentor: I seemed to need to do quite a bit of explaining of basics.

Trainee: Yeah, today I… For the starter I did the water cycle, because someone didn’t even know what evaporation or condensation was.

Mentor: They do it in primary school.

Evaluation

• This is XXXX and YYYY discussing Y's lesson after he's taught it this morning. It's the 29th of November. So erm Y how do you feel the lesson went? What evidence for learning was there in the lesson?

• Not perfect or consistent application!

Mentor lesson evaluationMentor: So you were observing a cluster of three boys.

Trainee: Yeah. I’m not sure if none of them really had an ideal lesson let’s say today. So they came in um I said one two and three, so one is, what’s his name?

Mentor: TT.

Trainee: TT, two is JJ and three is AA. So JJ came early and he first sorted out his problems with his detention because he didn’t know what it was about. So, he didn’t even get to do the starter because after this he was thinking about his detention. And then, the two others arrived shortly after him and they got into a conversation so they were just talking, the three of them doing something else. TT at one point started singing. So they didn’t do anything. JJ and AA, they opened their books, I think because they used to do something at the back of the books, but it wasn’t even the back of the book. They opened the books at the front.

Themes from ‘informant’ interviews

Themes Trainees MentorsTeaching approaches (pedagogy) 22 9.5Amendment to RL during evaluation 4 4Student participation/progress 16 11Student-focused observation 12 10.5Collaboration 12 13Potential of lesson study 7 16Summative evaluations of RL 5 7Teacher learning 10 8Impact on practice (changes proposed or

implemented as a result of LS 12 21

Interim sub-analysis of teacher learning

Trainees

• Student-related learning and impact on practice

• Learning from mentors (as models)

• Pedagogy• On learning and observing

learning• Evaluation of teaching

Mentors

• Student-related learning (from trainee feedback)

• Learning from the students• Learner-responsive• Pedagogy• On learning and observing

learning• Their ways as teachers

(habits): eye-opening• Lesson study process

Mentors on LS in ITE

• ‘Thinking about the students, not what your aim of the lesson is’ (M1).

• Opportunity just to observe learners (rare)

• Speed of teaching

• Seeing from the learners’ eyes

• Group dynamics and peer support

• Not always assume the worst! Learning about themselves (M2)

• Learner-responsive approach being embedded?

Mentor learning about herself• I think it’s just taught me that it’s really easy to over-

react from the front. When it’s teacher-led, you put yourself in a position where you need to have their attention all the time, and the minute that they start to do, you take it personally. . (M2)

• Mentor reflection/practice resulting from trainee observation of learners, refining ‘pedagogic literacy’.

Trainee learning

• importance of mentor as model

• input and that support

• cannot imagine not having done it

• depth

• learning about learning

• ‘pedagogic black box’; greater awareness

• classroom literacy

Exploring the pedagogic black box• Whereas before you’d plan a lesson and you’d think

I’m just going to show them this picture and get them to say what they see, you sort of think well what they, what are the sort of things that are going to run through their minds. When they look at that picture, and what activity would go well to draw out the information …………….. (T1)

• I’m thinking about why I was doing each activity instead of thinking that’s a good idea, but not having a reason why it’s a good idea.

On feedback about lessons• I suppose when it was just me being observed, it was all about

what I was doing and how I could have done things better or different, whereas after the lesson study it was focussing on what the pupils were doing at each point in the lesson, like how they were… how many… how many of the starter words they’d matched up by a certain point, how many they got right, sort of things I normally wouldn’t know as a teacher unless… (T2)

• I think it’s completely different to a normal observation but it’s, it’s I think you also learn a lot from it as well. I think I learnt a lot from it, like just how my students work. (T3)

Classroom literacy

• ……. the way that they thought about it was different to the way I thought about. I could see that from their answers and I thought ‘I never thought of that’. So, I knew I was only picking out the answers I wanted them to look for, I didn’t think about all the other things. (T1)

• Growing ‘pedagogy literacy’?

Lessons learned

• Importance of learning from students/children (observing and interviewing in LS)

• Challenges to negative perspectives about students: non-participator fallacy

• Limitations of upfront view confirmed

• Six mentors challenged about their own teaching (eye-opener); less of a concern for trainees

• Limited change in roles (‘expert’ dominance)

• Time

• Value of mentor engagement (do they need it more?)

Conclusions• Difficulty of doing LS (mentors)

• Challenge of observation of learning (all)

• Mentors: changing established ways (eyes opened)

• Trainees: looking for ways (flexibility)

• Growth in pedagogic literacy (mentor and trainee)

• Differential learning due to roles/responsibilities /experience and inclinations

Conference theme and lesson study• Teaching is a complex set of processes that requires

not only cognitive and technical procedures but also personal and social skills, so that it can address and respect the whole person. Teachers as professionals hold views of themselves into relation to others, the workplace, their students and the teaching situation. These views may influence the ways how both teachers face transitions and their conceptions and practices change over the life course, as well as how teachers’ professional development takes place in and across social contexts.

ReferencesBall, S.J. (2003) The teacher's soul and the terrors of performativity. Journal of Education Policy, 18(2), 215-228.

Biesta, G.J.J. (2012) Giving Teaching Back to Education: Responding to the Disappearance of the Teacher. Phenomenology & Practice 6(2), 35-49.

Biesta, G.J.J & Tedder, M. (2006). How is agency possible? Towards an ecological understanding of agency-as-achievement. Working paper 5. Exeter, The Learning Lives project.

Billett, S. (2007) Including the missing subject: placing the personal within the community. In Communities of Practice: Critical Perspectives, Hughes, J.; Jewson, N. & Unwin, L. (eds.), Abingdon, Routledge, pp. 55-67.

Cajkler, W. and Wood, P. (2013) The feasibility and effectiveness of using ‘lesson study’ to investigate classroom pedagogy in initial teacher education: student-teacher perspectives, Conference Paper, Association for Teacher Education in Europe (ATEE) August 2013, Østfeld University College, Halden, Norway.

Hargreaves, A. and Fullan, M. (2012) Professional Capital: Transforming Teaching in Every School. New York, Teachers’ College Press.

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Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E. (2000) Communities of Practice and Social Learning Systems. Organization 7(2), 225-246.