Improving Teacher

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Improving Teachers Design Knowledge through
Lesson Study

• ??? (Zheng Tainian)
• Department of Curriculum and Instruction,
  Learning Sciences Center
• East China Normal University, Shanghai, China
• http//faculty.ecnu.edu.cn/zhengtainian
• http//blog.sina.com.cn/zhengtainian
• zhengtainian_at_gmail.com

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East China Normal University
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Learning Sciences Center East China Normal
University
http//lsc.ecnu.edu.cn Shanghai . China
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About Us

• The East China Normal University (ECNU) is
  one of the top research-intensive universities in
  China and is nationally renowned for its programs
  in education and psychology. The Learning
  Sciences Center (LSC) at the ECNU is the home to
  a group of leading researchers in the fields of
  research on learning and instruction,
  technological design, as well as science and
  technology education in China. Formerly directed
  by Prof. Wen Gao, Prof. Youqun Ren and currently
  coordinated by Prof. Xinning Pei, LSC has
  contributed a lot to the theoretical construction
  and practice innovation in the field of education
  in China by projects on constructivist learning,
  learning communities, adaptive learning design,
  teachers professional development, scientific
  popularization, and learning technology in the
  past few years.

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Focused Areas

• Theories of Learning Sciences
• Learning Technology
• Instructional Design
• Design-based Research
• Teachers Learning
• Design and Research on Learning in Informal
  environment
• Scientific Conceptual Transformation
• Learning Community
• Learner-centered Curriculum Development

Involved subjectsLiterature, Science?
Computer?Mathematics
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Reference Framework of Research and Design
Theory of Adaptive expertise
Constructive Learning Environment
Learner-centered Instruction Design
Allosteric Learning
Open-ended Learning Environment
Adaptive Design
Problem-based learning Project-based learning
Situated cognition and learning
Knowledge Creating
DBR/EDR
Learning By Design
Design for complex learning

• Theoretical sources of (AD)

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Dr. Tainian ZHENG Associate professor Learning
Sciences Center Department of Curriculum and
Instruction at ECNU

• My main research interest includes learning
  sciences, instructional design, and application
  of ICT in education. I commit myself to make
  research on instructional innovation from the new
  perspectives from learning sciences. My recent
  work lies at analyzing knowledge space,
  participation structure and ICT application in
  school classrooms. I also work as teachers
  professional development facilitator by designing
  and reflecting on lessons in collaboration with
  school teachers in instructional context. I hope
  that these studies will contribute to the
  re-construction of prevailing Chinese classroom
  model that is obviously still heavily based on
  the transmission of knowledge from teacher to
  students, and is thus an estranged one
  characterized by loss of meaning of knowledge.

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Outline

• lesson study in China
• Theoretical framework for the lesson study
• Experience in lesson study
• Case 1 Math lesson design
• Case 2 Use of electronic whiteboard
• Results of lesson study
• Lessons drawn from lesson study
• Problems

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I. Lesson study in China

• School-level (1952, national policy) (?????)
• Organized by subject, with all the teachers as
  members
• Class demonstration group observation group
  discussion
• Mainly for experience sharing among teachers in
  the school

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• District-level (1954, national policy, for middle
  school and high school) (???????)
• professional guidance, administrative affairs,
  district-level teaching research activities,
  district-level examination, teacher assessment
• District-level teaching preparation before each
  semester (35days usually)

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• 1980s grade group were also founded.
• All the teachers for the grade included
• More responsibility in administration and
  management of affairs relating to teachers and
  teaching, with head as leader of the whole grade
• Caring about different aspects of childrens
  development
• Coordinating teachers from different subjects.

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• From the end of 1990s
• National-wide school curriculum reform and new
  demand for research on teaching, especially
  school-based activities.
• More school-based teaching research activities
• 2003.MOE suggestions on improving research on
  teaching
• It is desirable to improve system and style
  of research on teaching to make it more
  democratic, open and effective. School will be
  the most important place and the teaching
  research should focus on the new curriculum.

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Is that lesson study?

• Yes,it is.
• Teachers collaborate to improve their
  teaching, mainly through designing, implementing
  and reflecting on their own lessons.
• No, it is not.
• Not so focused on a few research lessons
• Focusing more on the regular lessons but not so
  on the general level of teachers knowledge
• Regular work of teachers but not specially for
  research

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Challenges in the curriculum reform

• School curriculum reform in China (Since 2001)
• Aim from examination-oriented education to
  quality-oriented education for all-around
  development of all the children/learners
• Strategies
• New guidelines, new curriculum standards, new
  textbooks
• From direct teaching (knowledge transmission) to
  heuristic teaching
• Self-regulated, participative, collaborative
  learning
• School-based curriculum
• Teachers as researchers
• Challenges
• How to design new lessons?
• How to support learning in the new curriculum?

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II. Theoretical framework

• Learning sciences
• Teachers learning
• Students learning
• Instructional design

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The ideas on learning

• Knowledge construction
• real world problem/subject matter problem
• Learning collaboratively
• ICT-enhanced learning

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Instructional design

• Why design is important
• Design is creation
• Teachers can be and have to be instructional
  designer
• Design ability is the ability to transfer
  knowledge
• Design knowledge is mainly achieved from
  reflective practice

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Instructional design

• Based on what we know about how students learn
• Alignment with the new curriculum requirements
• Expected learning outcomes concerning subject
  matter

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Focus knowledge and activity

• There is knowledge, but no activity
• There is activity, but no knowledge
• Knowledge through activity (intended lesson)
• Instructional design to design learning
  activities in which students participate and
  through which students construct knowledge.
• (eg. The size of triangle)

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III. Experience in lesson study

• Case 1 Math lesson design
• Case 2 Use electronic whiteboard

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Case 1 Math lesson design

• Introduction
• Steps
• Example
• Findings
• Lessons drawn

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Introduction

• School seeking for external guidance
• Changyi Primary School, a rather high quality
  school finding itself facing bottleneck in
• Developing its own characteristics
• Developing teachers professional expertise
  further
• Developing the school based curriculum
• Developing the kind of teaching and learning
  advocated in the new curriculum framework
• Typical problems for many schools.

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Introduction

• 1. Define the theme
• Common theme learning activity design in math
  lessons (why?)
• Emerging themes what the teachers concerns in
  the process (mainly relating to specific subject
  matter)

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Introduction

• 2. Plan
• Research team 6 math teachers based on volunteer
  participation, one in each grade
• Research lesson once every two weeks, lasting
  about 4 hours 2 lessons are observed and
  followed by reflection.
• Teachers select teaching contents for the
  observed lessons, often based on the regular pace
• Common theme (learning activity design )
  discussed repeatedly, related to the observed
  research lessons
• Theoretical and other resources recommended and
  discussed in relation to the common theme and
  emerging topics.

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Steps of lesson study

• One teacher selected teaching content and
  prepared lesson plan
• The teacher presented the lesson plan to the
  group for discussion and revision
• The teacher revised the lesson plan
• The lesson was implemented and observed
• The group reflected on the lesson.
• The group defined the problem and revelation and
  developed the generalizable guidelines for
  instructional design in math lessons
• The group developed and elaborated the
  instructional design guidelines over time.
• Teachers shared all the resources.

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Research lesson case

• Division
• (two-digit number divided by one-digit number)
• Did you divide right?
• Teaching objective
• Be able to check if the division work is right by
  make sure if
• Quotient Divisor Remainder Dividend
• Remainder lt Divisor

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Textbook
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Lesson plan

• 1. Revision
• Oral computing
• 114 404 305150 680480
• 162 802 15030 ( )680
• 153 903 1505 ( )703
• Answer
• (1) what is the relationship between the
  elements in multiplication? In division?
• (Anticipated answer factorfactor
  product Dividenddivisorquotientremainder
• (2) What is the relationship between
  multiplication and division?
• (Anticipated answer inverse operation)

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• 2. Inquiry of checking method by problem solving
• Problem (To be solved in team and presented in
  class)
• There are 94 oranges that will be divided by the
  4 classes. In average, how many oranges will each
  class get and how many will be left?
• (1) Give you solution
• (2) Which of the solutions is right?
• 944226
• 944232
• 944242

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• 3. Discussion and figuring our conclusion
• To check if the division is done correctly,
  you should check
• (1) if Remainder lt Divisor
• (2) Quotient Divisor Remainder Dividend

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• 4. Practice and application
• (1) Compute and check
• 736 923 978 503
• (2) Fill in the blanks
• ( )375
• ( )765
• ( )492
• 83( )92
• 569( )2
• ( )731
• (3) (selective) Fill in the blanks
• 1) if Dividend divisorquotient96, then
  the dividend()
• 2) Put 8?79?7?9 in the four blanks
• ( )( )( )( )

Dividend divisor quotient remainder
82 3
24 5 3
6 11 5
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Lesson plan discussion

• Too easy for the students?
• Follow the textbook only.
• Revision part will be better if connected to the
  new content.
• 14 432 ?34212
• 38 753 ?57338
• More exercises

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Self reflection

• Students take part in the activities actively.
• Students master the knowledge very well.
• Students should be given more time and freedom to
  find more ways to check if the division is right.
• I should not mention the formula too early. The
  method made the learning process more a routine
  procedure than a process to discover

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Guidelines for instructional design

• 1.  How to define the learning objectives
• Routine procedure seemingly making things easy
  but unable to develop mathematical thinking
• Conceptual understanding/understanding of
  relationship between concepts multiplication and
  division factor and product dividend, divisor,
  quotient, remainder factor, divisor and quotient

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• 2.Prior knowledge
•   what is the prior knowledge? How to make it
  connected to the new knowledge?

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• 3.  Design of learning activities
• Do more exercises (division) as introductory
  preparation
• Check each others answers and focus on how to
  check
• Discover the ways to check if the answer is right
• Discuss and summarize the ways

Focus problem space of the activity
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4. Use of textbook

• See textbook as reference but not Bible (also
  problem in the new textbook)
• Find what the textbook means as to the learning
  objectives
• Find better ways to reach the aim

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• How to design the learning activities on the
  basis of the guidelines derived from the research
  lesson?
• Year month day
• Up middle down - Left middle right

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Case 2 Use of electronic whiteboard

• Introduction
• Steps
• Example
• Findings
• Lessons drawn

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Introduction

• School seeking for external guidance
• Yichuan School, a weak school
• struggling for higher educational quality to have
  more enrollment
• having more and more new teachers
• having two electronic whiteboards from a company,
  new for the teachers (2005)
• Developing the kind of teaching and learning
  advocated in the new curriculum framework

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Introduction

• 1. Define the theme
• Core theme use of electronic whiteboard in
  classroom
• Whiteboard for better interaction
• Whiteboard for better use of various learning
  resources
• (based on literature review and company
  suggestion)
• Development teachers ability in design ICT rich
  learning environment

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• Effective teaching
• Analysis of teaching objectives (core knowledge
  and learning task)
• Design of learning activities (turn intended
  knowledge into activities)
• Learning resources (rich learning resources)
• Interaction (how to judge the knowledge
  construction process and design scaffolding in
  the process of interaction)
• Use of Electronic whiteboard and its effects on
  learning
• Strategies of whiteboard use
• Effect of whiteboard use on motivation and
  performance
• Use of whiteboard in different subjects

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Framework for design and analysis of research
lesson
Steps Learning objectives Learning activities Resources used interaction Use of media




For each item, consider what was done? What can
be done? Any other alternatives?
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Introduction

• 2. Plan
• Research team two groups of 3-5 teachers based
  on volunteer participation, with one group of
  language (Chinese, English) teachers and one
  group of math and science teachers
• Research lesson once every two weeks, lasting
  about 4 hours 1 language and one math/science
  lesson are observed and followed by group
  discussion and reflection.
• Teachers select teaching contents for the
  observed lessons, often based on the regular pace
• Use of electronic whiteboard is discussed
  repeatedly but soon the topic expanded to all
  aspects of teaching
• Theoretical and other resources recommended and
  discussed in relation to the core theme and
  emerging topics.

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Steps of lesson study

• One teacher selected teaching content and
  prepares lesson plan
• The teacher presented the lesson plan, mainly in
  a table, to the group for discussion and revision
• The teacher revised the lesson plan
• The lesson was implemented and observed
• The group reflected on the lesson.
• The group developed the generalizable guidelines
  for teaching with electronic whiteboard
• Over time, the group summarized the ways of using
  electronic whiteboard and of designing lessons as
  a whole.
• Teachers shared all the resources.

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Research lesson case

• Case 1 Christmas
• Case 2 Insect

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Instructional model

• Annotation-comprehension (?????)

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• Activity-inquiry (?????)

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• Situation-stimulated instruction (?????)

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• Problem/question-guided instruction (?????)

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• Interaction-dialogue (?????)

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Affordances of electronic whiteboard

• To integrate different learning resources and
  different ways of presenting ideas, enriching
  teaching strategies
• To facilitate feedback and interaction in the
  learning activities
• To share ideas and teaching materials between
  teachers

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IV. Results of lesson study

• Teachers were interested in the lesson study.
• Teachers showed great concern about the theme
  selected.
• The questions and framework became internalized
  when teachers reflected on the lessons.
• Teachers sought for better balance between
  activity and knowledge. How to make learning
  activities more attractive and more productive
  were both taken into consideration.
• Students performed better in their examinations.
• Teachers learning community had a good
  organization culture. They are ready and glad to
  share experiences and resources.
• Math group in Changyi Primary School became model
  group in Pudong District.
• Some teachers had made obvious progress during
  the process.

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V. Lessons drawn from lesson study

• 1. Teachers willingness to participate is the
  most important aspects.
• Volunteer
• Less burden, less obligation, less requirement,
  just coming and talking
• Regular lessons observed and discussed
• Less jargon, less theoretical vocabulary
• Relaxed atmosphere

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• 2. General guidelines for design through specific
  research lessons are paid special attention to.
• 35 aspects regarding design were discussed on
  the basis of each research lesson
• Topics appeared repeatedly and were thus
  explained and understood continuously and more
  deeply with more variation.
• A very limited number of themes were focused on
  over a period.

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• 3. Teachers design knowledge contribute much to
  their professional expertise and such knowledge
  can be developed through lesson study.
• Design knowledge as applied and situated
  theoretical knowledge.
• Design knowledge is not easy to develop outside
  of the practice.
• Design knowledge is not easy to develop out of
  the pure experience.
• Design knowledge can be developed through
  reflective practice.
• Lesson study constitutes one important approach
  to design knowledge.

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VI. Problems

• Time and logistic arrangements
• Sustainability
• Limited effect in short time
• Values conflict

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• Thank you very much!

??? (Zheng Tainian) Department of Curriculum
and Instruction, Learning Sciences Center East
China Normal University, Shanghai,
China http//faculty.ecnu.edu.cn/zhengtainian http
//blog.sina.com.cn/zhengtainian
zhengtainian_at_gmail.com