Lesson Study for Preservice Teachers

The research lesson sets lesson study apart from most other forms of teacher learning. The observed interactive, real-time lesson puts theories about learning, expressed as a lesson plan, to the test of practice, in the company of one’s professional peers. In a cycle of lesson study, the research lesson sits between the planning that teachers do in preparation for interactive work and the analysis that teachers do after a lesson with students. As such, lesson study holds particular promise for preservice teacher education because it can serve as a bridge between theory and practice, a divide that has confounded teacher education for decades. Typically, preservice coursework provides opportunities for planning before lessons and analysis of artifacts coming out of lessons, but the actual interactive work with children is distant—and it is precisely this interactive work that most concerns preservice teachers. Thus, lesson study, with its inclusion of the research lesson, provides a promising model for preservice teacher learning. This chapter presents a case of lesson study carried out in a methods class for elementary preservice teachers. Analyses of data in this case study show that preservice teachers developed an expansive disposition of mathematical care, a repertoire of pedagogical moves linked to research and children’s learning, and an expanded sense of the teaching self from their participation in a cycle of lesson study.