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SITUATING TEACHER LEARNING IN THE PRACTICE OF MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE TEACHING
by
Monica Louise Hartman
A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillmentof the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy(Education)
in The University of Michigan2004
Doctoral Committee:
Professor Deborah Loewenberg BallProfessor Carl F. BergerProfessor Elizabeth DavisProfessor Karen M. Staller
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It is time to close the chapters to this dissertation, but this experience has been
more than a dissertation. It has been an adventure in my life’s journey. I want to thank
the many wonderful people who were with me for all or part of the way and helped to
make this possible.
I begin with my husband who has been steadfast in his support, encouragement,
understanding and love. He knew I would finish, but he waited so long for those words,
“It’s done!” Next on this list is my daughter who was a source of inspiration. I started
my degree when she left home for college. For a short time, I actually thought I would
graduate with her, but she finished ahead of me - by five years!
I also wish to acknowledge and thank my entire family for their love and support.
My dad, his wife, my sisters and brother, their spouses and children, all waited patiently
and seemed to understand my absence at some of those family get-togethers. My mother,
who passed out of my life but not out of my heart so long ago, instilled in me so many of
my values and ideas about loving and teaching children as I watched her love and teach
the eight of us. My dear brother whose memory remains deep in my heart taught me to
see the diamond in the rough. His face appears to me in the faces of so many of the
children I encounter everyday in my work as I work to help them overcome the many
challenges they face in their young lives.
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Next, I would like to thank every member of my committee. As chair, Deborah
Ball guided me through the difficulties of this process with expert advice, strong support,
care and understanding. I know I presented an additional challenge as I continued to
work full time while working on this degree, but she found the time and a way to guide
me along this process, even when she was not in the country. She knew what I needed
and when I needed it. She was always there.
Carl Berger believed in me and supported my work from my first year at the
university. He was my advisor for a short time but an illness prevented him from
continuing in that capacity. His steadfast belief in me provided the encouragement
through the times that were tough and this kept me working toward achieving this goal.
Although partially retired, he found the time to serve on my committee and for this I am
ever so grateful.
Betsy offered guidance and support in my work, not only with this dissertation but
also in my first research paper and in collaboration while teaching the elementary science
methods course. She helped me better understand the meaning beneath the ideas and the
words - knowing what they might look like in practice.
When Karen gave a mini-presentation on qualitative research to a packed room of
graduate students, I knew a person with her expertise would be of great help to me on my
committee. I was so pleased when she agreed. Her expertise with qualitative
methodology greatly assisted me in the completion of this work, but her perspective on
university life also proved to be invaluable.
This group of professors gave me a truly integrated committee that represented
my interests in teacher education for mathematics, science and technology. They were
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excellent coaches, but their encouraging words bounce around in my head and provided a
cheering section too.
There are other professors I also wish to acknowledge. Shirley Magnusson was
my first advisor and started me along this path. Nancy Songer gave me research
experience with the One Sky Many Voices project. She and her team of graduate
students will always be remembered as special people in my life. Also, special thanks go
to Barry Fishman, Joe Krajcik, and Ron Marx.
Many colleagues influenced me throughout my teaching career, too many to
mention them all, but I want to especially acknowledge Bill Grogan from the curriculum
lab who became my first mentor and Hattie Brown, a wonderful principal, who first
asked me to come to the edge . She provided me with the opportunities I needed to help
me break from my experience.
Finally, a very special thanks goes to all the teachers who participated in this
study. I learned so much from all of them and without them, this dissertation would not
be possible. I thank them for their generosity in allowing me to study them as they were
engaged in this process, making it possible for me to share what I learned with others in
the larger community of American educators. Last, but not least, a most special thanks
also goes to my friend, the district Curriculum Director, who supported me through all
the stages of this dissertation work and who helped me to make my ideas come to life.
v
TABLE OF CONTENTS
DEDICATION.....................................................................................................................ii
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS..................................................................................................iii
LIST OF FIGURES............................................................................................................ix
LIST OF APPENDICES......................................................................................................x
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................1
THE RESEARCH QUESTIONS............................................................................5
THE PROBLEM......................................................................................................5
Characterizations of the Teaching Practice.................................................7Knowledge is Situated, Social and Distributed...........................................9Conceptual Change for Teachers...............................................................11Professional Development.........................................................................13The Disposition of Inquiry.........................................................................14Challenging Teachers’ Experience............................................................16
PROMISING PRACTICES...................................................................................17
Japanese Lesson Study..............................................................................17Features of Lesson Study...........................................................................19A Collaborative Lesson Study Project at Paterson School........................21Results of Research at Paterson School.....................................................23
CHAPTER II RESEARCH DESIGN AND PROCEDURES...........................................26
THE EVOLUTION OF MY RESEARCH PROGRAM.......................................26
RESEARCH METHOD........................................................................................29
Participants and Setting.............................................................................29
vi
Procedure...................................................................................................31Materials....................................................................................................32Collecting Data..........................................................................................33Transcribing Data......................................................................................35Importing Data...........................................................................................35Analyzing Data..........................................................................................36Reporting the Data.....................................................................................38
CHAPTER III THE PROJECT STORY...........................................................................39
IDEAS ABOUT TEACHING MATHEMATICS AND SCIENCE......................42
SETTING THE GOALS........................................................................................49
The First Mathematics Session..................................................................49The First Science Session..........................................................................51Reflections after the First Session.............................................................63The Second Mathematics Session.............................................................65The Second Science Session......................................................................71
THE PLANNING SESSIONS...............................................................................78
The Multiplication Lesson.........................................................................79The Science Lesson...................................................................................86
IMPLEMENTING THE LESSONS......................................................................94
The Science Lesson...................................................................................95The Mathematics Lesson.........................................................................104
THE FEEDBACK SESSIONS............................................................................115
The Science Feedback Session................................................................115The Mathematics Feedback Session........................................................129
CHAPTER IV THE THEMES........................................................................................134
INDIVIDUALISM..............................................................................................134
TIME....................................................................................................................144
Too Much to Teach, Too Little Time......................................................144The Need to Control What to Do With Their Time.................................146The Need for Time to Construct Meaning and Process New Learning...150The Benefits of Taking the Time.............................................................155
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TALK...................................................................................................................159
Small Talk and Big Talk..........................................................................160Developing Big Talk................................................................................162Comparing Their Ideas about Critical Feedback.....................................164
SUMMARY.........................................................................................................175
CHAPTER V THE CHALLENGES...............................................................................177
The Surprise Announcement...................................................................177Their Reasons..........................................................................................179Behind the Closed Doors.........................................................................188Satisfaction with Learning Outcomes of All Their Students...................200Administrative Support and Knowledge and Purpose of the Program....207Collegial School Atmosphere..................................................................209Relationship with the Knowledgeable Other...........................................212
CHAPTER VI BUILDING KNOWLEDGE IN THE COMMUNITY...........................214
What Teachers Appeared to be Learning................................................214Affordances of a Collaborative Investigation..........................................220
CHAPTER VII CONCLUSION......................................................................................227
Characteristics of Their Engagement in this Intervention.......................227Challenges................................................................................................229Why Did Some Leave?............................................................................231New Opportunities...................................................................................232Implications for Professional Development............................................233Implications for Research on Professional Development........................237
APPENDIX......................................................................................................................239
BIBLIOGRAPHY............................................................................................................260
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure
1. Craig’s response to 1/2 of 12.....................................................................105
2. Mark’s response to 1/2 of 12.....................................................................106
3. Rick’s response to 1/2 of 12......................................................................106
4. Angel’s response to 1/4 of 12....................................................................108
5. Rick’s response to 1/4 of 12......................................................................108
6. Bobbie’s response to 1/3 of 24..................................................................112
7. Tori’s response to 1/3 of 24.......................................................................113
8. Rick’s response to 2/3 of 12......................................................................114
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LIST OF APPENDICES
Appendix
A. The Teachers in this Study..........................................................................239
B. Initial Interview Questions..........................................................................240
C. Final Interview Questions...........................................................................241
D The CoWeb Page........................................................................................247
E. Fifth Grade Fraction Pre-Test.....................................................................248
F. Multiplying Fractions Lesson.....................................................................249
G. The Science Lesson: Brick Slide................................................................252
H. Power Point Slides for the Science Lesson.................................................254
I. The Science Worksheet...............................................................................256
J. Classroom Observation Protocol................................................................257
K. Feedback Session Protocol.........................................................................259
x
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Come to the edge.
We might fall.
Come to the edge.
It’s too high!
COME TO THE EDGE!
And they came
and he pushed
and they flew…
Logue (1969, pp. 65-66)
More than thirty years ago, it was this teacher’s first year of teaching. Her
assignment was sixth grade mathematics in a kindergarten through sixth grade school
located in a large urban district. The classes were structured under the platoon system.
This meant groups of later elementary students spent half of their day in the language arts
and social studies classroom and the other half of the day traveling to mathematics,
science, art and physical education classes. She had eight sections of students, with more
than thirty students in each section.
Perhaps it was because her classes were noisy or perhaps this was something the
administration did with all new teachers, but she was invited to observe a more
experienced fourth grade teacher whose quiet, well-behaved students filed into the class,
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listened to directions and then worked on their mathematics assignments in silence.
During one of her three planning periods she was assigned to each week, this new teacher
visited the experienced teacher’s classroom. After observing the teacher explain the
lesson, she gave her students an assignment and sat at her desk. Curious about what the
students learned from the instruction, this first year teacher walked around the room to
see what the students were doing. Until this day, what she remembers best is the
students’ independent work. Working in silence, students were practicing, incorrectly,
algorithms they seemingly did not understand. Problem after problem, students were
making numerous mistakes. Their teacher did not see that this was happening because
she was at her desk. They would not learn about their errors until papers were returned,
if at all.
From this experience she learned that teachers need to find out what students are
doing, thinking and learning during the lesson. But who was she to criticize what other
experienced teachers consider an example of good teaching? She also discovered that
she would have to struggle with issues of teaching and learning some other way.
Fortunately, this teacher did find a place where she could learn more about her
teaching. The place was called the district curriculum lab where material resources were
made available to teachers. There were machines to make thermal masters for activity
sheets, construction paper to cut out letters for a bulletin board, poster board for making
manipulatives, idea books and much more. These were things that were not available, or
available in such limited quantities that made them useless, in her school. She would go
to this lab at the end of her school day.
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Better than material resources, she found human resources too. Working side by
side with other teachers, she would engage in casual conversations about teaching. Most
helpful of all was the director of the lab. He was a mathematics demonstration teacher
and had a wealth of ideas for teaching mathematics concepts to children. He became her
mentor and shared many ideas about teaching mathematics. She tried many of his ideas
in her classroom. When it came time for her to open the doors to be observed as a new
teacher, her children were adding and subtracting integers using a walk-on number line.
Maybe her room was noisy but the administration did not seem to worry as much any
more. This occurred in the early 70’s, but I wonder how different things are for new
teachers in many schools today. How do teachers develop their practice? Where can
they go to get help?
For more than twenty years, this teacher worked to increase the skills and
knowledge of her students, teaching by telling them, she thought, the things they needed
to learn. When her daughter went away to college, she returned to school too, for an
advanced degree in education. As part of her coursework, she was assigned to read many
research articles and books. Among them was Lave and Wenger’s work (J. Lave &
Wenger, 1991). She remembers a conversation with her professor when she told her how
interesting and valuable the readings from the class were, but she did not see how Lave
and Wegner’s ideas about the social construction of knowledge applied to the classroom.
This did not make sense. Didn’t the construction of knowledge belong to the individual?
Her professor told her that it was good that she was questioning these ideas, but she
wondered what she said that. In retrospect, was she asking her to come to the edge in her
beliefs about teaching and learning, as in Logue’s poem?
3
This teacher changed over the next few years. She began to think more about her
own learning as she took university courses and attended professional development
activities. Besides the obvious role of a learner, she took on a new role, the role of an
observer of her own learning. How was she learning? What made it easier? The
struggle to learn something new was particularly evident for her in her technology classes
because it was with some of these classes she had little prior knowledge, everything was
so new. This helped her think about what her students may experience during lessons in
which they had limited or no prior knowledge, making connections difficult. When did
she feel more successful with her own learning? What did the instructor do to enable, or
not, the learning process? She learned this process was called reflection and thinking
about her thinking was metacognition. These were very powerful for her and she thought
this would also be powerful for her students. She also began to realize the power of
interacting with others during the learning process. She came to understand and believe in
the social construction of knowledge.
I know this teacher and am aware of her reflections because I am this teacher. I
was asked to come to the edge. I was afraid, but I came; I was pushed, and I flew. My
practice as a teacher today involves working with other teachers in their classrooms as
they work with their students. I recognize their beliefs about teaching and learning as
some I once had. My job is to help them think about their practice in different ways. In
this study, you will read about what happened as I asked teachers I work with everyday to
come to the edge.
4
The Research Questions
This study grew out of my need as an Instructional Specialist in my district to
facilitate teachers’ learning in mathematics and science. Although there is a drive to
improve education, there continues to be substantial debate around what constitutes
effective opportunities for teachers to learn. My dissertation research takes up this
question by investigating an approach to support teachers’ learning that is rapidly
growing in popularity. I follow a group of teachers engaged in collaborative inquiry that
is situated in the context of their own teaching. My overall research question is:
How does a collaborative professional development experience, situated in
teachers’ own practice, help elementary public school teachers develop their
knowledge of teaching?
My sub questions include:
1) What are the characteristics of these teachers’ engagement in a collaborative
examination of practice?
2) What are the challenges these teachers face?
3) Why do some teachers stay and other teachers leave?
4) What do these participating teachers appear to be learning about content,
pedagogy and their students?
The Problem
Turn now to consider the background of this problem. The focus of education
today has changed from the acquisition of simple reading, writing and calculating skills.
Today, the goal of education can be described as “helping students develop the
intellectual tools and learning strategies needed to acquire knowledge that allows people
5
to think productively about history, science and technology, social phenomena,
mathematics and the arts” (Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 1999, p. 5). Different learning
goals require different content and pedagogy for students as well as their teachers.
Reform in education today focuses on developing teachers’ practice to consider these
new ideas and building structures within districts and schools to support their efforts.
Transmission models of teaching and learning were prevalent through the 1960’s
and 1970’s. It was believed that teachers’ knowledge could be transferred to their
students. Learners were thought to be blank slates or empty vessels that could be filled
with knowledge. Research focused on teachers and the relationship between their
behaviors and student learning.
Now the term constructivism is used because it is assumed that students construct
their own knowledge. The early transformation models focused on students’ individual
construction of knowledge and were influenced by information processing. In this model
knowledge is stored and then retrieved in students’ memory in representations called
schemas. The teacher’s role is to influence students’ thinking strategies so they learn to
access this information like experts (Winne & Marx, 1982).
More recent transformation models of teaching and learning (Blumenfeld, Marx,
Patrick, Krajcik, & Soloway, 1997) focus on the students’ cognitive processes that
recognize social and situational factors because communities and discourse influence
learning (Bruer, 1994; J. Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1998). Brown, Collins and
Duguid (1989) argue, “knowledge is…in part a product of the activity, context, and
culture in which it is developed and used” (p.32). Real world or authentic tasks,
collaborative discourse, cultural tools and the production of artifacts used as assessment
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are components of instructional programs within a sociocultural perspective of teaching
and learning (J. S. Brown et al., 1989; Marx, Blumenfeld, & Krajcik, 1997; Newman,
Griffin, & Cole, 1989; Papert, 1990). Since learners construct knowledge and
understanding based on what they already know and believe (Cobb, Perlwitz, &
Underwood-Gregg, 1998; Shapiro, 1994), instruction also needs to consider their prior
knowledge.
Cognitive research has advanced our understanding of how students learn and
influences educational reform. “The emerging science of learning underscores the
importance of rethinking what is taught, how it is taught, and how learning is assessed”
(Bransford et al., 1999, p. 13). Different approaches to teaching also require different
approaches to teaching teachers. What is known about students’ learning can apply to
teachers as well. However, teachers’ learning has not been consistently conceived in
parallel with these ideas. It is a relatively new topic for research and there is not yet
much data about it.
Characterizations of the Teaching Practice
Learning to teach can be characterized as a socialization process that starts with
sixteen years of continuous contact with other teachers, followed by a brief mini-
apprenticeship of practice teaching (Lortie, 1975). Lortie found the formal socialization
of teaching, the university’s teacher education program, is secondary to the informal
socialization process of personal experience and the influence of colleagues when it
comes to how teachers say they learn to teach. Two-thirds of the teachers in his study
express experience as their major means of learning how to teach; 44% indicate
employment as teachers as their experience and 23% indicate practice teaching. More
7
than one-third of the teachers say they learn from other teachers, although the teachers in
Lortie’s study qualify this by saying they are highly selective about adopting other
teachers’ ideas. The ideas teachers choose to adopt are consistent with their individual
way of doing things or the new ideas worked when the teacher tried them (Lortie, 1975,
p. 77).
Assumptions or myths exist about teachers’ knowledge. After completing their
mini-apprenticeship of practice teaching, they are expected to know everything and be
independent. They are not encouraged to talk about classroom failures; only the less
experienced teachers are given a grace period during which they may ask questions
(Lortie, 1975). Teachers are left on their own to learn about their practice; to sink or to
swim. Some teachers eventually develop effective practices and then they retire. New
teachers who come along must start over. Reform efforts bring teachers together to
collaborate to improve education, but there is no shared knowledge base to improve
practice and teachers do not look to research-based knowledge to inform their efforts
(Hiebert, Gallimore, & Stigler, 2002; Richardson & Placier, 2001). There are no
structures in the present system for building practitioners’ knowledge.
Individualism, conservatism, and presentism characterize the role of teachers
(Lortie, 1975, p. 212). School is perceived as a collection of individual teachers
influencing students; improvements center on strengthening the individual teacher rather
than arranging a better total environment for children. Teachers’ practice is conservative;
they choose to do things the way they have always been done. Presentism is seen in the
lack of enthusiasm for working together to build a stronger professional culture. The
existing tenure system does not support long term goals; it encourages teachers to
8
concentrate on the short term as a source of gratification. “Individualism supports
presentism by inhibiting work with others in search for common solutions. Teachers do
not undertake the collegial effort which has played so crucial a role in other occupations”
(Lortie, 1975, p. 212).
Traditional teaching practices are hard to change because teaching is a system of
interacting elements embedded in culture (Hiebert & Stigler, 2000; Stigler & Hiebert,
1999). These elements include: behaviors of the teacher, expectations and behavior of
the students, the physical setting, the participation structures, the discourse, the lesson,
the curriculum, the materials and more. Everyday teaching routines have evolved and are
so widely shared that they are nearly invisible, even to the teachers. It is though there is a
script for teaching and almost any adult could enter a classroom and act like a teacher.
Changing only one of these elements makes little difference. When one element
is changed and it does not work in the same way as the element it replaced, the system is
either impaired or it swallows up the new element and everything returns to the way it
was before the change. Teachers in the United States seem to be bound by this cultural
script for teaching. Reform is not a simple process and involves more than changing
parts. “The kinds of changes envisioned by reformers require changes not only in
features of instruction but in the very goals of the teaching system” (Hiebert & Stigler,
2000, p. 7).
Knowledge is Situated, Social and Distributed
Three bodies of work inform my study: work on situated learning, conceptual
change, and the work on the role of professional development in educational reform.
These come together in my study because my study looks at an improved form of
9
professional development in which the teachers are engaged in a situational form of
learning. The theoretical framework for my study draws from research on learning that
suggests knowledge is situated, social and distributed (H. Borko & Putnam, 1996; A. L.
Brown & Campione, 1994; J. S. Brown et al., 1989; J. G. Greeno, 1997; J.G. Greeno,
Collins, & Resnick, 1996; Jean Lave, 1991; Putnam & Borko, 2000). The situative
perspective focuses on authentic activities, which Putnam and Borko define as tasks that
serve the goal of preparing students to be lifelong learners. It also focuses on interactions
of the participants with each other and with objects in the system (J. S. Brown et al.,
1989; Cognition and Technology Group at Vanderbilt [CTGV], 1990; Jean Lave, 1991;
Scardamalia, Bereiter, & Lamon, 1994). Learners are actively engaged with the
phenomena they study, in the context that makes it authentic. In the case of learning to
teach, the context is situated in the classroom or with artifacts from the classroom like
student work or classroom videos (Feiman-Nemser & Remillard, 1995).
Knowledge building is social and involves enculturation into the community (A.
L. Brown & Campione, 1994; Jean Lave, 1991). Collaborative learning environments
create multiple zones of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978) so students can learn
from each other as well as the teacher. Discourse within collaborative groups provides
ideas, theories and concepts that individuals may appropriate as their own as they try to
make sense of their experiences. Within the group, members are likely to disagree over
ideas, answers and ways to solve a problem. Change in thinking is more likely to occur
in environments that encourage questioning, evaluating, criticizing, and where there is
dissatisfaction with the existing states of knowledge (A. L. Brown & Palincsar, 1989).
10
Learning is distributed over the individual, the members of the groups, and the
physical and symbolic tools (Salomon, 1993). Discourse in the community shares the
burden of thinking (Bruer, 1994). The distribution of cognition across the members of the
community makes it possible for the group to accomplish more than what otherwise
would be accomplished by individuals working alone.
Conceptual Change for Teachers
In the science literature, Posner, Strike, Hewson & Gertzog (1982) describe
student learning and how students change their conceptions that are not productive to
more productive ones. They argue:
Learning is concerned with ideas, their structures and the evidence for them. It is
not simply the acquisition of a set of correct responses, a verbal repertoire or a set
of behaviors. We believe it follows that learning, like inquiry, is best viewed as a
process of conceptual change. The basic question concerns how students’
conceptions change under the impact of new ideas and new evidence. (Posner et
al., 1982, p. 212)
They describe two phases of conceptual change in the contemporary view of
science. In the first phase, central commitments or paradigms (Kuhn, 1970) define
problems, determine strategies for solving them, and establish criteria for evaluating
solutions. In the second phase of conceptual change the scientist encounters phenomena
that cannot be explained with an existing central commitment or paradigm; therefore the
central commitments or paradigms require modification. For Kuhn, the change in
paradigms for the scientist is a scientific revolution.
11
Posner et al. (1982) argue that these phases of conceptual change in science apply
to student learning; the term assimilation is used to represent the first phase and
accommodation to represent the second phase. In order for a change to occur in a learner,
several important conditions must exist. These conditions include dissatisfaction with
existing conceptions and the presence of an intelligible and plausible new conception to
take the place of the old. By intelligible, they mean that individuals are able to explore
the possibilities of the new conception because they understand what the words or
symbols defining it means. By plausible, they mean that the new conception must appear
to have the potential to solve the problems created by the existing conceptions.
I argue that this perspective can be applied to teacher learning as well. Like
scientists and student learners, teachers hold conceptions about teaching that they use to
define problems in their practice, determine strategies for solving those problems, and
establish criteria for evaluating solutions. If teachers are to modify their conceptions or
accommodate new ones, they need to be confronted with a problem that their existing
conceptions cannot solve and recognize a new conception as intelligible and plausible.
Teachers who are dissatisfied with the learning outcomes of their students or uncertain
about their practice meet one of the conditions for accommodation and are more apt to
change when another idea is presented.
Teacher learning can be considered a process of conceptual change. These
teachers came to this program with their ideas. I did not expect a revolutionary change in
ideas, but I wondered what would happen if they had an opportunity to expose their ideas
to themselves and to their colleagues.
12
Professional Development
Professional development provides the opportunity for teachers to continue to
learn about teaching and subject matter. The nature of professional development
programs available to teachers will, to a large extent, determine the changes in students’
learning experiences (Loucks-Horsley, 2001). What we learned about student learning
should also apply to professional development for teachers.
There are problems with professional development. Traditional methods are
criticized for being decontextualized and a patchwork of opportunities stitched together
into a fragmented and incoherent curriculum (Ball & Cohen, 1999).
Much of what constitutes the typical approaches to formal teacher professional
development are antithetical to what research findings indicate as promoting
effective learning. The typical workshops tend to occur once, deal with
decontextualized information, and often do not resonate with teachers’ perceived
needs. (Bransford et al., 1999, p. 192)
Some of the problems of professional development may stem from the assumption we
have that teachers’ knowledge for teaching is complete when they graduate and only
needs to be updated through a menu of in-service and one-shot workshops.
A new curriculum of professional development is needed, but it needs to be
powerful enough to overcome the influence of the traditional school culture and help
teachers break away from their individualistic practices. “Teaching is a process of co-
constructing knowledge and curriculum with students, and that the most promising ways
of learning about teaching across the professional lifespan are based on inquiry within
communities rather than training for individuals” (Cochran-Smith, 1999, p.115). Since
13
knowledge is situated in context (J. S. Brown et al., 1989; Jean Lave, 1991), teacher
learning should be situated in some aspect of their practice. “If teachers professional
learning could be situated in the sorts of practice that reformers wish to encourage, it
could become a key element in a curriculum of professional development” (Ball &
Cohen, 1999, p. 6).
Ball and Cohen (1999) describe a pedagogy of professional development that is
based on contemporary knowledge of how people learn. This pedagogy of professional
development includes a community of teacher learners actively constructing knowledge
during authentic teaching activities and learning from each other. It is based on inquiry
into practice with time for reflection and analysis. It includes analyzing student work to
determine if they are learning. It would include exposing teachers to the ideas of others,
which has additional benefits. If teachers discussed and analyzed student learning and
worked in collaboration with others, they would be exposed to different interpretations
and judgments that would broaden and enhance their individual capabilities (Ball and
Cohen, 1999). Change is more likely to occur in environments that encourage
questioning, evaluating, and criticizing (A. L. Brown & Palincsar, 1989).
The Disposition of Inquiry
According to Ball and Cohen (1999) the disposition of inquiry is a big challenge
during a collaborative investigation of practice. By disposition of inquiry, they mean that
teachers need to cultivate the ability to frame interpretations as conjectures, avoid
definitive conclusions, and learn how to identify and use appropriate evidence. New
norms of interaction are necessary. Teachers need to practice argumentation and the
probing of their own and others’ ideas. They need to value critique and learn that
14
challenges of ideas and interpretations are not meant to be personal challenges to
individuals. They need to learn to take risks about expressing uncertainty of their ideas.
Reflection tools, including guidance in observing salient details that are seen and heard in
the classroom and a method for interpreting and analyzing the different views expressed,
need to be developed.
Ball and Cohen (1999) argue that for teachers to improve their teaching, they
would need to learn how to learn in and from their practice.
…much of what they would have to learn must be learned in and from practice
rather than preparing to practice. Or, perhaps better, they would have to learn,
before they taught and while teaching, how to learn in and from practice.
Teaching requires improvisation, conjecturing, experimenting, and assessing.
Teachers must be able to adapt and develop practice. (p. 10)
Lesson study seemed to fit the recommendations for a collaborative investigation of
practice as described by Ball and Cohen, but teachers need new skills and attitudes that
are contrary to the present day culture in schools in the United States and this could be a
problem.
Obstacles to Action Research
Research by teachers in their own classroom is supported by reform documents in
Mathematics (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1991) and Science (National
Research Council, 1996). Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993) also warn that obstacles
deeply embedded in the cultures of schools and universities need to be overcome for
practitioner research to be successful. Cochran-Smith and Lytle (1993) describe four of
these obstacles. Similar to Lortie’s (1975) findings, they describe teacher isolation as one
15
obstacle. Although this isolation can be viewed from the perspective of loneliness, it can
also be perceived by teachers as a loss of autonomy and privacy, making research in their
classroom a threatening experience. A second obstacle is a cultural perception that
teachers should be independent and know the answers to any question about their
practice, but researching teachers need to ask questions, pose problems, and challenge
common routines. A third obstacle is the notion that the knowledge base for teaching is
constructed by university-based researchers and transmitted to practitioners, but if
teaching is to be considered a profession, then practitioners should play a role in
generating professional knowledge. Last, there is a negative reputation of research among
practitioners. Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1993) argue that in order to overcome these
obstacles, communities of teachers and researchers need to be built and a means to
sustain them need to be developed. Lesson study and a collaborative inquiry of practice
are forms of teachers’ action research and the early research about these practices could
offer some guidance and promise.
Challenging Teachers’ Experience
The idea that education works best when it is built on people’s experience needs
to be challenged. Instead of supporting learning, experiences can hamper it. Teachers
need to find a way to become unbound, to break from their experience. They need to be
allowed to question their beliefs about teaching and learning. They need to develop new
roles, skills and different expectations for their students while they unlearn their long-
held practices and beliefs (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin,
1996; Kochan, 2000).
16
We know that teaching is a cultural activity and is resistant to change (Stigler &
Hiebert, 1999) and teachers are a key to educational reform (Cohen & Ball, 1990; Hiebert
& Stigler, 2000). We recognize what is needed for change to occur: “Change is enhanced
through deep reflection on beliefs and practices…the change process entails
understanding one’s beliefs and knowledge and determining whether or not to change
practices” (Richardson, 1999, p. 150). But it is not the teacher that needs to change, it is
their teaching (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). The process of changing complex ideas and
structures about teaching that are deeply embedded in our culture will be long-term. The
ultimate goal is to improve student learning, but this goal should not be lost by focusing
on any particular feature in this complex system. Improvements will result, but they will
be from accumulating small changes over time (Hiebert & Stigler, 2000, p. 9).
Promising Practices
There are many effective programs that help teachers develop their practice as
recommended by educational reform (Hilda Borko & Putnam, 1998; Cognition and
Technology Group at Vanderbilt [CTGV], 1997; Schifter & Fosnot, 1993), but not all
teachers have access to them and providing these kinds of opportunities to all teachers is
problematic. Without support, teachers often misinterpret the recommendations in the
standards. A quality program of professional development that has the potential to give
every teacher an opportunity to improve their classroom teaching is needed.
Japanese Lesson Study
A Japanese practice of professional development that holds promise for the
change needed in American classrooms was recently introduced into the United States.
Catherine Lewis was the first to write about this practice. While collecting research in
17
Japanese classrooms for her book, Educating Hearts and Minds: Reflections on Japanese
Preschool and Elementary Education (1995), she noticed that she learned many science
concepts with the students. She asked the Japanese teachers how they learned to teach
science in their engaging way. They were surprised at this question and told her they
learned their techniques from the United States. Impressed with this practice, Lewis
describes how U.S. teachers could benefit from this type of professional development:
As I listened to conversations … --in which Japanese teachers debated whether it
was more important for students to acquire correct scientific knowledge or to
practice scientific processes -- I imagined how differently it would be in the U.S.
if teachers with opposing viewpoints planned, viewed, and discussed lessons
together. The more frequently different views of science education come into
contact around a shared, concrete lesson, the more likely teachers are to find ways
to see and combine strengths of content-centered and process-centered approaches
–and the more likely they are to notice the benefits that students can derive from
each. (Lewis, 2000)
She argues that through their professional development referred to as lesson
study, Japanese teachers changed their teaching practices from teaching as telling to
teaching for understanding (Lewis & Tsuchida, 1997). She continued to study this
Japanese practice and shared what she learned (Lewis & Tsuchida, 1997, 1998a, 1998b),
but colleagues on both sides of the ocean told her were they were not surprised that the
Japanese were able to make this change in their teaching. One said, “Japan has a
centralized education system; you just tell the teachers to change and they change”
(Lewis, 2002a, p. 3).
18
Hiebert and Stigler were impressed with the video tapes of the Japanese lessons
during their analysis of the TIMSS Video Study (Hiebert et al., 2003). They wondered
how Japanese teachers learned to teach in ways that were more consistent with the
NCTM standards (National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989, 1991) than
lessons taught in the United States. Stigler’s doctoral student, Makoto Yoshida,
conducted a six month dissertation study in Japan about this practice. Informed by
Yoshida’s dissertation study (Yoshida, 1999b), Stigler and Hiebert included one chapter
about lesson study and described it as a promising practice for teachers in the United
States in their book, The Teaching Gap (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). The book sparked
much interest in this practice of lesson study.
Features of Lesson Study
Lesson study is a simple idea. To improve instruction, teachers collaboratively
plan a lesson with colleagues, then observe and reflect on it. The lesson study cycle
consists of (a) goal-setting and planning; (b) the research lesson; (c) the lesson
discussion; and (d) the consolidation of learning (Lewis, 2002b, p. 3). Although the idea
is simple, the process is complex and protocols are developed to help teachers navigate
through discussions of the difficult issues.
Goal setting and planning. Teachers work together to formulate long and short
term goals for the lesson. Long term goals are affective in nature and may include
visions of student as active problem-solvers, taking initiative in their learning, being
active problem-seekers, or learning to be good friends. The long term goals are school-
wide goals because they believe all the teachers in the school should be working toward
the same goal. The short term goals involve academic content, usually a topic that
19
represents a weakness of their students’ learning, a topic that is difficult to teach, or one
that is new to the curriculum.
The Japanese have a proverb: “When you gather three people, you have a genius”
(Lewis, 2002b, p.29), so the lesson is collaboratively planned. Usually taken from their
curriculum, the lesson improves because it represents the best thinking of all the teachers.
An outside expert who has expertise in the topic studied is invited to the planning. The
role of the expert may be to offer advice, teach the lesson or provide a summary at the
faculty colloquium after the lesson is taught. During this process the teachers’ subject
matter and understanding deepens. An important feature included in the lesson is the
description of where it fits in the curriculum. This gives the teachers the opportunity to
see how the topic develops across the grade levels as they consider the ideas that precede
and follow the concepts taught.
The research lesson. Other teachers are invited to observe the lesson. Sometimes
these teachers are visitors from outside the school. The observers usually have specific
assignments while observing the lesson. Some might be asked to record changes in
student thinking, others might record the questions student ask or how students treat one
another during the lesson. They try to take on the eyes of the students. Data collected are
used as evidence to study their lesson and its effectiveness with respect to student
learning and development.
The lesson discussion. The lesson discussion follows a certain protocol. The
protocol I describe is adapted from the one suggested by the Lesson Study Research
Group at Teachers College (Chokshi, Ertle, Fernandez, & Yoshida, 2001). The feedback
session begins with a moderator who outlines the agenda. The teacher who taught the
20
lesson first comments on the lesson and gives reactions. She describes what was studied,
what worked, what didn’t, what she would change about the lesson. She sometimes picks
a particular feature of the lesson and asks for feedback from the rest of the group.
When observers give their feedback, they first thank the teacher who taught the
lesson and then discuss what they liked about the lesson. Observers are careful to offer
critical feedback by phrasing it in a statement that might begin like, “When I taught this
lesson, I did this differently because…” Then they ask the teacher to explain their
reasons for why they did it their way. Each observer comments on a specific aspect of the
lesson. Then other observers have the chance to reply or comment on related aspects.
This avoids the problem of one observer dominating the conversation and allows others
to share feedback. The teacher who taught the lesson doesn’t comment until all observers
have a chance to comment about a particular aspect of a lesson. This establishes a waiting
etiquette and allows all participants to voice and absorb feedback in a reflective manner.
The teacher who taught the lesson has an opportunity to see her teaching through the eyes
of her students and her colleagues.
The consolidation of learning. Revisions of the lesson are made after the lesson is
taught. Sometimes the revised lesson is taught to another group of students. The
completed lesson is then published so it can be shared with other teachers nationally.
This is what builds the knowledge base for teaching in Japan.
A Collaborative Lesson Study Project at Paterson School
The teachers at Paterson Public School Number 2, a high-poverty pre-
kindergarten through grade 8 school in New Jersey, were among the first to implement
the practice of lesson study in the United States. In the spring of 1997, the eighth grade
21
teachers participated in a district-sponsored activity during which they watched the
TIMSS videos of U.S. and Japanese teachers teaching mathematics to their students.
Jackson, an eighth grade mathematics teacher at Paterson, was among them. In her
handbook on lesson study, Lewis (2002b) describes Jackson’s account of what happened,
“Many of the teachers reacted defensively to the videotaped lessons, seeing TIMSS as yet
another indictment of American teachers. But others, including myself, were intrigued
by the tapes and interested in learning more” (Wang-Iverson, Liptak, & Jackson, 2000).
Jackson and a fellow teacher wrote lessons that summer that were modeled after
the kinds of lessons they observed on the Japanese video tapes. These lessons were
aligned with the New Jersey core curriculum and implemented during the 1997-1998
school year. The principal was excited about their initiative and invited other teachers
from the school to become a part of this initiative. She arranged their schedule so that the
ten teachers who volunteered could meet once a week for eighty minutes during the
school day to plan, teach and discuss their mathematics lessons.
Later Patsy Wang-Iverson from Research for Better Schools joined this group as
an outside expert. Soon after that, Fernandez from Teachers College in New York and
Yoshida became involved and set up a partnership between Paterson Public School
Number 2 and the Greenwich Japanese School in Connecticut. The Japanese teachers
were lesson study coaches for the American teachers, meeting with the American
teachers to teach them first-hand their practice of lesson study. In February 2000, the first
public research lesson was taught in the United States at the Paterson School.
22
Results of Research at Paterson School
Fernandez and her colleagues (Fernandez, Cannon, & Chokshi, 2003) studied the
early collaborative efforts of these two groups of teachers during the 1999-2000 school.
They observed that the American teachers encountered many challenges. The U.S.
teachers found it difficult to generate powerful research questions and to focus on
concrete evidence in student work. Fernandez and her colleagues argue that, for U.S.
teachers to fully realize the power of lesson study, they will need to engage in the
examination of their practice through three lenses: researcher, student and curriculum
developer.
While looking at lesson study through the lens of a researcher, teachers ask
questions about their practice and conduct classroom experiments to collect data to help
answer their questions about teaching. Differences in opinions occur in deciding the best
way to conduct a lesson. This gives teachers exposure to different perspectives and
opportunities to discuss the rationale for using them.
By lens of a student, they mean that teachers should take on the role of a student
while observing the lesson. They found that U.S. teachers in the study naturally want to
interact with the students and help them during the lesson, but by doing this, they miss
out on an important aspect of lesson study – to develop the vision to see children (Lewis,
2000). Focusing on the student while planning instruction helps teachers anticipate what
the student might think. Teachers should ask: Were the students really interested? Did
the lesson match the students’ understanding and prior knowledge? Did the students
understand instruction? Did the lesson motivate the students to work together to solve a
problem? After the lesson, did the students feel like they accomplished something?
23
By the lens of a curriculum developer, teachers could learn how to sequence and
connect children’s learning experiences. Besides planning specific lessons, teachers need
to understand what concepts come before and after the lesson. Teachers need a complex
and well-articulated view of the curriculum they teach.
Lesson study is a promising practice that includes the features of professional
development recommended by the research. It is collaborative, sustained over time and
situated in teachers’ practice. Teachers are actively engaged in an inquiry process with
time built in for reflection. But the teachers at Paterson had the benefit of the Japanese
teachers nearby. What about schools that do not have the benefit of the Japanese experts?
The features of lesson study matched my developing ideas about professional
development. I wanted to implement lesson study in my own school, but we would not
have the expertise of Japanese teachers to guide us. To inform my study, I watched the
videos available from Mills College1 and read the research available at that time. It
seemed the more I learned about lesson study, the more questions I asked. I knew there
would also be challenges and teachers were already individually doing research in their
classrooms. Before I started this program, I wondered more about the challenges we
might face.
Informed by the research on situated learning (J. S. Brown et al., 1989), the
pedagogy of professional development (Ball & Cohen, 1999), conceptual change (Posner
et al., 1982), and lesson study (Fernandez et al., 2003; Lewis, 2000; Lewis & Tsuchida,
1997, 1998b), I developed a program of professional development for my school district.
In Chapter 2, I discuss the research design. Chapter 3 tells the story of these teachers, the
planning sessions, the lesson implementation and the feedback session. The themes that
1 Videos are available at http://lessonresearch.net/res.html.
24
develop are discussed in Chapter 4. Half way through the study, the teachers from one of
the schools leave because they say they are too busy. I give my insights for why this
happened in Chapter 5. In Chapter 6, I describe what teachers said they learned about
content, pedagogy and their students. Finally, I conclude this dissertation with my
reflections and give implications for professional development and research for
professional development.
25
CHAPTER II
RESEARCH DESIGN AND PROCEDURES
The Evolution of My Research Program
As the Learning Specialist at Forest Hills Elementary School, a small suburban
district on the border of a large urban Midwestern city, I modeled and coached teachers in
the implementation of standards-based instruction. Missing from this schedule was time,
during the school day, to discuss teaching strategies and to reflect with the teachers on
how those strategies impact student learning. I needed time to prepare and discuss the
lessons with the teachers. My own ideas about teaching and learning changed; I
developed a more social constructivist perspective during my studies at the university.
While working with teachers in their classroom I recognized some of their ideas as my
own that have since changed. I wanted to provide the teachers with better opportunities
to develop professionally. Collaboration was missing from my work with teachers. I
needed to find a way to increase collaboration time with my colleagues and create an
environment where we could learn from each other.
To compensate for the lack of time during the school day, I tried different
strategies. I organized after-school study groups. Small grants from our county’s
mathematics and science consortium provided books, software and other materials.
During one study group session we designed fraction units. Another time, we explored
lessons involving two and three dimensional geometry concepts; still another after school
group met to learn Hyperstudio. We designed lessons to integrate this multimedia tool in
26
their instruction. The participating teachers enjoyed the interactions with their colleagues,
but not every teacher could meet after school.
My principal told me about grant money she received that needed to be spent on
professional development during the following school year. I shared with her the practice
of lesson study, how it meets the standards for professional development as
recommended by the research literature and national organizations, and how it could help
to create an environment that includes time for discussion and reflection in my work with
teachers. She agreed with this idea; the grant funds would pay for substitute teachers so
all teachers could participate during the day. County grant funds were requested and
received to provide materials, fees for continuing education units, and lunch during our
meetings. I spent that summer learning more about Japanese lesson study. I also
received permission from the superintendent to use this program in my dissertation
research.
But that summer brought changes in administration. My principal was appointed
Curriculum Director and another principal was assigned to my school. At a meeting with
the Superintendent and the Curriculum Director just before the school year started, I was
told my job changed too; I was now assigned to the district. The superintendent
suggested that I think about doing the lesson study project with the whole district. She
directed me to arrange my schedule with the newly appointed Curriculum Director. We
reached agreement. Instead of working with the entire district, however, I would provide
services to the Title I elementary schools and the middle school. The lesson study project
would start that year beginning with the two elementary schools.
27
Lesson study dates and times were planned during the first week of school. This
was a complex task because the program would involve all the elementary teachers in
two schools. Dates and times that avoided these teachers’ planning times were needed
because heir planning times were preparation periods negotiated by the union contract
and could not be used for other district meetings. The dates scheduled included two
separate 6-session opportunities for lesson study, one late in fall and the other in early
spring. Substitute requests were placed on the district calendar.
Professional development was a big focus of the district that year with the new
Curriculum Director. On the first day of school teachers were notified of the state’s
requirements for professional development. They were not previously aware of these
requirements. Teachers were encouraged to attend outside conferences and workshops
and were supported by the district with substitutes and payment of conference fees. In
addition, the district had other plans for professional development. Two large grants
were awarded the district that year. One was a technology grant for the three elementary
schools. Time was needed to give the teachers opportunities to learn the new software
programs and the project-based learning strategies that were part of this grant. The
second grant was for a state reading improvement initiative. Elementary teachers were
released from their classrooms for half-day sessions for training and assessing their
students. With the teachers involved in all these activities, the fall sessions of my lesson
study program were canceled.
By the second semester teachers complained about being out of their classrooms
so much. Principals complained about the problems they had to deal with when the
regular classroom teachers were out of their rooms or buildings. Parents raised
28
objections to the idea of their children’s teachers being out of their room. The program
of lesson study had long been forgotten by most, but not by me. It was time to start the
spring sessions but because of the complaints the superintendent thought it would be best
to also cancel the spring lesson study group meetings too or have teachers meet after
school. With the support of the Curriculum Director, however, a compromise was
reached. Notes were sent in February to inform twelve fourth and fifth grade teachers that
they would be participating in the lesson study program.
Research Method
This study seeks to understand the themes of teachers’ engagement in what
appears to be a promising form of professional development and to compare and contrast
issues that arise. This study uses the qualitative research paradigm, which is concerned
primarily with the process and meaning – how people make sense of their lives,
experiences, and structures of their world (Creswell, 1994). The strength of using
qualitative data is that such data focus on naturally occurring, ordinary events in natural
settings (Miles and Huberman, 1994). My role in this study was that of a guide,
facilitating teachers in the planning of a lesson based on reforms in mathematics and
science and can be described as participant as observer (Creswell, 1994, p. 150). This
study is considered critical inquiry because I hoped to shift teachers’ perceptions and
practices by giving them an opportunity to make their beliefs about teaching and learning
visible to themselves and their colleagues for discussion and reflection.
Participants and Setting
There are about 2200 K-12 students enrolled in this district. Most of the students
are Caucasian. There are small numbers of Arabic and African American students.
29
Scores for the state-wide assessment program are below state averages. More than 50%
of the students receive free or reduced-price lunches.
The study took place over a three-month period in the spring of 2002. It included
11 fourth and fifth grade teachers from the two elementary schools where I am assigned,
Greenfield and Forest Hills2. Originally, 12 teachers were selected to participate in the
study, five from Greenfield and seven from Forest Hills. However, when the program
was ready to begin, one of the teachers from Greenfield was on a short leave of absence. I
thought it would be important for each teacher to be able to participate in the program
from the beginning; therefore this teacher from Greenfield was not included in this study.
Fourth and fifth grade teachers were chosen for two reasons: first, they were not already
involved with the professional development activities for the reading program; second,
the fourth and fifth grade students take state mandated assessments in mathematics and
science. The program would involve lessons in mathematics and science. For more
diversity in the groups I included the special education teacher from Forest Hills and the
computer teacher from Greenfield.
I organized the teachers in two groups, but instead of organizing them by school, I
chose to organize them by grade level. This allowed me to focus on subject matter
content for each grade. Since the district is small, most of the teachers were somewhat
acquainted with each other from other district activities. The fifth grade group was
composed of six teachers - four from Forest Hills and two from Greenfield. They focused
on a mathematics lesson. The fourth grade group had five teachers - three from the Forest
Hills and two from Greenfield. They focused on science instruction. To protect the
identity of these teachers, I use pseudonyms - last names are used for the teachers from
2 These names are pseudonyms as are the names of the teachers.
30
Greenfield and first names are used for the teachers from Forest Hills. The teachers
planning the mathematics lesson have names that begin with “M”; teachers planning the
science lesson have names that begin with “S”. Appendix A is a matrix showing the
structure of the participants. One of these teachers was male, but to mask his identity, he
will be referred to in the feminine gender.
The teaching experience of these ten females and one male teacher ranged from
beginning to 14 years. Four teachers were in their first or second year of teaching; five
teachers had four to seven years of experience. Two teachers taught for fourteen years,
but this was the first year in the district for one who was returning to her teaching career
after several years as a stay-at-home mom. A grant from the local math and science
consortium provided funds for lunches, materials, and continuing education units for the
teachers who needed them. We met in the district’s central office for planning and
reflecting and in the schools for the lesson implementation.
Procedure
The schedule for this study included six half-day sessions for each group spread
out over a three month period. This time frame included two vacation days for winter
break, a six day spring break, and three half-days for parent conferences. The district
provided substitute teachers so these teachers could be released from their classroom
duties to meet together during the regular school day. With a half-day schedule of
meetings, the substitutes would remain in the same building and move from the fifth
grade classroom in the morning to a fourth grade classroom in the afternoon. This block
of time would give the teachers time to focus on determining goals and planning the
lesson in the short period of time that we had.
31
Teachers chose the topic for the lesson. They were encouraged to base their
choice on a topic that they would be teaching soon but one they thought would be
difficult for themselves or their students. Four sessions were spent identifying goals and
planning the lesson. Because some of the teachers dropped out of the program, I
combined the two groups for the fifth and sixth sessions. The fifth session, the lesson
enactment, took place in the morning; the sixth session, the feedback session, took place
that afternoon. We observed both lessons that morning and held both feedback sessions
that afternoon. Because we were running out of time, revisions were discussed during the
feedback session. There was not an opportunity to re-teach the revised lesson.
Materials
A county grant made it possible to order materials for the participating teachers.
The teachers in the mathematics group received a copy of Principles and Standards for
School Mathematics (2000); the teachers in the science group received a copy of Inquiry
and the National Science Education Standards (2000). Both groups also received copies
of the Michigan Curriculum Framework (1996) for their subject.
Three videos were used during the session to help teachers better understand the
lesson study process. Two videos are from the Lesson Study Research Group at Mills
College. The first, Can You Lift 100 Kilograms? (2000) shows the three parts of the
lesson study cycle: the planning, the research lesson and the faculty discussion
afterwards. It was filmed in Komae School #7 in Tokyo. The lesson topic for the video
was levers and was taught to fifth grade students. The second video, Three Perspectives
of Lesson Study (2001) is a 53 minute video of Lewis, Fernandez and Stigler answering
questions about lesson study. The third video, Drag Races (2001) was used in the
32
science planning sessions. In this video, fifth grade students explore the forces that
brought their plastic cars to a stop after they bumped into and displaced barriers at the
end of their run. In this video, as viewers watch the teacher and her children in the
classroom, Dr. Sally Baliunas from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
explains the science concepts.
Collecting Data
Data collected include audio tapes of the planning and feedback sessions, video
tapes of the lesson implementation, audio tapes of the initial and final interviews, direct
observations, journal entries, lesson plans, samples of student work, and my field notes.
Additional data include CoWeb (Guzdial, 1999) journal pages developed online by
teachers during the goal setting and lesson-planning sessions.
Interviews took place at the beginning of the program. They were designed to
gain an insight into teachers’ perspectives about teaching mathematics and science and to
gain insights about their perceived ability to offer constructive criticism to a colleague.
To learn more about their perspectives on teaching I asked these teachers to describe a
typical mathematics or science lesson, how they assess their students’ learning, and if
they were satisfied with the learning outcomes of all their students. Other questions
during the interviews focused on their comfort in teaching mathematics or science, how
they felt their students learned those subjects best, and previous experiences with
collegial collaboration including opportunities to observe others teach (see Appendix B
for the questions asked during the initial interview).
Teachers were interviewed again after the intervention to find out what they felt
they learned about their students, content, and pedagogy. A general protocol for the final
33
interview was developed for all the teachers who completed the program (see Appendix
C for the final interview questions). These questions include their overall impression of
the program, which features they found most beneficial, and which features were least
useful. I also asked them if they ever considered dropping out of the program, if they had
insight into why the teachers from Greenfield left, how they thought that occurrence
impacted the program for the rest of the teachers, and if their reasons for participating
changed during the study. Additional questions were designed for the teachers who
taught the lesson. These questions were specific to the lesson they taught or to comments
made during the program. I also was curious about their reasons for volunteering to
teach. The teachers who dropped out were also interviewed. These teachers were asked
about their impressions of the program and their reasons for leaving.
The final interviews did not take place until August and September of the
following school year. This decision was made for two reasons. First, the teachers were
very busy with end-of-the-school-year reports and activities. I wanted them to have
more time to be reflective. Second, I needed more time to reflect on this process myself
and give more thought to the final interview questions. The elapsed time may have made
it difficult for them to remember some of the details, but I selected and prepared quotes to
help them remember the episodes for which I had specific questions. Involvement in this
program was memorable for these teachers and they were able to answer my questions
easily and with surprising detail.
Transcribing Data
The interviews and all the sessions, except the video tape of the lesson enactment,
were transcribed and imported into HyperRESEARCH to help manage the coding and
34
analysis process. Videos were partially transcribed. Those transcriptions focused on
discourse between teacher and student while students explained problems presented in
the lesson. I transcribed all interviews and planning sessions myself. This was helpful
and served as an early analysis as I came to hear things that I missed during my
participation in the study. Since it is easy for a person to make assumptions during
conversations with others and this can prevent them from hearing what is said, I found
transcribing the session gave me an opportunity to hear every word.
Importing Data
The transcribed data were imported into HyperRESEARCH and organized by
sessions and interviews. By design, HyperRESEARCH forces the researcher to start with
a case as a unit of analysis (Staller, 2002). I created five cases. They were: (a) Initial
Interview, which linked the beginning interviews of all the teachers; (b) Goal Setting,
which linked sessions one and two; (c) Lesson Planning, which linked sessions three and
four; (d) Feedback Session, which linked the Mathematics and Science feedback
sessions; and (e) Final Interviews, which linked the final interviews of all the sessions.
Sessions one and two were combined because it was during those sessions the
teachers were involved in setting long term and short term goals for the lesson. The third
and fourth sessions were combined as a case because it was during those sessions
planning for the lessons occurred. The fifth session was the lesson implementation and
this session was video taped. Although HyperRESEARCH now supports video, I did not
use that feature. Instead, I captured the videos with Studio 8 (Pinnacle, 2002) to use
during the analysis and I also created images of student work from the blackboard.
35
Analyzing Data
Data analysis was guided by the research questions. I engaged in five coding
steps. First, I identified the practices, attitudes and behaviors that I would code from my
research question, the theoretical framework, and from the data. Second, I identified
codes, reviewed the data and conducted the first level of coding. This was accomplished
not only by reading the transcripts but also by listening to the audio tapes. Third, I noted
recurring practices, attitudes and behaviors and generated temporary themes. Some codes
were combined and others expanded to get a greater level of detail. Fourth, I went back
to the data to search for confirming or disconfirming evidence. Fifth, I reported general
themes.
Identifying practices, attitudes and behaviors. In the conceptual change literature,
Posner et al. (1982) argue that for a change to occur, learners must be dissatisfied with
their present conceptions and see that a more intelligible or fruitful one exists. Informed
by this literature, I looked for teachers’ satisfaction with the learning outcomes of their
students. Informed by the pedagogy of professional development (Ball & Cohen, 1999),
teachers need to develop the disposition of inquiry. I looked for instances of teachers
using new norms for discourse such as questioning each other, probing for details,
arguing, using evidence to justify claims, and expressing uncertainty of their own ideas.
Fernandez et al.’s (2003) study described the lenses of student and researcher. I also
looked for examples of teachers’ statements that expressed the perspective of students
and their ability to offer critical feedback. For teachers to be able to teach to the reform
standards in mathematics and sciences, they would need to develop more constructive
beliefs about teaching and learning. I looked for statements that expressed those beliefs.
36
First level coding. Codes were developed to identify attitudes of satisfaction or
dissatisfaction of student learning, behaviors that displayed the disposition of inquiry, the
lens of the student, traditional or constructivist beliefs about learning, and examples of
giving critical feedback. Then I reviewed the data and conducted the first level of
coding. In doing so, new codes were identified. Some of these codes include
individualism, a curiosity or desire to learn more, influence of other teachers, time,
anxiety about features of the program, comparisons to other forms of professional
development, stated reasons for participating, stated reasons for dropping out, benefits
received, statements of what they learned about content, pedagogy, or students.
Identify recurring patterns and temporary themes. With the identification of
attitudes, practices and behaviors I did not anticipate, I identified patterns that repeated
within and across the cases. Teachers were always talking about the lack of time to teach
or to participate in this program. Teachers expressed concern for losing their
individualism. I developed temporary themes. I hypothesized reasons for why some
teachers left while others, faced with the same constraints on their time, continued to the
end.
Searching for confirming or disconfirming evidence. After identifying themes and
developing new hypotheses, I went back to the data. I listened to the tapes on different
occasions looking for evidence to confirm or disconfirm my hypotheses. The process of
identifying themes and searching for confirming evidence repeated itself in several
cycles.
Reporting general themes. After several cycles of developing themes and
searching for evidence, the main themes were reported and conclusions were made.
37
Reporting the Data
I will report the data in the next chapters. Chapter 3 tells the story about the
program. It starts with a description of the ideas and attitudes these teachers have about
teaching mathematics or science. Then I describe the characteristics of their engagement
in this collaborative examination of practice through the planning sessions, lesson
implementation and feedback sessions. I interweave description, literature and analysis.
In Chapter 4, I discuss the themes of individualism, time and talk. In Chapter 5, I give
my interpretation of why some teachers left the program early. Teachers reported that
they learned many things about the content, pedagogy and their students. They also
report receiving many benefits from participating in this study. Chapter 6 describes these
benefits. Finally, I conclude this dissertation in Chapter 7 with my reflections and
implications for professional development and research on professional development.
38
CHAPTER III
THE PROJECT STORY
In this chapter I tell the story of the eleven teachers who I ask to come to the edge.
Would they be willing to come or would they decide to stay where they feel safe? If
they came, would I find the courage to push?
There were many challenges throughout the project. The first challenges
presented themselves before the project even started. The day before the project was to
begin the secretary from central office told me that the first meeting date needed to be
changed. She was informed that the teachers at Greenfield would be on a field trip.
These challenges made their way into my dreams. I wrote in my journal:
I was packing my car to go to school. I went into the house for another load.
When I went back into the garage, another car was parked directly behind my car.
No one was in it and I didn’t recognize it. I needed to leave, so I pushed the car
down the driveway and into the street. When I turned around to go back into the
garage, the garage door was closed! I was stuck outside since I had no key to get
back into the house. Then I woke up from my dream. (Hartman Journal, March
14, 2002)
This dream seemed to represent the obstacles that I needed to overcome: the
superintendent’s suggestion to change the program’s meeting time to after school,
teachers’ complaints about being out of their room, and now word from the secretary at
central office that this date had to be changed. Since this was a dissertation, there were
university related issues too. Fortunately, I had the Curriculum Director’s support and she
helped resolve many issues related to the district. The superintendent agreed to allow the
39
program to take place during the school day, but for a reduced number of participants.
Complaints were heard, but the program would continue.
Acting on the information from the secretary at Central Office, I went to
Greenfield to speak to the two teachers about their planned field trip and try to
reschedule. All the teachers were meeting in the library that morning but it was not a
staff meeting day. They were listening to Melissa from Forest Hills describe her
experiences with looping - when a teacher keeps her class for two consecutive years.
Some teachers at Greenfield were considering looping with their class the next school
year and wanted more information. I was surprised that this kind of informal meeting
took place and listened with interest and excitement to the sharing within and between
schools. During her presentation Melissa asked for my comments because I worked with
her for the past two years and watched her class make academic and social progress. I
made positive comments about her classroom and her looping experience and commented
that there would be many opportunities for the teachers involved in the upcoming lesson
study program to share ideas about their practice like they were doing that morning.
After the meeting the teachers involved in lesson study told me their field trip was
canceled and there was no need to reschedule the first meeting date. I began to feel more
positive about the program.
There were more obstacles coming and of course, teachers’ negatives attitudes
about participating would not be overcome as easily. Principals would still complain that
the teachers who are not in their rooms created discipline problems for them to handle. I
believed that the teachers I worked with would enjoy the benefits of this collaborative
investigation of practice, but in the back of my mind I knew I would soon be asking these
40
teachers who held traditional beliefs about teaching and learning to try something quite
different – to open their classroom doors, to give feedback about their lessons to each
other, and to try a different approach to teaching. Problems like the ones I already
experienced could become barriers that would end this program. It was time to start and I
was less than confident. I wondered who I was to be asking these teachers to do
something so difficult.
This chapter is divided into five sections. The first section describes the teachers
and their ideas about teaching and working collaboratively as they describe them to me
during their first interview. The second section describes the two sessions when the long
and short term goals for the lesson were discussed. The third section describes the lesson
planning sessions; the fourth section describes the enactments of the mathematics and
science lessons. The fifth section describes the feedback sessions. In these chapters I
mix literature with description and interpretation. Further analysis and interpretation of
the themes are found in chapters four. Chapter five discusses my interpretations of why
some teachers left the program while other teachers stayed.
To mask the identity of the teachers in this study, the names I use are
pseudonyms. Teachers from Forest Hills are identified by first names; teachers from
Greenfield are identified by last names. Teachers involved in planning the mathematics
lesson have names that begin with “M”; teachers involved in planning the science lesson
have names that begin with “S”. One of these teachers is male, but to protect his identity,
he is referred to in the feminine gender. Refer to the chart of how I organize the teachers
in this study in Appendix A, if needed, while reading this chapter.
41
Ideas about Teaching Mathematics and Science
Most elementary teachers have insufficient understanding of mathematics and
science for teaching these subjects for the depth of understanding as recommended by
national standards (Ball, 2003; Ball, Lubienski, & Mewborn, 2001; Ma, 1999; National
Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 2000; National Research Council, 1996, 2000).
These teachers were not an exception. Although three of these teachers specialized in
mathematics or science during their undergraduate education, they were beginning
teachers: Megan, who was in her first full year of teaching, had a minor in elementary
mathematics; Sylvia, who was in her second year of teaching, had minors in mathematics
and science; Sharon, who taught five years, had a minor in science. Although she had
special preparation for teaching mathematics and science, Sylvia said she did not feel
well prepared for teaching these subjects. Two other teachers had preferences for
teaching mathematics or science, although they received only the required undergraduate
preparation: Ms. McHugh preferred teaching mathematics and Ms. Seymour preferred
teaching science. They taught their preferred subject to each other’s students in a team
teaching arrangement.
Four of the teachers shared, during their interviews, that they were not
comfortable teaching mathematics or science. One of the teachers from the math group
said, “I hate math, always have, and to this day I will tell you I am not the best math
teacher, although I try very, very hard to do my best.” Another teacher from the math
group said, “It's OK. It's not one of my favorite subjects, but it's OK…I'm not real strong
in math. I work really hard when I teach math.” A third teacher from the math group
described her feelings about teaching math like this: “I think it's just because I haven't
42
done it. I always team-taught and that was the subject I didn't teach. So I think it is more
the level of comfort with it rather than not actually liking math.” When I asked one of
the teachers from the science group if she enjoyed teaching science, she admitted, “I
enjoy it, but my discomfort is high…I always steered away from it. I didn't even have a
strong high school background in it.”
When the teachers in my study were asked how children best learn science, all the
science teachers mentioned hands-on instruction, but one teacher thought it was
important to incorporate vocabulary too. She described herself as a “spur of the moment
teacher” although she tries not to be. “In my head I know what I want but because I am
such a spur of the moment teacher, I haven’t thought out the best way to present it.” She
said she is so busy that she doesn’t have time to do a lot of things justice but she does like
having conversations with the students. Another teacher describes her science classes as
“small groups working together cooperatively to try to come up with an answer for a
question that’s given.” She tries not to give them too much information because she
wants them to figure it out. “I’ll go through the procedure of what they are going to be
doing so they understand the process, but I try not to lead them to any answers. I want
them to find the answers when they are doing the experiment.” A third science teacher
thinks her students learn best in small groups and in direct contact with whatever concept
is taught. When students work in groups, she explains, they feed off of ideas, suggestions
and insights that other people have. She relies on the science kit and the suggestions in
them for her science lessons.
The teachers in the mathematics group varied in their ideas about when and how
often manipulatives should be used. One of Greenfield teachers said practicing skills was
43
more important than using the manipulatives. When asked why she thought this, she said
she found success among her students when they practice although having the visuals
helped them “catch on quicker”. One of the Forest Hills teachers thought there should be
an equal combination of manipulatives and practice because some students have a
problem making the jump from hands-on to doing it in their head. Another teacher
noticed that the students who liked using manipulatives were bored with the lecture, and
the students who liked the lecture got distracted with the manipulatives. Her students are
not afraid to say they don’t understand a mathematics concept; they are eager to raise
their hand when they’re confused. Another Forest Hills teacher said it was important to
have teacher instruction before using manipulatives; in a typical mathematics lesson in
her class, she will give instructions with the manipulatives first. She thought it is
important to understand what it is they are learning. Another important part of her lesson
is to make sure that “we share with each other our own ideas or different ways of getting
to the same answer” but she also thought her kids would say that her mathematics lessons
are kind of boring or dry. A Greenfield teacher said it is really frustrating for her when
her students don’t get it.
In general, these teachers describe that their mathematics and science lessons
involve going through steps in the process of acquiring some knowledge. This is done by
explanations, carefully delivered. One teacher said, “When I explained something in a
certain way and you could see the kids weren’t getting it, they would be pulled in a group
and have it explained in maybe another way to see if they could catch on.” These
teachers classrooms were typical of most classrooms in the United States where new
concepts are presented by the teacher, examples are shown, and students are given time to
44
practice the new skills individually. If the teacher believes in cooperative learning,
students might sit together in small groups and practice the problems individually.
Their comments about learning revealed that they held more traditional
perspectives of learning. They used words like absorb or expressions like ramming down
the middle and cramming down their throats to describe their students’ learning or their
own teaching. Teachers talked about covering things to be learned. Most characterize
learning as an acquisition of vocabulary, facts or knowledge.
Reform documents for mathematics and science education (American Association
for the Advancement of Science, 1990; National Council of Teachers of Mathematics,
1989, 1991, 2000; National Research Council, 1996) emphasize that all students should
have access to high quality mathematics and science instruction. Lessons are considered
high quality if they actively engage students in meaningful and important work.
Meaningful work includes students doing the work of mathematicians and scientists; all
students are engaged in the content and asking questions, developing hypothesis or
conjectures, proving or disproving their ideas and communicating their ideas. Multiple
students’ perspectives are present. Teachers are flexible and responsive to students’
needs and interests. They use questions to monitor and promote understanding while
helping students make sense of the mathematics or science content. There is a climate of
intellectual rigor that includes constructive criticism and the challenging of ideas.
Although the reform documents have been around for several years, the
implementation in the classroom of these recommendations still is not widespread
(Stigler & Hiebert, 1999). Weiss, Pasley, Smith, Banilower, and Heck (2003) report a
study of classroom observations at 31 sites across the United States during the period
45
November 2000 –April 2002. They rated lessons on lesson design, lesson
implementation, content addressed, and classroom culture. They looked for lessons that
are strong in intellectual rigor and conducted within an environment of respect. They
argue that if the culture of the classroom is respectful as well as rigorous, students will
have a better opportunity to learn. An example of a lesson rated low in rigor and respect
is the following:
The teacher’s main classroom management strategy was to chastise the class
repeatedly, ‘pockets on your seat, eyes up, lips zipped.’ She allocated ‘points’ for
each table behaving as she had requested, and recorded these table points on the
board….To ensure that the students were able to follow the instructions, she
called on individual students to repeat each instruction as it was given. For
example, ‘While I am handing out the construction paper, please finish writing.
When you get the construction paper, write your name on one side; that will be
the back… Where do you need to write your name?’ She would then call on
individual students, and each one would parrot, ‘on the back.’ (Weiss, et al. 2003,
p.5)
This studied found only 13% of the lessons they observed were rated highly respectful
and rigorous. Fifty-five percent of the lessons observed lacked intellectual rigor. Sixty-
six percent of the lessons lacked inadequate questioning; sixty-six percent showed
inadequate sense-making. The TIMMS video study shows a similar pattern (National
Center for Education Statistics, 2003).
Similar to the teachers from Five Towns in Lortie’s (1975) study, these teachers
were interested in their colleagues for sources of help and as mirrors for their
46
performance. Their desire to see what was going on in other classrooms was strong.
They had chances to talk to other teachers, but they wanted to see too. A teacher from
Greenfield wanted an opportunity to observe other teachers at work. She said, “The one
thing about teaching that I don’t like is that I don’t get to watch my peers work as much.”
Teachers used the words creeping, sneaking, peeking and stealing to describe how
they made opportunities to see what was going on in other classrooms. One of the
teachers talked about her experience years ago as a beginning teacher:
I would observe if I could creep out of my room for a few minutes across the hall.
When I first started [teaching], I watched a teacher teach lessons and I watched
her behavior system and that really inspired me in both areas. I did get to observe
but I did talk mostly, you know, talk was the biggest way of getting to know new
strategies for teaching. But I did observe, you know, a little bit, here and there
when I could.
Things did not change much in this district over the years for this beginning
teacher. She described her peeking, spying and breaks from isolation in this conversation
with me:
Teacher: I’m in my own little world and I think that we don’t have enough
development in this district for me to learn from other teachers. I
gather different things from different teachers when I can catch a
glimpse of what they are doing.
Monica: How do you go about doing that?
Teacher: Sometimes it’s as simple as walking down the hallway and just
peeking in rooms as I walk and see what they do. Sometimes it’s
47
just when they are making copies and I see an activity that they are
preparing to do and I say, “Oh, what’s that about?” And they tell
me, and you know what? I could adapt that for my class. It’s
mostly me just spying and stealing.
Monica: Do you get a chance to talk to other teachers about how they
teach?
Teacher: Not very often. I think everyone has to learn their own style but I
think that taking from other people is a good thing.
One teacher at Forest Hills arranged a visit on her own during her scheduled
preparation time to observe a colleague’s lesson. Two other teachers talked about doing
this, but found it difficult to arrange time. One teacher thought it was a futile endeavor to
try to arrange time to observe another teacher on her own time. She said:
If we did that, it would have to be on our prep, and then we are taking time from
our prep to get ready for the next thing to go do it. Yeah, I could take my half
hour prep and sit in someone else’s classroom and not get the full gist of
everything because that’s what it would be. A half hour is not long enough.
In this district, teachers get a one hour art preparation period, two 30 minute music and
two 30 minute gym preps per week.
It was interesting to me that only one teacher made a reference to their
opportunities to observe me teach their children in their classrooms. I worked with eight
of these teachers in their classrooms. Perhaps they interpreted my question to mean - do
any other teachers besides me influence the way you teach? Maybe I am not an
48
influence. Perhaps they want to see how a teacher manages the children throughout the
day, not just for one class.
Although they do not have opportunities to observe teachers, I asked them if they
felt talking to other teachers was worthwhile. Their overwhelming positive responses to
this question were: “Absolutely, absolutely!” “I only see it as a plus.” “Definitely!” “I
can’t fathom it not be.” These teachers seemed to have a strong desire to talk and learn
from each other.
Setting the Goals
Setting long term and short term goals was the primary focus of the first two
planning sessions. These meetings took place in the board room at Central Office. The
teachers in the mathematics group met in the morning and ate lunch together afterwards.
They got back to school in time for the return of their students to the classroom after their
lunch. The science teachers met in the afternoon. They left school after they took their
students to the lunchroom and ate together in the board room. There was no time in-
between the sessions for the teachers from either group to meet or talk.
The First Mathematics Session
The planning and the events leading up to the start of these meetings were still
fresh in my mind. There I was with the participants before me. The teachers in the
morning group seemed supportive and ready to start; my initial fears distanced
themselves. To introduce them to project, we watched the video, Can You Lift 100
Kilograms? (2000). This video was filmed in a fifth grade classroom in a public school
in Tokyo and demonstrates the three parts of lesson study: the planning of the research
lesson, the teaching of the research lesson to fifth grade students, and the faculty
49
colloquium or feedback session following the research lesson. The morning group of
teachers expressed concern that students would focus on the observing teachers and not
on the lesson, but they decided if the lesson was a good one, students would eventually
ignore the visitors. Since teachers in this group were interested in getting started, instead
of watching the other planned video, Three Perspectives on Lesson Study (2001), they
started to brainstorm the long term goals for the lesson.
To foster more collaboration during this process, a web page (see Appendix D)
was designed using CoWeb (Guzdial, 1999), a collaborative web authoring tool. The
intent of using this tool was to allow teachers to share ideas across schools and grades.
This asynchronous form of communication would allow teachers to interact when and
where it was convenient for them and to reflect in between sessions.
Four questions were placed on the web site for discussion on setting goals. These
questions are suggested from the Lesson Study Research Group3 (Chokshi et al., 2001):
(a) What qualities would you like these students to have five years from now? (b) What
qualities do they have now? (c) What aspects of the ideal would you most like to work
toward? (d) State positively the ideal student qualities you choose to work on.
One teacher from each school in the morning group brought their new computers
they recently received from the state’s technology initiative to the meeting and logged
onto the CoWeb site. After a short introduction to CoWeb, the teachers engaged in
conversation about long term goals and recorded their ideas on the web page. The four
teachers from Forest Hills gathered around Marilyn’s computer while they worked on
their school-wide long term goal. I noticed that the two teachers from Greenfield worked
3 Current version of the goal selection worksheet can be found at http://www.tc.columbia.edu/lessonstudy/doc/Goal_Selection_Worksheet.pdf
50
independently on their school goals and I made a note of that in my journal. At the end
of the session ideas were shared among all participants using a data projector.
The First Science Session
The afternoon group started differently. The teachers gathered in the boardroom
for lunch before the sessions started. The lunchtime conversation extended into the
meeting time. I let it continue because I thought it could be productive and it would be
difficult to stop. They were discussing their children’s cooperative learning skills. I
started the tape recorder with Sylvia’s comment, “Maybe I don’t do it [cooperative
learning] well enough. I need to go back to school.” I took note that Sylvia, a second
year teacher, was comfortable enough in this group to mention a problem that she was
having with her students. Ms. Seymour shared what she learned about cooperative
learning during her collaborative action research project in a master’s degree program at
a local university:
It was chaos [at first]. Kids were fighting; this and that. I mean you are going to
have that no matter what, but there are ways to alleviate it and one thing I found
really useful was to keep the groups small. Make sure they have a role that they
know they are doing and are accountable for…I notice just from experience with
my class…Today, I did a cooperative learning and it was just groups of two
today…and I mean it went like clockwork. They were on task. It wasn’t really
loud in there. They had a great time with it. I really honestly feel like they
learned a lot with that lesson.
The teachers listened and asked Ms. Seymour more questions about how she
groups her students, the roles she assigns, how she assigns them, and how she handles
51
transitions. Sharon joined in and described the success she has with her students who,
she explained, work in cooperative groups all the time.
After giving what I thought was an adequate amount of time for teachers to
engage in this conversation about cooperative learning, I told them why we were meeting
and showed the same lesson study video I showed to the morning group. Immediately
after the video Sylvia directed another question to Ms. Seymour and the conversation
reverted back to the cooperative learning discussion. During this discussion, I asked Ms.
Seymour if she was interested in being the first to teach the lesson so we all could see her
children working in groups. She said, “Yes. When are we going to do that, because
there’s a lesson I haven’t taught to Ms. McHugh’s class yet, that I did today? I could do
that one.”
Ms. Seymour must have missed the first part in the video where it shows how the
teachers collaboratively planned the lesson, because she thought she could teach the same
lesson she taught yesterday. I responded saying that we needed time to decide what the
lesson would be and then design a lesson together. Ms. Snyder added, “Because, like in
the video, we all have to get together and decide what the lesson will be.”
The conversation continued a bit longer with Ms. Seymour’s sharing some more
of her expertise before I was able to redirect them to discuss the video. I gave each
teacher their copy of the inquiry book (National Research Council, 2000) and directed
them to page 29 where the essential features of classroom inquiry could be found. I
asked them if they recognized any features of inquiry in the video. The conversation
almost came to a complete halt. After struggling to engage them in discourse about
inquiry skills, we began the process of goal setting.
52
These teachers differed from the morning group in the way they approached the
process of goal setting. No one from the afternoon group brought their lap top; instead of
working in individual school groups, we worked in one large group. One teacher typed
ideas onto the web site. Using the data projector, all teachers could see as well as hear
immediately the ideas presented. These circumstances - the whole group working and
seeing their thoughts on the screen - may have contributed to the difference in the
discussions.
For the first question on the website, the fifth grade teachers from Forest Hills
thought the qualities they would like their children to have in five years were caring and
responsibility for self and others, healthy communication, and empathy to others. They
also wanted their students to acknowledge and accept the consequences for their
inappropriate behavior. The fifth grade teachers from Greenfield who worked separately
had similar ideas and added “working well in collaborative groups” and “each child to
participate and voice their opinion and ideas.” When the afternoon group saw the
morning group’s goals, Ms. Snyder made a comment and recorded her response as
feedback on CoWeb: “These are wonderful goals! Just think how wonderful our jobs
would be and how much fun we would have if we achieve these goals.” The fourth grade
teachers agreed with the goals from the morning group and added a few more:
“preparation for civic responsibility” and “more parental involvement” They were
reminded that we were looking at qualities of students, not their parents, but the parent
involvement goal was left recorded because we were brainstorming.
The second question invited teachers to reflect on the qualities their children
already have. There were notable differences between the fifth grade groups. Forest
53
Hills teachers said their fifth grade students worked well in groups; Greenfield teachers
said their fifth grade students did not. Forest Hills teachers said their students shared
ideas orally and were eager to resolve problems; at Greenfield, certain students would
voice their opinions but others would shut down and refuse to participate. Differences
were accepted without debate.
In the afternoon group, the “qualities” mentioned first were that of students’ fights
and disagreements. They complained that their students are argumentative, egocentric,
and self-focused. After Ms. Snyder suggested they should “put a positive spin on there”,
teachers’ alternative perspectives started to surface. Sharon was first to defend the
students’ egotism. She thought “it’s not necessarily a negative trait. It’s just who they are
at that age.” Sarah said she would like to see effort addressed, but maybe it needs to go
with the qualities they would like to see their students have in five years. She said, “I
would like to see students trying their best, putting forth their best effort, putting pride in
their work.” When they scrolled up the web page to see how the fifth grade teachers
responded to the first question again, Sharon saw “responsibility for self and others” in a
different way and offered this perspective: “Responsible for self and others usually
indicates behavior as opposed to an academic. How about calling it academic
responsibility?” After more discussion, it was agreed that “putting forth best effort and
taking pride in their work to achieve academic responsibility” should be a quality they
would like their students to have and they added that to the CoWeb page.
There were bigger differences between the two schools in the fifth grade group
for the third question: what aspects of the ideal would you most like to work toward?
The Forest Hills group wanted to work toward the ideal of having students acknowledge
54
their inappropriate behavior and accept consequences for it. The Greenfield teachers
wanted to work toward the ideal of students cooperating with others in their group and
being able to express their ideas. Ms. Miller wanted students who could learn to give and
take and realize no one idea is right or wrong but just different. Perhaps all the teachers
agreed with Ms. Miller, that no one idea is right or wrong but just different. They may
have accepted the different goals because they were at different schools and felt no need
to debate.
The fourth grade teachers did not agree with the fifth grade Forest Hills teachers’
statement – students’ acknowledgement of inappropriate behavior and acceptance of its
consequences. The first big challenging comment in this discussion was directed to those
fifth grade teachers who were not present. They responded to them with a statement on
CoWeb: “Behaviors change throughout life and it would be impossible to achieve this.”
Included in the critical comment was a more positive one, “This is a good learning tool
and a needed constant reminder.” The teachers argued among themselves that some
behaviors are accepted at home and on the playground but not at school. It would be
confusing for kids to have different sets of behaviors to turn off and on at will.
The first signs of the disposition of inquiry were appearing. They started to
question and probe each others’ ideas. Sarah said “discipline towards others” didn’t make
sense to her. At first, I thought Sarah’s challenge was directed to Sharon. Sharon and
Sarah are long time friends outside of school and often kid with each other, but a
comment made by Ms. Seymour brought me to a closer look at this dialogue. The word
“others” was added first by Ms. Snyder and Ms. Seymour agreed that word should be
added. After Sarah’s challenge, Sharon made a joke; Sarah responded with sarcasm.
55
Sylvia typed ideas as they discussed what aspects of the ideal student they wanted to
work towards. The following is part of that dialogue.
Sharon: How about respect, discipline between self and learning?
Ms. Snyder: Self, others [emphasis added] and learning?
Ms. Seymour: Yeah, I was going to say it needs to have one more.
Sarah: Discipline towards others doesn’t make sense.
This was where Sharon quickly diverted the first signs of challenging discourse and said:
Sharon: Well it depends on if you are talking about good discipline or bad
discipline. [Laughing]
Sarah: [Laughing] OK.
Sara’s response seemed sarcastic because she didn’t think Sharon’s response clarified the
issue. I brought them back to the task at hand.
Monica: Or self-discipline and respect towards self and
Sharon: How about if we just say self-discipline?
Sylvia: That’s what they were just saying.
Sharon: Oh.
Ms. Snyder: And respect towards others and learning
Ms. Seymour: They have respect for themselves though too.
Sylvia: Well, yeah, and it works both ways. They have to have
[interrupted]
Sharon: That would work. Self discipline and respect towards self, others,
and group. Yep, that makes sense. Doesn’t it? Do you agree
now?
56
Sylvia: Help us out. But no, doesn’t [hesitating], because you have self,
others and learning doesn’t [interrupted]
Sharon: She’s [Sarah] the language person.
Sylvia: We want self discipline. We want discipline with others, and we
want discipline with our learning. We want self respect. We want
respect for others and we want respect for learning.
Sharon seemed to be satisfied and hoped the others could agree and resolve this
issue while Sylvia was trying to record the ideas on the CoWeb and keep up with the
discussion. Ms. Seymour made a suggestion to Sylvia about the formatting:
Ms. Seymour: Why don’t you go on two separate lines instead of putting them
together? Respect and discipline for others and learning and put
self discipline underneath it, or something like that?
Ms. Snyder: Does it have to be one sentence?
Ms. Seymour: It doesn’t have to be one sentence, does it?
Sylvia: I don’t know.
Ms. Seymour: I don’t know. It’s your [emphasis added] thing.
Ms. Seymour’s comment came as a surprise. With her comment, “It’s your thing”
she seemed to distance herself from the rest of the group. Earlier she was the center of
attention when she shared her advice at length in the extended conversation about
cooperative learning; the others asked her many questions and it seemed they thought of
her as the expert on cooperative learning. I thought she was feeling more of a part of the
group, but apparently she did not.
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Perhaps since Sarah felt she was the one who started the challenge, she may have
felt responsible for the direction the conversation was taking. Perhaps this is another
defense mechanism people take to avoid confronting the important issues, but Sarah did
what comes quite naturally to her and she set up a diversion that served as comic relief.
In the middle of this discussion, she told the story about her recent visit to the doctor for
her cold and how embarrassing it was when she was told by the nurse to pull down her
pants to receive her injection.
Everyone laughed, but Ms. Snyder brought the group back to the bigger
discussion. She said: “Well, here’s a thought. If you respect yourself and your respect
others and you respect learning, wouldn’t the discipline come easily; if you have all this
respect ingrained in you?”
Sarah responded:
Actually, respect encompasses all of that. I think you are right. I think having
discipline in that sense as written sounds very awkward. I think if you delete it,
then it is implied. And you know what? You guys got in the little effort, that’s
my… I couldn’t decide if I wanted effort as the prime goal.
Hearing other thoughts about the topic helped Sarah think about her own and
made her thoughts visible to herself and others. After listening to the conversation she
said:
I think effort is huge too, but it sounds like we are trying to find one goal that we
hope these children have and then maybe being a good person is even more
important than all of their trying and their effort at something.
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The discussion turned again toward the wording of their statement as they
continued to revise the wording of their goals as a response to the question on CoWeb
and the debate continued. Sylvia said she didn’t like the word ‘show’. When Ms.
Seymour suggested the word ‘demonstrate’, Sylvia argued that it didn’t sound permanent.
Sarah suggested ‘have’. They agreed that the aspect of having respect for self, others and
learning would be worth working toward achieving with their students and was recorded
on CoWeb.
Although these were not major issues, the fact that Sarah brought up the challenge
when something did not make sense to her showed that she was using the kind of talk
teachers need for professional discourse. But not all teachers present seemed comfortable
with a discourse that challenges the ideas of another and this may have limited the extent
Sarah wished to probe this idea.
We spent quite a bit of time on deciding a long term goal during the first two
sessions. In Japanese Lesson Study, long term goals are very important. The Japanese
teachers in the Fernandez study (2003) spent a lot of time with the U.S. teachers at
Paterson School to help them develop their goals. After spending quite a bit of time on
this discussion, I tried to explain the importance of having a school-wide long term goal.
I mentioned that all the teachers from both schools would have participated in this
program originally and all the teachers could have input into these goals, but that idea
was changed because there were so many complaints about teachers being out of the
classroom.
This was when two teachers decided to be openly honest with their feelings about
this program. Sharon admitted she was the one who complained to the principal, but Ms.
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Seymour said she complained too, “I’ve been out a lot. When I got this email I’m like,
not again! Honestly I did.” Sharon complained that she did not have a choice, that she
didn’t think this would benefit her. She said she already knew the things we would
discuss, but she didn’t have time to be cooperative and teaching the way I was suggesting
was not doable. She argued:
Well, the times that I’ve been out were times that I chose. Things that I really
wanted, that I knew were going to benefit me. I didn’t know anything about this.
I don’t know who it’s helping in the long run, or how it’s helping immediately… I
have time to do what I know I need to do and this wasn’t one of those things, so I
was very frustrated by that and I feel that my kids are starting to get very angry
and I’ve had parent comments about the fact that I haven’t been there…. Here’s
the thing. I think all of us educators know that these are the things that we need to
do to intrinsically motivate our students, but we don’t have time to sit down and
plan lessons like this on a daily basis or a weekly or monthly even….It’s really,
really hard to sit down and plan out a lesson like this on your own and I know that
you are talking about doing it cooperatively, but we don’t have the time to be
cooperative and for me it’s very frustrating because what you’re telling us is stuff
that we do know. We do know that working hands-on, motivating our children to
do these things is important. We know that, but we also have to be realistic and
know that we have all this to do before here and all this to do before here and we
have to meet those goals, otherwise we wouldn’t be here…But to teach things in
the detail that we should be teaching them, you know, that, you’re suggesting is
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going to give them a really deep and thorough understanding of something, may
not be a doable thing for us.
Ms. Seymour didn’t think teaching for understanding was impossible. Her
complaint was that there just wasn’t enough time because there was too much to teach:
We don’t have a lot of time. We have too much to teach. I mean I’ve always said
this. We focus more on the quantity we teach rather than the quality. If there
were certain things that we focused on, then we could accomplish this. I don’t
think it’s something that’s insurmountable. It could be accomplished. I just think
that everything, all the demands, it is difficult to do, you know, I guess you have
to pick and choose what you really want to come across and definitely, you
couldn’t do it with everything…there’s so many things that we’re cramming
down their throats, that in order to get it all in, you can’t teach for mastery, you
know what I mean. You just have to teach it and hope that they get it. I haven’t
done research on other countries and why they are doing better than us and why
Japan does better. I’m willing to bet that if you look at the curriculum, they don’t
teach as much.
To give them the Japanese perspective on Lesson Study, I showed Catherine
Lewis’s portion of the video, Three Perspectives on Lesson Study (2001). Afterwards,
Sharon said, “we can all give up and go teach in Japan.” She complained that there was
not a curriculum in the district and feared we would be wasting our time planning a
lesson that might not later be a part of the fourth grade curriculum. She said,
It’s not like I’m tired of learning. That’s not it at all. I love learning, that’s why I
am a teacher and I want to absorb everything you have, all that information you
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have, I would love to absorb it into my being. But my problem is, I have this
other responsibility [to cover the curriculum] and that to me is real, very real.
Ms. Seymour spoke of her frustrations she felt for getting her students ready to
take the state assessments in mathematics and language arts and how many times she was
pulled out of her classroom that year. She complained about not having the time to
process the new information she received during those times.
I wondered if the other teachers felt the same as these two, or if they would also
begin to feel that way after listening to their arguments. Then Ms. Snyder said to Ms.
Seymour and Sharon. “Think about what I think I first heard. Is there something you
guys are frustrated with in your classroom that you are trying to teach that maybe if all of
us put our heads together, maybe we might feel better about?” Sharon responded that
there were some things that could help her, which is why she was not saying the sessions
would be a waste of time, but Ms. Seymour said she was not going to teach forces and
motion yet. If you recall, I asked her early during the session if she would like to teach
the first lesson. Perhaps she was feeling pressured; I told her that she didn’t need to feel
that she had to teach the first lesson. The short term goal would determine the topic for
the lesson and that was not yet decided.
We looked at the calendar to see when the next group sessions were scheduled. I
asked what science unit the fourth grade teachers teach in May when realistically, we
would be ready to teach our first lesson. Everyone seemed to have a different topic
scheduled in May – another obstacle resulting from not having a firm district curriculum,
but most thought a force and motion lesson would be good candidate for our study.
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Looking at the calendar, Ms. Seymour said she just rescheduled her field trip and it
would take place on one of the next meeting days.
I asked them to think about ideas for teaching the concepts of force and motion.
The session closed with teachers preparing the forms needed for continuing education
units that were offered as part of this professional development experience.
Reflections after the First Session
In preparing this study, I became more aware of teachers’ needs to develop skills
for the disposition of inquiry (Ball & Cohen, 1999) and to have opportunities to ask
questions, search for meaning, take risks by exposing their thinking, and being exposed to
perspectives other than their own. These ideas guided my interactions with the group. I
was a part of the group. I wanted to guide, but not control it. Positive and negative ideas
were allowed to become visible to all.
Comparing the morning group to the afternoon group, I found discussing goals
together in the afternoon group facilitated a more productive discourse among these
teachers. The use of the data projector enabled everyone to hear and see ideas; this
helped both the auditory and visual learners and made it easier for teachers to question
and probe ideas. Completing the task of establishing long term goals gave the teachers a
framework to discuss their ideas.
The literature tells us that teachers need to find out what their students’
conceptions are so that you can build on them and help them in the construction of more
productive ones (Bruer, 1994; Duckworth, 1996; Gallas, 1995). As a teacher of these
teachers, I discovered some of their ideas about learning from my conversations with
them during their interviews and from conversations during that first day. One teacher
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talked of her learning as a process of absorbing information and needing time “to go
home…put it down and collect dust because you have to process and you have to think
about it”. Another talked of cramming information into her students but not having time
herself to work with new information and to process it. These teachers were being asked
to participate in a new learning experience, but felt there was no need, no time, or they
were already overwhelmed with other experiences. Sometimes our children feel the same
way, but we persist. Duckworth (1996) guided my thinking about how these teachers
were feeling. I could be upset about their complaints or believe these were hopeless
teachers who would not change their ways. She says the knowledge of teaching is
complex but for complex knowledge, she argues:
Teachers are often, and understandably, impatient for their students to develop
clear and adequate ideas. But putting ideas in relation to each other is not a
simple job. It is confusing; and that confusion does take time. All of us need time
for our confusion if we are to build the breadth and depth that give significance to
our knowledge. (Duckworth, 1996)
Just as good teachers understand their children’s confusion and allow some time
for it, I could not get impatient with these teachers. These teachers said they needed time
to learn new things; they recognized their need for taking time in their own learning, to
make sense of their confusion. I did not have answers – only more questions; I had the
professional standards, but no “silver bullet”.
Learning new practices would be a process that would take time, but it looked like
some did not realize they needed to learn anything new. Two teachers said they knew the
standards which they should use in their teaching, but they did not have time to teach that
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way. Before you can learn something, you need to realize that you have a need to learn
it. Sharon admitted lessons would be better if they planned collaboratively, but again she
said there wasn’t time. Attitudes about attending the meeting were different - two
teachers made it clear that they did not want to be there.
I was interested in watching these teachers to see if they would say what they
were thinking and give critical feedback to each other. It was easy on CoWeb to argue
their point with teachers who were not present, but when Sarah first ventured out by
saying something did not make sense to her, one teacher made light of it and another
teacher withdrew from the conversation. By the end of the session, two teachers were not
afraid to say what they were thinking and criticized spending time with this program.
What could I learn from their feedback they gave me? Was it just a venting of
frustrations? Many factors existed within the district that made things difficult for
teachers. The curriculum changed many times in recent years and they knew it was still
in a state of revision. Newer teachers were unsure about what they were responsible for
teaching their students because they got different answers from different sources. There
were too many concepts which they were responsible for teaching. Teachers want to have
choices in their learning. They should have been notified earlier in the semester that they
would be participating in these days of professional development. This would be a
process that would take time. Would they want to continue?
The Second Mathematics Session
Another obstacle surfaced on the day the second sessions were to meet. While
getting ready in the board room that morning, the principal from Greenfield called to say
that Ms. Seymour was absent and he needed another substitute. He would only be able to
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send one of the two teachers to the meeting. He wondered which one he should send.
The Curriculum Director offered to substitute at his school so both teachers could come.
Instead, because Ms. Snyder did not have her own class, she occasionally substituted for
the teachers in her building when needed. If she subbed for the teacher attending the
other all day workshop, the second substitute assigned to that building would be able to
go to the other two lesson study teachers’ classes. Then the two classroom teachers could
attend the session. Since both of the other two teachers were in the mathematics group,
one of these teachers would attend the science session instead. Since Ms. Miller taught
science and Ms. McHugh did not, Ms. Miller was asked to come that afternoon instead.
Responding to feedback on CoWeb. The second session started by reviewing the
feedback received from the fourth grade teachers to finalize the long term goals. During
the first session the fourth grade teachers responded to the fifth grade teachers’ ideas
about students’ acknowledgement of inappropriate behavior and acceptance of its
consequences on CoWeb. The fourth grade teachers thought it would be impossible to
achieve that because behaviors change throughout life. The fifth grade teachers’ initial
response was to give the fourth grade teachers “a few words back.” Fifth grade teachers
still felt it was not impossible for them to expect their children to be able to acknowledge
their inappropriate behavior. Marilyn argued that part of being a well adjusted adult is
knowing which behaviors are required in different situations. She gave an example of
her niece who frequently used inappropriate language with her friend but knew she
shouldn’t when she was visiting her mother’s house. Ms. McHugh reminded everyone
that teachers used different behaviors in the staff room and the classroom. All agreed.
Different perspectives on this issue were brought up and discussed with enthusiasm in
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defense of their original position. Since the fourth grade teachers were not there, I
presented their point of view for them. The fourth grade teachers meant certain behaviors
are expected no matter where they are and that these behaviors had to do with having
respect to self, others, and learning.
Melissa brought up the second part of their long term goal – accepting
consequences for their behavior. A discussion followed with examples of students who
blame others for their behavior and behaviors at home. It was agreed that if students had
respect for self, others, and learning, they would not blame others for what they did
wrong. It was decided that they could partially agree with the fourth grade teachers and
this became the long term goal.
The whole group discussion allowed for the exposure of more ideas. The task of
defining long term goals kept the discussion in a more positive direction and less a
complaint session, which is often the direction conversations are headed in the staff
room.
Short term goals. Once the long term goals were decided, they needed to choose
the short term goals which would decide the topic of the lesson. The curriculum in the
district was loosely structured. Most teachers said they did not use the mathematics
textbook. Some said they used it as a resource. The fifteen year old science textbook
was replaced by science kits, but the teachers still had those old textbooks on their
shelves and used them anyway. Many of the science kits sat unopened in the storage
closet. Although we would not plan a unit, the teachers were asked to think about how the
lesson they would plan would fit into a larger unit. The fifth grader teachers discussed
the idea of multiplying fractions for the study lesson.
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Teachers seemed to become more comfortable with each other and some were
willing to take risks. For example, one of the teachers was not afraid to admit that she
didn’t know how to teach the multiplication of fractions. She said she learned things with
her students. She commented, “I was not a very good math student ever and this is my
first year ever teaching math. This is all new to me.” She told the story of one of the
things she learned from her students.
A few days previously, I worked with her class exploring patterns with equivalent
fractions using the plastic fraction circles. When we recorded the fractions equivalent to
one-half on the board in the order of increasing numerators, students noticed many
patterns; among them was the discovery that the denominators were the multiples of two.
Her students continued to practice finding equivalent fractions this way; they counted by
ones to find the new numerators and used the multiples of the denominator to find the
new denominator. She was curious about what her students would do to find equivalent
fractions for a number that did not have a numerator of one, so she asked them to find
equivalent fractions for two-thirds. She was ready to teach the algorithm she learned as a
student. One of her students told her, “Well the top number instead of going by ones is
going to go by 2's because you start with a 2.” She said how she went home that night
and tried several examples to see if it always worked and then said, “I went, Wow! I
didn't know that!”
We talked about the multiplication concepts students would need before learning
how to multiply fractions. Then I suggested that we start the lesson with a real world
problem to solve. I asked them to think of problems that we might use. All the examples
they mentioned were examples of multiplying a whole number and a fraction. Then I
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asked if they could think of an example using two fractions as factors. These teachers
could not think of one. One teacher asked,
Teacher One: Why do they have to know it if we don't ever use it?
Teacher Two: They are going to do it in Junior High and High School.
Teacher Three: But why are they doing it in Junior High and High School?
Teacher One: Right. That's my question. Why do we, if we are adults and we
are teachers and we don't even need to use it and we can't honestly,
five of us here with college education can't think of one legitimate
way that we can use it in real life?
A vote was suggested and every teacher voted deferring this concept to the sixth
grade teachers. Then I gave them examples. For example, if you had a recipe that called
for one-fourth of a cup of sugar and you wanted to make only half of the recipe, or if the
recipe called for one-half of a cup and you needed one-half of that. Some of the teachers
thought that was dividing. Some could not understand how when you multiply, the
answer gets smaller. I demonstrated this concept by folding a piece of paper in half and
then taking one-half of that, resulting in one-fourth. Marilyn was still confused and said:
I think saying that you are cutting a recipe down, you are going to have a hard
time convincing kids they are multiplying…I understand that it works, but in my
mind that doesn't make sense. If you are making it smaller, you are not
multiplying.
AIMS Education Foundation has a lesson that uses the area model to help
students understand the multiplication of fractions, Fair Squares and Cross Products
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(Hillen, 2000). I left the room to copy a lesson we were discussing as a possible research
lesson.
While I was gone, Marilyn asked Ms. McHugh, who volunteered to teach the
lesson, if they were going to get to watch her teach. She responded: “You get to slam
dunk me!” Marilyn said she would like to teach a lesson too. The conversation
continued as they talked about previous experiences being observed teaching a lesson.
One teacher said when the principal came in for her evaluation once she threatened her
kids and told them they would get locked in the closet if they were bad. Another teacher
said that she told her kids that the principal’s evaluation would be like her test. The kids
asked with surprise, “You have to take tests?” This was the conversation that took place
when I was out of the room; I only learned of it when listening to the tape recording of
the session. Although they did not admit this in front of me, their conversations seemed
to show some concern about teaching the lesson while their peers watched.
The teachers liked the lesson I copied and thought it might be a good one to teach.
More ideas were discussed. We discussed using pattern blocks or fraction circles to help
students better understand the concept. Marilyn said that some of her children did not
like using manipulatives. She said:
I have kids that do not like the fraction pieces. They did them with you because
you were in there and they were told to do it, but when I gave them the choice
yesterday, they all went and put them back on the back table. I handed them out
and said you could use the sticks, you could use scrap paper, you can use, here are
all your choices.
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I responded, “Did they get them right?” She said, “Um, yeah, I checked through them.” I
said it didn’t matter if they used manipulatives or not, as long as they were getting the
answers right. She said, “Almost, nobody got below a ‘C’.”
There was more discussion about using manipulatives and what kind they use in
their classrooms and what kind we should use in the lesson. Mary Ellen thought
manipulatives helped students visualize the fraction and that helps them retain their
understanding. Marilyn reminded the group that it is also important to keep the auditory
learners in mind as we plan the lesson.
Melissa suggested using cooperative groups in the lesson, so they would be able
to work on the long term goal of respecting themselves, others and their learning. She
said, “What if we had, if they are having responsibility for the project and the learning,
what about cooperative groups? They could each have a job and they would be
responsible for that job during the lesson.” We discussed if multiplying a fraction times
another fraction would be conceptually appropriate, if this was an introduction to the
multiplication of fractions. We discussed if they should be responsible for simplifying
their answers to lowest terms.
The morning session ended Ms. McHugh announced that she would not be there
for the next session because she would be on a field trip with the other fourth grade
teacher, Ms. Seymour. Would she still teach the lesson of she was not there the next
week to plan it?
The Second Science Session
The teachers in the afternoon group were talkative when they arrived for their
sessions. On this day, Sarah shared a story about one of her students who made an
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interesting comment while he helped her sort classroom library books by genre. He told
her that he read mostly informational text. Sarah said she was amazed by this student’s
articulate comment because it did not match his other classroom abilities; she said he was
one of those students who “can barely write his name!”
Ms. Miller was then introduced to the group. I found out that Sylvia started
teaching the forces and motion unit already to her students and asked if that meant there
was interest in designing a lesson in a topic other than force and motion. Sharon
exclaimed, “Oh, Sylvia” in a tome to show disappointment that she went ahead with that
unit knowing that was what they were considering as a topic for the group. Sylvia
responded to Sharon’s comment by saying: “I would just prefer not to teach it with my
kids. Is that a possibility?” Sarah kidded Sylvia and said, “We need bad kids to test pilot
with anyway.” Concern about being the one to teach the lesson showed up again in a
different way with Sylvia’s actions. There was still interest in designing a lesson on
forces and motion though, so we kept that topic.
There was a problem with the data projector, so we first watched the Annenberg
video, Drag Races (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 2001) instead of
looking at the CoWeb page and finishing the long term goals. In this video fifth-grade
students explore the physics of motion using plastic cars with strings and washers
attached to provide a pulling force. This video was shown to give the teachers a good
example of inquiry teaching along with increasing their content knowledge. In between
segments where you see the teacher interact with students and students interact with each
other, a physicist from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, explains the
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science concepts taught in the lesson. After watching the lesson we talked about the video
and the features of inquiry teaching we observed in it.
I gave the teachers copies of the state science curriculum framework. We looked
at the objectives, vocabulary and the contexts suggested by this document. I explained
that our students would not be responsible for vocabulary words like acceleration and
velocity, but the force and motion book would help us understand the concepts better.
I distributed copies of selected lessons from the AIMS Education Foundation and
the copies of lessons Ms. Snyder downloaded from the Internet and sent through inter-
school mail since she was not able to attend this session. The discussion turned toward
the lack of materials the district provides for this topic. Sylvia said she started the unit
with Science Court: Inertia4. This program explores the effect of gravity on a moving
object; it allows a student to observe the relationship between mass and inertia and
observe the effects of inertia on an object inside a moving vehicle. The district has the
interactive software and some materials. She did this lesson as a demonstration but said
she would prefer to do it with students in small groups, if the resources to do that were
available. She didn’t feel the students who were not close to her during the
demonstration understood the concepts she was trying to teach.
Another teacher entered the conversation and commented about how frustrating it
was for her doing a hands-on activity with the whole group. In a previous experience, she
had children squirting each other with vinegar. She now prefers teacher-led small group
activities so she knows that the children are learning the concepts.
4 Information on this Tom Snyder’s Productions program can be found at
http://www.tomsnyder.com/products/product.asp?SKU=SCIINR
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A discussion about behavior management, including the choice of intrinsic and
extrinsic reward systems was initiated and teachers shared their ideas. Ms. Miller was
new to Greenfield that year, but the fourth grade teachers there used a system of cards.
She said she adopted this system for her fifth grade class: “I got it because the fourth
grade teachers were doing it and I thought ‘good grief, it is easier for me to change than
to change 31 kids’. So I said I’ll change and learn how to do this.” I reflected on her
statement and on how teachers are influenced by other teachers; they easily adopt the
culture within the school.
They started to discuss ideas for the lesson and the short term goals, but we
needed to get back to the long term goals. After moving the cords on the data projector,
it was ready and we went to the CoWeb page to finalize those long term goals.
The fourth grade teachers were interested in how the fifth grade teachers
responded to their comments on the CoWeb page. They must have expected critical
feedback because they asked if I could repeat the fifth grade teachers’ responses. Once
again, I think they were kidding, but they were interested in what comments were made.
Monica: Today the fifth grade group looked at [the CoWeb page].
Sylvia: Did they look at ours?
Sharon: Did they have lots to say about that? (Laughing)
Sarah: Can you repeat any of it?
Monica: They picked out, they said, this must have been Sharon saying this,
or Sylvia saying this, or Sarah saying this.
Sharon: You're kidding. Were they right?
Monica: Yes.
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Sharon: That's scary.
Sylvia: But I didn't really input into any of this because I was typing, so if
they said Sylvia said any of this, I didn't say any of it.
Sharon: Uh huh, yeah.
Sylvia got defensive and denied having anything to do with the comments, other
than being the one who typed them.
Sylvia: So they really characterized us and picked us apart?
Monica: They didn't pick you apart. They said, oh, this is Sarah. Sarah said
this
Sylvia: We didn't do that to [them]
Monica: No they did it in a nice way…
Sharon: They knew us that well?
Monica: Yeah. They knew you that well that they could…
Sharon: Well our staff works together and plays together so we know each
other…
Monica: That might be it. That could be it.
The teachers from Forest Hills did know each other well. The fourth grade
teachers, Sarah, Sharon and Sylvia, were in their second year of working together.
Although this was the first year teaching fifth grade for Marilyn, she and Melissa worked
in the same school for several years. This was Megan’s first full year of teaching. Mary
Ellen worked with all the Forest Hills teachers whose students were assigned to her
resource class.
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Short term goals. After the long term goals were decided, we moved back to the
discussion of short term goals for the lesson. We thought about what were the most
important ideas that we wanted the children to know as a result of this lesson and within
the unit. Taking ideas from the state framework and discussing them, they decided the
short term content goals for the unit will be: (a) mass directly affects motion; (b) friction
is a force that slows things down, and (c) a force is a push or a pull that can speed up,
slow down, stop or change the direction of an object. During this discussion, they
referred to the Annenberg video several times. They noticed that the children in the video
were not using the word friction, but they observed its effects on the cars.
We turned to the process goals by looking at the constructing and reflecting
objectives in the state framework. According to our state standards, students should:
Generate reasonable questions about the world based on observation; develop solutions to
unfamiliar problems through reasoning, observation and/or experiment; manipulate
simple mechanical devices and explain how they work; use simple measurement devices
to make metric measurements; develop strategies and skills for information gathering and
problem solving; construct graphs and charts and prepare summaries of observations; and
develop an awareness of the need for evidence in making decisions scientifically. We
discussed which of these standards they observed in the Annenberg video; they thought
all of them were present.
We needed an inquiry question to give students purpose in the lesson. Sylvia
noticed there were two inquiry questions in the video and they were written on the
blackboard. The teacher in the video asked these questions at the beginning of the lesson
and then at the end during the whole group discussion. They brainstormed possibilities
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for a lesson and even discussed teaching the same lesson as in the video. Sylvia thought
that she wanted to try a different lesson. She said, “For me, once I see a lesson I can
pretty much do it almost verbatim.” I asked her if she would like to teach the lesson we
observed on the video then and she responded. “No. I just feel that how is that going to
make me grow?” Two other teachers agreed and it was decided that we would design a
different lesson. I would look for more lessons and send them so they could review them
more carefully before the next lesson. Parent conferences were coming the following
week and the afternoon session ended with conversations about them.
Affordances of talking about long term goals. At first I was concerned about the
length of time it took to determine the long term goals. It was the end of the second
session and we still didn’t have a lesson to teach in either group. As I reflect on what
happened, I realize now we needed this time to think about and discuss the characteristics
of learners in the school. This helped to establish a common purpose for our work.
Although I thought this was time consuming, I found out that it was not in comparison to
the amount of time spent preparing for the lesson study cycle in Japan. Prior to the start
of their lesson study cycle, nearly a year is spent investigating students’ abilities and
skills and the interests of teachers (Yoshida, 1999a). In his research Yoshida discovered
the average length of the full Konaikenshu, the in-school teacher education process that
includes lesson study, is four years and my timeline was just six sessions.
Deciding on a long term goal first for the lesson may seem strange to many
American teachers. Lewis (2002a) argues that one of the reasons why lesson study
improves instruction in Japan is because it allows teachers to focus on long term goals.
She describes how the long term goals help Japanese teachers:
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Building lesson study around long-term goals may also enable Japanese teachers
to keep in mind the qualities such as love of learning and capacity to get along
with others that may underlie student learning but can be forgotten in the daily
grind of school. Lesson study’s long-term goals recognize that student learning is
greatly shaped by their motivation, sense of support from classmates, and other
habits of heart and mind. (Lewis, 2002, p.14)
In the United States, the pendulum swings from one reform movement to another.
Sometimes we focus on academic domains, and then the pendulum swings to the
affective domain with concerns about efficacy or self-esteem (Lewis, Schaps, & Watson,
1995). Working on long term goals along with short term goals can provide a balance in
instruction and allow us to consider simultaneously children’s intellectual, social and
ethical development during instruction. Lewis describes another benefit, which may
deserve consideration during this time of meeting requirements for the No Child Left
Behind Act of 2001. She argues: “Long-term goals that emphasize both social and
academic development may help guard against the ‘quick fixes’ that focus on test
performance at the expense of students’ motivation, commitment to schooling, and
experience of school as a supportive environment” (Lewis, 2002, pp. 14-15).
The Planning Sessions
Spring vacation and parent teacher conferences came between the second and the
third sessions. The third and fourth sessions were planning sessions to develop the lesson
they would teach. In the next session I combine these two sessions and describe what
happened.
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The Multiplication Lesson
I started the session by sharing the book, Making Sense of Fractions, Rations, and
Proportions (2002) which I purchased at the NCTM conference I attended between
sessions. Taber’s chapter deals with the multiplication of fractions and describes the
difficulties students have with this concept. These are similar to the difficulties teachers
in this study had in the previous session, which was finding a fractional part of a given
quantity and thinking they are division problems. Taber categorizes and illustrates four
types of multiplicative situations: combine equal groups, multiplicative compare,
multiplicative change, and partitioning. She designed an instructional unit for the
multiplication of fractions based on this framework.
Teachers discussed the fraction concepts they taught up to this point in the school
year and what concepts they still thought they needed to teach. Teachers said they still
had to teach multiplication of fractions, decimal concepts, percentages and ratios. The
teachers who were new to the grade or new to teaching complained that they did not
know what was expected of them and weren’t sure what they should teach. As I
mentioned previously, the curriculum was being revised and teachers did not use the
mathematics text. This was a problem as the elementary students advanced to the middle
school and Megan experienced this first hand. She was a substitute for several months
for a sixth grade math teacher who was on maternity leave. She heard the complaints
from those teachers and saw for herself the weaknesses in the students’ abilities and
shared these concerns.
Curious about what The Principles and Standards for School Mathematics (2000)
had to say about this, I asked them to look at page 148 in that book where the
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expectations for grades three through five are listed. Addition and subtraction of
commonly used fractions was listed, along with “develop and use strategies to estimate
computations involving fractions and decimals relevant to students’ experiences.”
Multiplication of fractions was not specifically named.
The teachers then talked about what they were doing, how they were teaching
fractions and how their students responded to the lessons. Megan gave examples of her
students’ ideas during a discussion of how to write one tenth, how to represent it, and
what it means. She wanted to see if her students could recognize one tenth as a fraction
and a decimal. The discussion continued for awhile and I commented its value but I
asked them to turn their attention to decide on the content of the lesson we needed to
prepare. Should we design a lesson on the multiplication of fractions? Megan said yes,
but Marilyn said she was still hesitant. She said:
We are putting a lot of work into this lesson and a lot of work into doing this and I
hate to do it for something that, when we do get a curriculum, we can never use
again because it is not our responsibility and we are not to teach it…maybe it is
not fifth grade.
After a long silence, Melissa responded, “Part of me says yes, part of me says no.” She
thought yes, because she already taught multiplication of fractions when she taught fifth
grade in previous years. She felt students should be exposed to this. I asked Mary Ellen
and Ms. Miller what they thought. Mary Ellen never taught multiplication of fractions,
but thought students should have mastered all the readiness skills they need before it is
introduced in fifth grade. Ms. Miller said she didn’t know because she never taught fifth
grade before. Since she was a paraprofessional at another school for many years, I asked
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her if this concept was taught at that school and she said that it was. Megan said she
would play devil’s advocate. She asked: “Are these children at the place where we can
do that? Whether or not we should and whether or not they are ready for that are two
totally different things.”
Ms. Miller talked about the difficulties her students experienced when she taught
the multiplication of decimals. She said, “I’m afraid their knowledge of fractions isn’t
solid enough for them to really grasp the understanding of what to do when, if I start
throwing multiplication at them.” Ms. Miller apparently did not see connections between
the multiplication of tenths as decimals and as fractions. Indeed, the algorithms are
completely different, but the concept is identical.
A discussion of what should be taught first, decimals or fractions, began. Megan
explained how she decided to teach them at the same time. Marilyn said she disagreed
with that philosophy and explained her own ideas of teaching fractions first, but added
that she didn’t think there was one right or wrong way. Ms. Miller agreed there was no
right or wrong way and said you needed to use the way that is comfortable for you and
that works for your kids.
These teachers believe that the words you use and the way you explain things is
important. Marilyn said that when your top students don’t get a new concept, then you
really messed up and you need to go back the next day and say, “Forget everything I said
yesterday. Don’t remember a word I said. Let’s start all over again.” Melissa said, “It’s
just wordage, how you present it…Usually the more basic you are, the easier it is for
them to comprehend what you are trying to say.”
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I tried to challenge their ideas about teaching. I took this idea about trying to be
very basic about what you teach and suggested that we design a lesson that would be
basic and would help the students develop the concept of multiplication of fractions. I
told them that I believe difficult concepts can be taught to children if they are given
meaningful experiences. I suggested:
I’m thinking that we could do the same thing with multiplication of fractions but
not even tell them the rule, that you multiply the top numbers and multiply the
bottom numbers because that is meaningless and they are going to forget it
tomorrow or over the summer… If we could give them experiences where they
develop the rules, and it would be building on what you already are doing with
fractions.
I referred to the table in Taber’s article and suggested we start the lesson by doing
problems with a whole number multiplier and a fraction, similar to the kinds of problems
suggested in the previous session.
Marilyn mentioned that she was helping her niece who attended school in another
district and she was doing problems that involved a fraction times a whole number. I
asked her why we were arguing about whether or not we should teach this. Many voices
were heard. Marilyn responded, “I would just like to know where…” Another voice
interrupted, “Where we’re going with it.” Several voices are heard. Marilyn continued,
“It’s not that I’m saying, no, I don’t want to do it. It’s because nobody has said, ‘This is
where we should be.” Melissa said it wasn’t going to hurt them and commented that her
own third grade child already mastered all the multiplication and division facts and
wondered how his teacher did this.
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I continued to refer to Taber’s article and read how she introduced her unit with
whole number multipliers in the context of problem solving. She invited students to
represent and solve the problems before asking them to do this symbolically. She wanted
her students to make arguments to support their suggestions. I compared this
argumentation in mathematics to the process of constructing and evaluating hypothesis in
the science talks (Gallas, 1995) which I lead in Megan’s room earlier that year and also in
a second grade teacher’s room. Gallas argues that “the kinds of talk and thinking that
children engage in when studying science naturally parallel what both practicing
scientists and historians of science report (p.13).” The scientific process of making
hypothesis and supporting with evidence is similar to the process of making conjectures
and supporting them as the students did in Lampert and Ball’s classrooms (1998). This
second grade teacher was a good friend of Marilyn and Marilyn made a comment about
how much the second grade teacher liked the science talks.
The teachers agreed that we would teach the multiplication of fractions. I
suggested we use Taber’s article as a framework for our lesson. Since the discussions
seemed to be more productive when we used the data projector to display ideas in the
science group and since Ms. Miller was the only one present from her school, I suggested
we work altogether and use the data projector. Megan volunteered to be the group
recorder.
Prerequisite skills and many other issues were discussed. Many fraction concepts
were discussed in depth and their importance to the lesson. Did students need to know
the terms numerator and denominator before teaching multiplication of fractions? Does
using the language demonstrate understanding? Did they need to understand improper
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fractions? Did they need to know how to simply fractions? What was the difference
between naming and identifying a fraction? Teachers anticipated what their students
might do or say. It was decided that we needed to find out what students knew before we
could plan the lesson, so a pre-test was designed (see Appendix E). Then they discussed
whether the post test should be the same as the pretest.
Teachers agreed and disagreed with each other. They questioned and they probed
each others ideas. They talked in detail about the problems they would ask, what fraction
to use, what whole number would be best. Teachers’ talk was developing into the
discourse of inquiry. Their thoughts became visible and when they did, they sometimes
had to question them. Marilyn and Melissa knew children younger than our fifth graders
who were learning more rigorous mathematical concepts than the children at Forest Hills
and Greenfield. When those ideas became visible, they had to question their own ideas
about letting the sixth grade teachers teach the multiplication of fractions.
After the pre-test was designed, I suggested they let their students discuss the
problems if they wanted to. Marilyn argued:
Once you start the discussion and they start discussing with each other, they start
learning…If we are going to teach the lesson…wouldn’t that be better a part of
the lesson rather than a separate thing, because I mean I can tell you right now
some of those that are going to get it right away are going to quickly explain. I
mean my class is getting really good at helping the ones that are not getting it as
quickly and they turn to them and [say] “This is what” you know. If I give my
class a chance to discuss, then I might get too much from them.
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Marilyn seemed to say that she wanted a fair test of the lesson we would design.
At the same time, her words seem to imply that she knew children can learn from each
other. This shows a social constructivist perspective of learning. But was she concerned
that her role of teacher, the dispenser or gatekeeper of knowledge, was also challenged if
the children started learning these things before she taught them? She seemed to want to
attribute student learning to something a teacher does during the process of instruction
rather than something students do. Was she looking for the right words and actions to
say as the teacher of the lesson that would impart the knowledge as were education
researchers in the 60’s and 70’s who thought teachers’ behaviors made a difference.
Some teachers feel that allowing students to learn from each other involves a loss of
control, as if the student should not be allowed to open the gate too soon. Did she
consider this lesson study a good way to design the perfect lesson? Does she believe that
a teacher can control the learning to facilitate the learning.
Megan and Melissa were not going to be able to attend the next meeting. Melissa
was going to be out of town and Megan had eye surgery scheduled for the day before our
scheduled meeting day. We still needed to plan a lesson. Should we start with the
multiplication of a fraction and a fraction or should we start with a whole number and a
fraction? We needed the results of the pre-test to inform the design of the lesson. With
only three sessions left, one of the sessions would be needed to teach the lesson and
another session for the feedback session and revision, it looked like there would be time
for us to observe only one lesson.
Marilyn and Mary Ellen were the only teachers present for the fourth session,
besides me, because the Greenfield teachers dropped out, Megan had eye surgery and
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Melissa had another engagement. We checked the pre-tests; results indicated that 86% of
their students could figure out one-half of 24, but 38% or fewer were able to answer the
other problems correctly.
This informed our decision for the lesson. Marilyn would start off with an easy
problem, one-half of 12. For the next problem, she would keep the numerator of one and
the whole number 12; they would then solve one-fourth of 12. The children’s chorus was
preparing for an evening concert, so that event set up the context for the problems.
Students would use journals which we would make for the lesson to show their work.
Two other problems were chosen for them to practice in the journal: one-sixth of 18 and
three-fourths of 12. Pretzels and cups were chosen for them as the manipulative to help
them solve the problems, if needed.
Then she would give the students a problem to solve that had a numerator greater
than one. The context for these problems was the number of teachers at the school who
attended a meeting. The problems we decided on were: two-thirds of 12 and three-
fourths of 12. Two similar problems were chosen for more practice and an evaluation
question for the end of the lesson. Marilyn wrote these problems on chart paper so she
would have the space on the board for children to use to share their work (see Appendix
F for the mathematics lesson plan).
The Science Lesson
All were present for the third session except Ms. Seymour who was on a field trip.
Between sessions I gave the teachers copies of lessons to consider for our research
lesson. I also copied the first two chapters of Force & Motion: Stop Faking It!
(Robertson, 2002) and sent them to the teachers. I prepared materials needed to try some
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of these activities to help the teachers in choosing a lesson that would best help us teach
our lesson goals. Sharon brought a large binder that she saved from her undergraduate
science methods class. She said she still used it as a source of science lessons.
After the sharing and the small talk, we reviewed the major understandings that
we decided were goals for the unit. Although we were not going to plan the whole unit,
we needed to see how the lesson fits within a larger unit of study for forces and motion.
For the unit, we wanted children to understand how forces can stop things, move things,
speed up, slow down or change directions of moving objects. We discussed each of the
lessons with these goals in mind.
One teacher said she looked at the lessons briefly before this session, but admitted
she did not remember much. This made me think about the Chinese proverb in the front
pages of every AIMS book: “I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and I
understand.” Just giving teachers lessons for their students, even good ones, does not
mean they will understand the content or the pedagogy or that they will implement them
as intended. Of course what teachers do with lessons they are given depends on the
teacher. Although Sharon did not have time to do much with them, Sarah said she chose
one of the lessons to give to her substitute that day because her substitute is very strong in
science and asked her for a hands-on science lessons to do with the children. It was
interesting to me that Sarah, like Sylvia who started the force and motion unit early so her
students would not be involved in the lesson, also had no intention of teaching the
research lesson with her class. This was very disappointing. Although the research lesson
would not be taught in their classrooms as part of this project, did they not anticipate that
the lesson would be something they would consider teaching themselves?
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We discussed the advantages and disadvantages of each of the lessons. Sharon
showed us two from her binder. One was called Power Pinwheels and another one was a
balloon rocket. She said they addressed Newton’s Third Law. I asked her what the
specific objectives were for those lessons. She responded, “The specific objective is to
be able to bend a straw at right angles (chuckling) which I think when I did this, I had no
clue what I was doing.” I thought about the binder of activities she saved from her
science methods class and I thought about the science methods class I taught during that
fall term. What would be my students’ level of understanding when they became
teachers of science?
We continued to consider some of the other lessons. We liked a lesson where
students roll balls down a ramp. I noticed that Sylvia was developing the ability to look
at a lesson from the perspective of the children. She recognized a disadvantage with this
activity and said, “It would need to be an awfully long ramp because I don’t think their
eyes could catch it fast enough with such a short ramp.” It was suggested that we use the
playground slide for a ramp. That opened up ideas about designing a lesson where they
would kick a ball to see how far it could go, but the problem they discussed about that
activity was how to measure how hard the ball is kicked. We continued to brainstorm
more ideas for a lesson or ways to make the lessons in hand more suitable. Ideas
bounced back and forth; new ideas were sparked by this rapid exchange of ideas. Sharon
thought if we did the ball on a roll activity, we could look at the effects of friction, but
she said she was curious about the brick slide activity. This was the first time the idea
about friction was mentioned.
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Brick Slide (Wiebe, 1997) is an AIMS activity in which students slide a brick
across different surfaces and measure the force as it is pulled. Students conclude that
there is more friction with rough surfaces. A short introduction connects the context of
the lesson with the problems Egyptians faced building the pyramids. In this lesson, it is
suggested that the force needed to pull the brick is measured with a home-made device
using a rubber-band and cardboard marked with a non-standard scale instead of grams or
newtons. I taught this lesson to fourth grade students previously and found the suggested
device to be a bit of a problem because the stretchiness of the rubber bands changes with
use. I suggested using spring scales, if we were to choose this activity. I showed the
teachers the spring scales and Sylvia recognized that there was something similar in the
fifth grade science kits at school.
The teachers seemed to like this lesson as a possible research lesson. They talked
about different surfaces they could try. Sarah said this was similar to the lesson she
prepared for her substitute. She used her daughter’s science fair board for a ramp, her
son’s matchbox cars, and foil, wax paper, and a towel. She said she didn’t know the
name for the reason why she used the different surfaces; she asked if it was “control”.
Although she was able to set up the experiment as suggested in the teachers’ pages of the
activity, she was uncertain about the term used to identify what she was doing. It is
interesting to note that all fourth and fifth grade students are assigned to do a science fair
project during which they are expected to “control variables”.
I also brought an activity with force cubes (Wilson, 2000) to show the teachers.
To make a force cube, paper strips are folded back and forth to make a spring. The force
cube is placed next to two or three wooden cubes that are glued together. When released,
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the paper spring exerts a force on the wooden cubes, moving the cubes. The distance the
cubes moved is recorded. When more cubes are glued together, the mass of the
combined blocks increases and the distance they move decreases, demonstrating
Newton’s Second Law. Although this law state force equals mass times acceleration, it
demonstrates that unbalanced forces acting on an object will cause that object to move.
This was also demonstrated in the video we watched last week. We played with these
force cubes for awhile, and talked about balanced and unbalanced forces, but decided that
some children would not fold the paper carefully enough to get good results since we
were experiencing difficulties ourselves.
During this investigation, Sarah mentioned the article from the Robertson book.
The teachers liked that book and found it informative. They read about Newton’s Laws
and Robertson’s easy-to-understand explanations. They asked if this book was available
for all the topics they needed to teach. Ms. Snyder remarked, “I’m just so fascinated by
this.” Sharon commented that she was having difficulty remembering these concepts
from her physics class in college. She said, “It just really bugs me that I don’t have these
in my head.”
We set up two groups to try the brick slide activity. One group would use the
cardboard scale as described by the activity and the other group would use the spring
scales. The teachers never used spring scales before. Sharon thought you needed to put a
measured weight on the hook. She may have been confusing it with the device the
children used in the video. The children placed a number of washers on a hook that was
attached to the car by a string. They measured the force needed to pull the car across the
length of the table by counting the number of washers. Sharon asked many questions
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about this spring scale. She was trying to understand how it would work and was getting
frustrated because what I was explaining didn’t make sense to her. We finally got the
experiment set up and when she saw how the spring scale was used she finally
understood. Ms. Snyder also was having difficulty understanding how to use the spring
scale, but was not asking questions. After seeing how the spring scale is used in the
activity, Ms. Snyder said, “Now I am understanding how you are measuring the force and
[to Sharon] do you see now why we don’t need the weight? Eureka!”
They tried the experiment with the cardboard device, but had difficulties with the
string and the brick seemed to be too heavy to move with the rubber band. It was decided
that the spring scale would be the better tool to use.
The teachers liked this lesson and thought it would be good for the research
lesson. The computer and data projector were used once again to record the thoughts and
ideas as the lesson was developed. They discussed the kind of brick to use, since the one
we were practicing with seemed too heavy. They discussed alternatives to the brick, but
decided if they wanted to keep it in context of the Egyptian pyramids, it would need to be
a brick. I asked them what question we should ask for this lesson. Sylvia asked, “What
are those questions called?” Sharon responded, “Anticipatory set”.
The teachers talked about videos, magazine articles and books about Egyptians
and pyramids. They talked about the Social Studies aspects of the lesson like issues of
slavery and how they didn’t care if the workers died while working on the pyramids. I
reminded them that we needed to keep in mind the science concepts that were our short
term goals and include long term goals in the lesson design. Sylvia looked for the long
term goal on the CoWeb page and included that in the lesson plan. The short term goals
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were added next. They could not decide on a question. Did they want to ask: “How did
they move the large bricks?” or “How did they make the bricks?” or “How do different
surfaces affect how the brick is moved?” They were concerned that the questions were
not worded in a clever way that would spark the children’s interest. They did not yet
notice that most of the questions they thought about did not relate well to the short term
goals: “A force is a push or a pull that can speed up, slow down, stop or change the
direction of an object. Friction is a force that slows things down.”
It was time to end the third session. The inquiry question was not decided until the
next session. The lesson is described in more detail in the next section.
The fourth session. During the fourth session, the two Greenfield teachers were
not there because their principal wanted them excused. The three teachers from Forest
Hills finished planning the lesson.
A smaller brick was brought to the session to see how it would work. The
teachers experimented some more with measuring the force with the spring scales. One
of the things they noticed was the way the number on the spring scale changed as the
brick was pulled. When the brick first started to move, the number recorded was higher.
In our trial, it started at four and then changed to one or two. Because of Newton’s first
law, it takes more force to get the brick to move. Objects tend to keep doing what they
are doing. Sarah thought this would be a problem with the children because they would
not know what number to record and if it were her class, all the children would get out of
their seats to ask her what they should write. I suggested we tell the children to record
the largest number they observe. We decided to have a place on the recording sheet
where they could describe any problems they might have during the lesson. Discussing
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why the numbers changed would be beyond the scope of the lesson, but the children
should describe it if they observe it. We were also concerned with the students reading
the numbers on the spring scale; the students would need to read decimals.
Between sessions, Sylvia designed a worksheet to use during the lesson. This
worksheet did not have a place to record the conclusion. Sylvia asked the group, “Have
you ever asked your kids to draw a conclusion?” I reminded them of the conclusions the
children make in their science fair projects. It was evident that the teachers did not
connect the science fair projects to the kind of science they could do in their classes
throughout the year. Sarah asked what the conclusion might be for this lesson. We
discussed the conclusion.
We also discussed how the data needed to be gathered from the groups and
recorded so the children would be able to draw a conclusion. Sylvia sketched a graph
that she thought would be good for displaying the data. Her graph displayed the data in
horizontal bar graphs. The newtons were placed on the x-axis. With that type of graph,
the students could visualize the surface with the least amount of frication with a longer
horizontal bar. At the same time, Sarah was drawing another example of a graph. Her
graph was a double bar graph. It would show each group’s results for the smooth and
rough surface. Sharon asked, “Are they making the graph as a group or a whole class
graph…We need to figure out how we are going to record the data” She said, “I’m so
lost, but that’s OK.” I did not realize at the time that Sharon was so uncomfortable with
the graph. We could have used more time planning this part of the lesson as you will see
when you read about the lesson implantation.
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Sylvia brought books about the Egyptians building pyramids. We decided to
introduce the lesson with a short story about this. Instead of reading any of the books, we
would make a short Power Point story that showed highlights. Sarah said she would write
the text and choose the pictures. I volunteered to make the Power Point slides.
A few more things needed to be done after this session to prepare the lesson.
Sylvia was to redesign the lesson worksheet so it included the new questions, recording
areas and conclusion. She would also check the spring scales that were in the science
storage closet. Perhaps they had a different scale.
At the end of the fourth planning session Sarah said, “I have so enjoyed being
here with these people. It has really been insightful. Thank you.” I also enjoyed this
opportunity to work with these teachers planning the lesson as we did over that last few
sessions. This kind of activity is what I felt was missing from my work as Learning
Specialist. We had the time to talk about the content and pedagogy and connect those
ideas to the standards. The teachers needed this time to. During the first lesson, the
teacher who said she knew how she was supposed to teach said about my own research
study, “You are going to learn a lot from me!” I looked forward to the lesson enactment.
Implementing the Lessons
The lessons were taught during the fifth session. Because the Greenfield teachers
dropped out, the two groups were combined; all the teachers were now able to observe
both lessons. One teacher from Greenfield, Ms. Snyder, came back to observe the
science lesson. The science lesson was taught first from about 9:30 a.m. until 10:30 a.m.
It was followed by a short break to set up the camera and give teachers time to write their
reflections. The mathematics lesson was taught from 11:00 a.m. until just after noon. All
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the teachers met at the board room at central office for lunch. The feedback sessions
were held that afternoon. In this section, I describe the science and mathematics lessons.
The Science Lesson
The long term goal for the science lesson was that students will have respect for
self, others and learning. The short term goals were from the Michigan Curriculum
Framework. Students will learn that: (a) a force is a push or a pull that can speed up,
slow down, stop or change the direction of an object; and (b) friction is a force that slows
things down. This lesson was intended to be an introduction to the unit. It was adapted
from an AIMS lesson, Brick Slide (Wiebe, 1997) (see Appendix G for the science
lesson). In the lesson, as adapted by these teachers, students would observe, measure,
and record the force as they pull a brick across smooth and rough surfaces. Four 12’ x 6’
strips of sandpaper were glued along the lengths of 4’ x 1’ particle boards to create the
rough surface. String was tied around small patio pavers. The pavers were pulled with
the spring scales along the length of the boards on the rough and smooth sides. While
they pulled the bricks students would use spring scales to measure the force in newtons.
Students will observe that it takes less force to move the brick across a smooth surface
than a rough surface and explain that there is less friction for a smooth surface and more
friction for the rough surface.
During the lesson, students sat in groups of five and six. Teachers were assigned
to observe a group and sat in a chair nearby. The remaining teachers stood in the back of
the room, but moved to the groups while the students worked.
To begin the lesson, Sharon asked the students what they remembered from their
conversation the day before. The children called out words; force, newtons, Laws of
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Newton, apples, gravity, the ‘I’ word we don’t have to remember – inertia. She responded
with good for these words, but said that they were not hitting on what she was expecting.
Then someone said push and pull. That was what she was looking for she said, but then
asked for one more. Someone called out turning. She told the children they were doing a
good job.
She then showed them a short Power Point story that introduced the challenges
ancient Egyptians had building the pyramids (see Appendix H). In the story, limestone
was mentioned as the kind of rock the Egyptians used to build the pyramids. She
connected this kind of rock to a previous lesson by asking them if they remembered
limestone from their rocks and minerals unit. Some of the students responded that they
did. The last slide of the Power Point introduced the questions for the investigation. The
investigation questions were: (a) Over what kind of surface is it easiest to pull a heavy
brick? (b) How much force is needed to pull the brick? After she read the first
investigation question, some children called out water and another said ice. Without
acknowledging their response, she went on to the second question. She then asked them
to number themselves in their groups from one to five and fold their arms on their desk
when finished.
When they were ready she called the students up by number to get the materials
which were distributed quickly. She asked the students to raise their hand to describe the
board. When a student responded that one side had sandpaper and the other side was
smooth, she asked why they thought it was like that. One of the students suggested it was
so something could stay on better. Another student said it would have something to do
with force. She said that was a good answer. She asked Robbie why one side had sand
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paper and he responded that his worksheet (see Appendix I) referred to measuring both
surfaces. Robbie was a third grade student who came to Sharon’s science classes because
he needed more challenging work. Sharon said it was good that he knew how to use his
resources to answer questions. A fourth student said he thought they were going to find
out which one was faster and she said, “Oh!”
She spent a little time more asking students what was different about the spring
scales, compared to the ones they saw the other day. One student mentioned the color
was different. Another student said it was harder to pull. She asked them to notice
something about the numbers. By this time, many students were calling out answers.
She acknowledged Nick who raised his hand and told the students she would wait to hear
from him until she had a better audience. When it was quiet, Nick said that it didn’t have
“halves”. Sharon responded that was true, but it “also didn’t have those other little tiny
partial numbers that we call something very special; what are they?” She called on David
who responded, tenths. That was the correct answer she wanted and explained that they
would be measuring their bricks with whole numbers, not tenths.
The spring scales we originally planned to use for the lesson were scaled in tenths
of a newton. We were concerned that students would have a difficult time measuring
with decimals and if they rounded to the nearest whole number, there would be too big a
margin for error; we might not get the kind of differences in measurements we needed.
The teachers found these other spring scales in the closet where science materials are kept
and a last minute switch was made. Sharon wanted the students to recognize the
difference in the scale before they started to measure.
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She explained how they were to pull the brick and use the spring scale to measure
the force. She asked them to first predict how many newtons it would take to move the
brick across the smooth and the rough surfaces and to record their predictions on their
worksheets. She went around the room assisting groups and reminding them that their
predictions did not have to be the same as other members of their group. Robbie had his
hand over his predictions. Sharon told him that it was all right to compare predictions at
the group. She gave the students about four minutes for this part of the lesson before she
called their attention to the whole group. She told them they were going to do their
investigation, but first wanted to know why they were asked to do it three times. She
referred to how they needed to repeat investigations three times for their science fair
projects and for other investigations they did in their classroom. A student responded
that they needed to repeat the investigation three times to be sure they get the right
answer. She responded that scientists repeat experiments at least three times to be sure
they have it right, because anything could go wrong.
She then asked the students if they remembered what she told them about fact and
theory. Trent explained how the people thought it was a fact that the Earth was flat and
that Christopher Columbus discovered the world was round and then that became the
fact. Sharon said, “That’s right. Awesome.” David said a “Theory means it’s not a fact,
they think it’s a fact, but it’s not a fact.” Sharon continued that after several trials, they
proved it to be a fact, and until somebody proves them wrong, they call it a fact and
compared this to the case of Christopher Columbus. Going back to the lesson, she told
the students how they were going to hook the spring scale to the string that was tied
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around the brick and reminded them that they needed to observe the spring scales
carefully. She asked them to take turns with the different jobs.
It was now time for the lesson exploration to begin, although by this time, some
students already measured and recorded the force. She visited the groups as they worked.
One of the groups noticed they were getting three different numbers. She asked them
why that was happening. They said that they thought some of them were pulling harder
than others. She responded to their statement by repeating it and then moved to another
group. At the next group, she asked them what they thought of the investigation and if
they liked it.
After five minutes of working on this investigation, she called the groups’
attention back to the center of the room. She said, “Some of you are still finishing up
your numbers, but the majority of you can listen.” She asked the question that was on the
worksheet, “What surface needed the greatest amount of force?” A student responded
that it was the sandpaper, because it needed the greatest amount of force. Sharon said
that was the right answer and she liked how he gave a reason too. She asked all the
students to write this answer on their worksheets.
While they were answering this question on their worksheets, she walked around
the room and announced that many of the students did not write the word Newton as a
unit in their answer and that she was very picky about that. Then she said, “We’ll go on
to the next question together. Let’s talk about it before you write the answer.” Children
worked quietly for about two more minutes writing their answers. Then she asked the
second question from the worksheets, “If you were to pick another surface to test that
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needed very little force what would it be? Why?” She asked them to write their answers
on their worksheet first and then they would discuss them.
After one minute, she asked students to share what they wrote. The first student
said “the desktop because it was smoother than wood”. Sharon talked about the special
surface on the desk that made it smoother then the wooden board they used. The second
student said, “Ice, because you can slide on it.” The next student said, “A slanted smooth
piece of wood going down, because you wouldn’t have to push on it.” Sharon found that
response “insightful”, but said that would be another lesson they would try later that
week. Another student said the marble floor. At first she said she never saw a marble
floor. She asked if the student meant a floor with the round marbles spread across it, but
the student explained that it was the other kind of marble, the rock. She laughed when
she realized what kind of marble floor the student referred to. The next student said,
“Pass it by hand.” Sharon said, but “What if the brick was too heavy for one person to
lift?” She went back to the Power Point story that showed the rocks that were dragged by
several men. She told this student that she was glad she wanted to share her ideas, but
she wanted her to think some more about this. Another student said the floor would be a
surface that would be easier to pull the brick across. Sharon replied that it would be
easier because it was waxed.
She asked the students to answer the next question, “What problem did you
encounter during this investigation?” She asked the class to write this answer down on
their worksheet. Although her intent was to respond individually to this question as they
did in the last question, the students began to discuss this in their small groups. She
walked over to group three’s table and asked them what problems they had, but the
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students did not know what problem she was referring to. One student replied that his
group had a problem working together. Another student said there was a problem with
the spring scale. Sharon reminded them how difficult it was for them to measure the
force.
As an explanation to the reader, the amount of force needed to move the brick
changes after it starts to move. According to Newton’s first law, or the law of inertia,
things tend to keep on doing whatever they are doing. An object that is at rest remains at
rest until a force moves it; a moving object continues moving until a force stops it. The
children were reading different numbers on the spring scale as a result and they suspected
something was wrong with either the way they pulled the brick or with the spring scale.
More force was needed to get the brick to move because they had to overcome the brick’s
inertia and the force of friction. Once the brick started to move it had only to overcome
the friction force.
A student from group three responded to Sharon’s question by saying that they
weren’t pulling smoothly enough. She said that they should write that down. The
response from the next group was that they didn’t always pull it the same way. Sharon
did not respond in words, but she smiled. The next group’s idea was that the people kept
stopping as they were pulling.
The small groups discussed the answers to this question for about five minutes
before their attention was redirected to the whole group. She said that she found all the
groups were having the same problem – they were all trying to figure out why the number
didn’t stay the same as they pulled the brick across the surfaces. She wanted to share
group five’s explanation. Jenny thought somebody was holding it when she was trying to
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pull it. Sharon told her that nobody was holding it and asked the whole class if they
could help her explain why it felt like somebody was holding it.
The first person to respond said it was the sandpaper slowing it down, but he
couldn’t explain it. The next student said it wasn’t the sandpaper and that it was similar
to what happens when your foot is on the pedal going about one mile an hour. Sharon
rephrased it and asked him if he meant that sometimes you push harder on the pedal so in
this case you are pulling differently? Steve nodded. Another student demonstrated with
the brick how he pulled it, but it kept stopping. Sharon asked if he could explain; he
thought it was the weight of the brick slowing it down. Brianne thought it was because
some people’s muscles could not keep pulling it the same. David raised his hand and
asked to be called on. He said:
Maybe it’s like when you ride on something, the rubber, like if you ride on the
sidewalk then go on the road, it can be smoother. If you ride on something
rougher, it kind of slows you down. It takes more force just to go the same speed.
Some of the students agreed with David and expressed agreement. Sharon said,
“Wow, David, why do you think that is?” He said, “It was something, like rougher, like
water, something is stopping it.” David was having trouble explaining, although he was
able to relate the phenomena to his experience riding a bike.
Sharon asked what kind of word could be used to call that stopping motion. She
gave a hint. She said that they have been talking about pushes and pulls and forces.
Bobbie hollered out gravity, but Sharon was still talking with David. She asked David if
something was pulling back when he pulled on the brick, but David said he didn’t know.
She asked the class what they thought of Bobbie’s idea about gravity. No one was sure
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about that. She reminded the students again that they were talking about forces. Then
David wanted to add his new ideas. Once again, he compared the phenomena to what it is
like when you ride a bike in the wind. The wind is a force that pushes you and that force
is stronger.
Sharon asked all the students what was stronger. Now James said it was gravity.
Trent thought it was the weight of the brick. David asked if it is the same force like when
you pull the tablecloth and all the dishes stay there. Sharon said no, that was inertia; that
was what they were talking about the day before. She was waiting for someone to say
friction.
She decided to go to the Power Point slide and direct their attention to the focus
question, “How much force is needed to pull the brick?” She said to the students that
“Some of you are so close to understanding what was going on here and you’re giving
really good examples, so I know you know what’s going on…Why does it keep
stopping?” James said, “The sandpaper is slowing it down and the wood is not slowing
it down.” Robbie said it had something to do with the way the brick might be lifted up
off the board as people pull on it.
Sharon directed the students to look at their recorded measurements. She then
asked the first question again - What kind of surface is easiest to pull a heavy brick? The
students responded that it was the board with the smooth surface. Then she called on the
groups to call out their measurements. For the smooth surface, their measurements
ranged from 7 to 10 newtons and for the rough surface, their measurements ranged from
18 to 23 newtons. This answered the second question, “How much force is needed to
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pull the brick? Sharon still did not get the word friction, but she concluded the lesson
with the students returning the materials.
The Mathematics Lesson
There were two long term goals for this lesson: (a) students will have respect for
self, others and learning and (b) students will take personal responsibility for their
behavior. The short term goal was for students to find a fraction of a whole number.
The problems planned for the lesson were printed on chart paper before the lesson began
(see Appendix F for the lesson plan including the problems the students would solve).
Thin pretzel sticks and portion cups were chosen as manipulatives to represent the groups
of students in the problems. A journal was designed for students to show their work and
record their explanations. This journal consisted of three sheets of paper folded in half,
inserted into a fourth sheet of paper, which was the cover. All the pages were stapled
together inside the fold. During the lesson implementation, students sat in groups of four.
Four of the observing teachers sat in desks next to a group of students and two of the
teachers sat in chairs in the back of the room.
At the beginning of the lesson Marilyn explained to the students that they would
work in groups. She reminded them that they should only make positive comments to
each other when discussing their work with their teammates. By doing this, children were
made aware of the long term goal of the lesson. Then the students were told that the
topic of the lesson was fractions and they would be doing something new. Marilyn
introduced the journal to the class and explained how they would read a problem from the
chart and work it out by themselves first. They could use the journal pages to figure out
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the answer and then they should talk about the problem with their partner. Later there
would be a whole group discussion about the problem.
The first problem was: “Twelve students from Ms. Marilyn’s class are in chorus.
Only one-half of the students in chorus will attend the spring concert. How many of Ms.
Marilyn’s students will attend the spring concert?” After a short time working alone,
students began to collaborate. After a few more minutes, students were asked to come to
the board to share their answers and explain. Craig was the first student called to come to
the board. He wrote twelve divided by six as shown in Figure 1, and said, “I thought half
of twelve was six.”
Figure 1 . Craig’s response to 1/2 of 12
Marilyn responded, “So you thought one-half of twelve was six? OK. So how
many students are actually going to go to the concert then?” Craig responded, “Six.”
She did not comment on Craig’s answer, his strategy for finding his answer, or ask for
comments or questions from the class. She asked if any student did it another way.
Mark raised his hand and went up to the board next. As shown in Figure 2, he
wrote twelve-twelfths minus one-half equals six-twelfths. When asked to explain his
work, in a very quiet voice that was difficult to hear, he said, “I know that twelve-
twelfths is one and that if you take half of that, it’s six-twelfths.” Marilyn responded,
“OK, good, excellent, excellent.”
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Figure 2 . Mark’s response to 1/2 of 12
Without asking Mark what the answer to the problem was, that is, was it six or six-
twelfths, she proceeded to ask if someone else solved the problem another way.
The next student to describe a strategy was Rick. Rick was one of her brightest
students and she admitted during the planning sessions that sometimes Rick taught her
things about fractions. Rick wrote six times two equals twelve. (see Figure 3).
Figure 3 . Rick’s response to 1/2 of 12
When asked to explain, he said, “I multiplied six two times and got twelve.” Marilyn
asked him how many students were going to the concert and he replied, “Six.” To this,
Marilyn replied, “OK”.
Nancy’s raised hand caught Marilyn’s eye next; Nancy came up to the board and
wrote six plus six equals twelve. She explained her answer but her comments were not
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audible. Marilyn did not comment on her response. She summarized the first problem
by saying: “So half was an easy one. We all pretty much figured out what half of twelve
was.” She did not say that half of twelve was six.
She then told the students the next problem was going to be a little more difficult
and it wasn’t going to be as easy. They were not to write anything in their journal yet, but
were to talk to their partners about what they might do to solve it. The second problem
was: Twelve students from Ms. Marilyn’s class are in chorus. Only one-fourth of the
students in chorus will attend the spring concert. How many of Ms. Marilyn’s students
will attend the spring concert?
After two minutes of small group discussions, she called on James to explain how
he would figure it out. He said, “You would have two and you would go up by four; you
go two, four, six, eight.” Marilyn asked him why he would go up by two. He paused for
awhile as he thought of a response. Marilyn repeated the question, “Why would you go
up by two?” But she may not have been aware that in her response to him, she changed
his response of “go up by four” to “go up by two.” Although he said he would go up by
four, he counted by two’s starting with four. He did say anything about either error and
finally said he could not remember. Marilyn went on to another student who said the
answer was six because she “added two onto the two and then added two more.” Marilyn
responded with an OK and called on still another child who thought the answer was six.
She then asked all the students if someone could perhaps make a drawing to help them
figure this problem out. Angel raised her hand and came to the board. She drew three
circles and divided each circle into four parts (see Figure 4).
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Figure 4 . Angel’s response to 1/4 of 12
Angel shaded in one of the parts in the first circle, but could not explain how that would
answer the question. Marilyn did not ask why she chose to draw three circles or any
further probing questions. Since one-fourth of twelve is three asking some probing
questions might have revealed some further understanding. She said to Angel, “That was
a good start. We have some pictures up there.”
Then she called on Rick again. He came up to the board and wrote one-fourth
equals two-eighths equals three-twelfths (see Figure 5).
Figure 5 . Rick’s response to 1/4 of 12
Marilyn asked him how many students would go to the concert. He put a box around the
three-twelfths and then circled the three. He explained: “I could go up by one, you could
go up by the numerator and up by the denominator.” Pointing to the denominator of four,
he explained, “four plus four is eight; eight plus four is twelve.” Pointing to the
numerator he said, “One plus one is two; two plus one is three.” Marilyn asked the other
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students what the process was called by which he wrote these fractions; she was looking
for them to tell her that they were finding equivalent fractions.
I recognized what the students were doing here. A few weeks before this lesson, I
did a lesson with her students where we used fraction circles to find equivalent names for
one-half, one-third and one-fourth. By writing an ordered list of these equivalent
fractions, starting with a unit fraction, patterns of increasing multiples for both the
numerator and denominator are discovered. During the planning sessions, Marilyn
described an aha moment when she asked her students to find equivalent fractions for a
fraction whose numerator was greater than one. Rick told her it was easy; just list the
multiples of the numerator. Perhaps Marilyn did not see the sequence of numerators
increasing by one as a pattern of multiples of one. During the planning session she told
us how she went home that evening after he said that and tried this with several examples
before she was convinced that this would work for all fractions. Proud of her new
understanding, she must have practiced this with her students and was pleased that Rick
found this pattern useful in solving the problem. But as you will see, this process caused
problems for many students who thought the resulting answer was a fraction, not a whole
number.
Eileen was next to come up to the board to show her work for finding one-fourth
of twelve. She went to the board and started to draw circles with twelve lines in each
circle. Eileen received mathematics instruction from the resource teacher and was not
usually present for Marilyn’s mathematics lessons. She used rubber rings and little
blocks to help her solve multiplication problems when she was in Mary Ellen’s resource
room. Eileen transferred this strategy to the problem and said “six times twelve” would
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solve it. Marilyn did not give Eileen time to multiply six by twelve. She told her she was
on the right track and Eileen went back to her seat.
Marilyn recognized that the students were experiencing some difficulty so she
decided it was time to pass out the pretzels and cups to help students solve this problem.
She asked the students if they could show with the materials a way to come up with the
answer. She asked, “How could I use these [pretzels and cups] to figure out the answer
[to one-fourth of twelve]?” She went around the room assisting groups and asking them
how many cups they should use.
After almost five minutes of working time, Claude’s group was first to share their
ideas. Claude said, “First you use all four cups because it is one divided by four. Then
you put three pretzels, and the pretzels represent people, and you put three pretzels in
each cup.” Marilyn repeated Claude’s explanation to the class, making a point to remind
students they needed twelve pretzels since the pretzels represented the people and four
cups since they were looking for one-fourth of the twelve.
After this repeated explanation, she asked what the answer was and Mark
responded with three-fourths. Marilyn, with a questioning voice, asked, “Three-fourths
will go?” She then called on Anthony who said eight would go. Without acknowledging
the incorrectness of either answer, she asked everybody to take four of their cups and
twelve of their pretzels and put the pretzels equally into the cups. Then she asked how
many were in one cup. Students could see that there were three pretzels in one cup. She
asked them how much was one-fourth of twelve. Some responded with three.
Two similar problems were prepared for students to practice: one-sixth of
eighteen and one-third of twenty-four. She asked students to work together and use the
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pretzels and cups to solve the next problem, one-sixth of eighteen, and record their work
in their journals. She reminded students if they were finished that they were to work
together and help each other because that was part of cooperating with each other.
She gave the children about five minutes to work on this before calling them
together again. She acknowledged that she did not give some of the students enough
time to find an answer, but told them they could listen to the children that did finish.
Anthony was first to respond. He said he took six from eighteen and got twelve; twelve
is one-sixth of eighteen. Marilyn said he was close to the right thinking, but not exactly.
Ronnie said:
You have one-sixth and the six stands for the cups. You go around and put one
pretzel in each cup until you get to the right number. That added up to three, so
you go three in six cups, and three times six is eighteen.
Marilyn summarized Ronnie’s response and repeated that the number of cups
needed is the number of groups you have and that is determined by the denominator. The
number of pretzels is the number of students in the whole group. She asked the class
what the answer was and they responded with three-eighteenths. Marilyn corrected this
and said it was three, but did not explain why it was not three-eighteenths. She asked all
the students to model the problem with six cups and eighteen pretzels and asked again
how many are in each cup. Claude responded with three.
The students were asked to do one-third of twenty-four next. As she walked
around the room, she asked a girl what she got for an answer. This student responded
with “eight and you write that over the denominator, which was twenty-four.” This child
may have thought the answer was eight twenty-fourths, but Marilyn moved on to the next
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student without commenting on that answer. After a few more minutes, she announced to
the class that she saw three different ways to get the same answer. This time, she was
going to choose students to come to the board. Before this, children were chosen if they
raised their hand. The students she chose were students she identified while she walked
around the room as having the correct answer.
Claudia was first to come to the board. She drew three circles and started to make
marks in the circle to represent the pretzels or people. She miscounted and started to
erase. She was ready to go back to her seat, but Marilyn knew she had the right answer
on her paper, so she encouraged her to keep trying. She started over and then said nine.
Marilyn asked her to count again and when she did, she responded with the correct
answer eight.
Bobbie was next to come to the board. He also had the correct answer for
Marilyn when she visited him during the small group working time. But when he got to
the board, he said “three times one equals three” and wrote 3/1, as shown in Figure 6.
Figure 6 . Bobbie’s response to 1/3 of 24
As he wrote in fractional notation he said: “Three times two equals six, three times three
equals nine, three time four equals twelve…” He continued up to three time eight equals
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twenty-four. Marilyn asked him, “How did you know to use three?” He responded: “I
divided by three because the denominator was three.” Marilyn replied “Good job”, and
the students clapped.
Tori was next to come to the board; she solved the problem by using the list of
equivalent fractions starting with one-third and going up to eight-twenty-fourths, as
shown in Figure 7. Marilyn did not ask Tori what the answer was, but explained for her
that you could use the equivalent fraction strategy to solve the problem, but you would
say the answer was eight.
Figure 7 . Tori’s response to 1/3 of 24
She summarized the problem of finding one-third of twenty-four by reviewing
how the problem could be solved with a list of equivalent fractions or with the
manipulatives.
It was forty-five minutes into the lesson. There were more problems planned for
the lesson; next, students were to work with fractions that had numerators greater than
one. She introduced this next set of problems by asking the students if all fractions have
a numerator of one. She told them that they did not and they would use that kind of
fraction to solve the next problem. The next problem written on the chart was: “There
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are twelve teachers at Forest Hills. Two-thirds of the teachers will be at a meeting
Wednesday morning. How many teachers are going to be at the meeting?”
After less than five minutes of working together, she visited Rick’s group and saw
that he had the answer. Time for the lesson was running out, so she had Rick come to the
board to show how he did that problem. She asked him to draw the pictures and explain
it the same way he explained it to her a short while ago (see Figure 8).
Figure 8 . Rick’s response to 2/3 of 12
Rick said:
I took out three cups because that was the denominator and I took out twelve
pretzels because that’s how many teachers are at Forest Hills. I put twelve
pretzels in all three cups and since two is the numerator, I took out two of them
and put one aside.
While he said this he erased one of cups and counted the lines representing the people.
He then said. “There were eight pretzels in the cup, so eight teachers are at the meeting.”
Marilyn explained that it was possible to use the manipulatives to solve a problem
when the fraction has a numerator greater than one. Rick showed this on the board. She
asked them if it was possible to use the equivalent fraction method too. The children’s
responses were mixed. Some said yes, some said no. Donald came up to the board to
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demonstrate how he could solve the problem by making a list of equivalent fractions. He
explained how he started with two-thirds and added two to the numerator to get four and
added three to the denominator and got six. He continued until he got to twelve in the
denominator and eight in the numerator. He said then he got the answer, but Marilyn did
not ask him what the answer was. Was it eight people? Did he know it was eight-
twelfths of a group or did he think it was eight-twelfths of a teacher?
Up to this point, the lesson was fifty-four minutes long, but there were three more
similar problems on the chart, plus a final problem which would have been a final
assessment of the lesson. The band teacher came for his students. She told him that she
needed five more minutes with the students. She asked the class to work on the next
three problems. As time was running out, she told the students they could finish the last
problem when they came back from band.
The teachers left the room and went to Central Office to have lunch together. The
students were getting ready to go to lunch too.
The Feedback Sessions
The Science Feedback Session
I looked at conversations during the feedback sessions to see what comments
were made about the lessons and about the nature of those comments to see how these
teachers participated in the discourse. The feedback sessions were back-to-back the
afternoon after the lessons were taught. It would have been better to observe one lesson
and then have a feedback session, but the circumstances of the group of teachers
dropping out and the problem of scheduling substitutes required that both lessons and
feedback sessions take place on the same day.
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Before the first feedback session started, two of the less experienced teachers
made the observation that for them it was easier to make comments on the lesson they
planned. The teacher with the most experience noticed that she did not have trouble for
either lesson. The ability to analyze and give feedback for a lesson may be influenced by
one’s experience with the content or pedagogy of the lesson.
The science lesson was taught first so the feedback session for that lesson took
place first. The short term goals of the science lesson were for students to understand: (a)
a force is a push or a pull that can speed up, slow down, stop or change the direction of an
object and (b) friction is a force that slows things down. The long term goal was:
Students will have respect for self, others, and learning. The science lesson involved
students pulling a paver brick, the kind used in backyard patios, across a smooth board
that had sandpaper glued to one side to create a rough surface. As they pulled the brick
across the smooth and rough surfaces, the students measured the force in newtons using a
spring scale. These measurements would show that more force is needed to move the
same mass across the rough surface because of friction.
These teachers used a classroom observation protocol (see Appendix J) and a
feedback protocol (see Appendix K) adapted from protocols recommended by the Lesson
Study Research Group at Columbia University (Chokshi et al., 2001). In the Japanese
Lesson Study model, the teacher who teaches the lesson starts the feedback session with
her thoughts about the lesson. Sharon started with a description of some of the ideas that
went into the design of the lesson, and then she made comments about the lesson
implementation. She spoke of her concern that her students were not using the scientific
vocabulary during this lesson. The second question on the worksheet designed for the
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lesson was: “If you were to pick another surface to test that needed very little force, what
would it be? Why?” She said, “I was trying to get them to talk about why and nobody
was really putting it into words...I think they had an understanding but they weren’t
giving me the language I was looking for.” Sharon was referring to the fact that during
the discussion part of her lesson, none of her children used the word friction.
The feedback Sharon received from the teachers was positive. Marilyn was the
first teacher to offer feedback and she responded to Sharon’s comment about the
scientific vocabulary. She said she was impressed that the students were able to make
connections to phenomena outside the classroom. She was referring to David who said
during the lesson that it, the phenomena they observed with the brick, was like riding a
bicycle on rough pavement and smooth; you needed to pedal harder on the rough
pavement to go the same speed. Her comments were:
They might not have been using the exact verbs and nouns that we wanted but
they were explaining what they were talking about. They were, and the fact that
they were then taking something from class and changing it into something from
real life with bikes; I sat there going "Wow! They just applied that to everyday
life!" You know two of your kids did that and I just, even though they weren't
getting the exact terms that you might have been hoping for, I think they really
got the concept, so I thought that was really neat.
Ms. Snyder agreed that the children seem to understand the concept, although
they were not using the words. She added:
David said, “I don't know how to explain why there's more force needed for a
sandpaper surface.” The fact that he observed that about himself, that he made
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that statement, showed that he understood what was going on... I kept waiting for
the word friction, but I never heard it, but that's what they were talking about.
They knew they were talking about it. They just never used the word.
Other teachers made several positive comments about student behavior as it
related to the long term goal for the lesson. Ms. Snyder commented about the students’
respect for themselves, others and their learning. She said: “They wanted to work
cooperatively, they really did…I mean, you can tell you must do a lot of cooperative
learning, which they were really, really good.” Marilyn added:
One of the neat things that I saw, I mean this is how much they were working as a
group and as a unit, is in this one group I was watching. One boy who was very,
very shy child and doesn't like to say his answers out loud, so he whispered it to
the kid next to him and the kid next to him said it out loud. And I was just like,
you know they were taking on the different roles that are required when you are
working as a group and who needs to do what and how that's working so I thought
that was really neat.
Still another teacher was complimentary. She said, “I thought it was a
wonderfully productive level of noise in there. I know everyone has their own, um, thing
of acceptance level, but I thought that it was so on task and so, so everybody involved in
the project.” She continued:
The level of cooperation that I witnessed at the tables I chanced upon was
remarkable. I saw children who I've observed in the hallway and I would think
that have very small levels of patience, involvement, cooperation; I saw children
just avidly watching the other person operating the spring scale and then listening
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to what the child read out as the reading and then recording it; just incredibly on
task and incredibly interested and patient about being able to actually manipulate
and touch the materials themselves.
The feedback session continued with positive comments about the cooperative
nature of her children. After hearing these things about her children, Sharon commented:
One thing I find really cool about this is hearing the things the kids said. You
guys are telling me stuff I would have never, I never would have observed
myself…and some of the insights that you guys saw I didn't get to see, um, some
of the fun stuff that they discovered… Oh, I have the best kids in the world!
My critical feedback. There were many positive things about this lesson and the
way the children responded. Sharon admitted that this lesson was not like her usual
science lessons and was surprised how her students who usually do not respond in lessons
were actively involved and led the discussions. But no one was giving constructive
feedback about the lesson, about the teaching of the lesson, although by some standards
for evaluating inquiry based lessons such as the ones offered in the SAMPI5 program
from Western Michigan University, (Jenness & Barley, 1995), there was room for
improvement, so it was time to offer mine. I wondered why she seemed to change the
way the questions were asked from what was planned; the discussion was different from
what I thought was discussed during the planning sessions and different from the way the
teacher in the Annenberg video handled her whole group discussion after her
investigation. I also wondered why she did not make a table, chart, or graph to visually
represent these data.
5 Science and Mathematics Program Improvement, http://www.wmich.edu/sampi/
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The students only had about five minutes to gather the data for the investigation
before they were called together for a whole group discussion. The whole group
discussion was handled in a very traditional manner. She asked the students the first
question on the worksheet, received a correct response, and then told all the students to
write that answer on their worksheets. For the second and third questions, she asked them
to answer them independently first and then they would discuss their answers together.
Although it is not unusual for implementation of a lesson to be different from the
way it is written, my comment to her was:
I wonder about the questions that were at the bottom of the worksheet and why
you would have waited for the whole group to talk about and respond to the
answers instead of letting the kids figure out those answers themselves and then
talk about what they think happened.
She responded to my comment. She said she did lead the discussion in the way it was
planned, but not at first. She said:
I did do that both ways. And the reason I did it both ways was because the first
[question] one, I didn't wait for them to figure it out on their own and we
discussed it as they were filling it out. And then I thought, wait a minute, that's
not what I had intended so when I went to the second question, I said, OK just
write it on your own and then we'll talk about what you decided. So I switched
gears right after I did the first one because I'm thinking, that's not what I meant to
do. And in my head, had anybody asked me, “How are you going to do it?” I
would have never said the first way I did it.
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It is difficult to teach in front of your colleagues; especially the first time and this
would make it easy to forget the plan. She commented that, “I think I just got caught up
in what I was doing and trying to remember everything.” It is interesting to see the
thinking that was involved in the teaching of the lesson. But perhaps this is what Sharon
meant when she said. “I was able to add enough of my personality and my style into the
lesson that made it mine.” The traditional method of students answering questions
independently to be later checked by the teacher or for students to wait for a correct
answer before filling in the worksheet is difficult to change, even when the instruction
include hands-on, group work. No one seemed to recognize that the discussion after the
hands-on activity was not substantive. It seemed to be a fishing expedition for the right
answer and when that answer came, the search was over. Children with alternative ideas
were not encouraged to offer them. The discussion looked a little different when there
was more than one right answer, as was the case for the second question – “Which other
surface would not require much force to slide the brick?” Several students were able to
share their responses for that question, but she had difficulty with the second part of the
question that asks students to explain why. She waited for the word friction that never
came, even though the children seemed to have the concept and offered some amazing
ideas.
These teachers were still developing their knowledge of inquiry teaching and
would need more practice. The change Sharon said she made after the first question,
although better than the way the first question was addressed, still did not allow for
students to compare data from across the groups; there was no sharing of data, strategies,
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or curiosities. She said she knew what the groups were doing and didn’t see the point in
discussing it as a whole group because she felt they got the concept. She said:
Well I knew where each group was and I was talking to each group where they
were, but then as I made my way around the room, every single group was saying
the same thing, so instead of saying, “Well you tell them how you did it,” I
couldn't do that because they were all telling me the exact same thing.
She didn’t seem to realize the importance of asking students if anyone had a
different idea; she would have been able to assess if there were any misunderstandings
among the students who did not respond. Her response to my comments did not seem to
indicate an acknowledgement of a different strategy for teaching. What she did made
sense to her. She would need more experience with this idea.
During the planning session we talked about making a table and a graph with
students’ data to help them draw a conclusion. Sarah and Sylvia both made different
examples of graphs during the fourth session but Sharon did not construct a table or
graph during her lesson. During the feedback session I asked her why. She responded, “I
just thought that when we talked about that, it was going to be a different lesson. I
thought that was a follow up lesson to this lesson and I wasn't going to go there.” I
responded:
By just taking those numbers [from all the groups] and putting them, leaving them
up as a chart, then it would have been a good way to have the discussion or get
the conclusion we were trying to come up with. They would see all the small
numbers for the smooth surface and all the large numbers for the rough surface so
they could see that friction, even though they couldn't say the word friction…
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Sharon turned the conversation back to a discussion about friction. She said:
I purposefully avoided that word because we talked about the fact that we didn't
want them necessarily to use the vocabulary. We wanted them to understand.
When we were doing our lesson study, for those of you in 5th grade, we
purposefully did that, didn't use [the word friction].
In the preceding comment, Sharon addressed the fifth grade teachers who were
not a part of the planning sessions for this lesson. It was discussed in the planning
sessions that there are some words and concepts that are not a part of the state curriculum
framework and we will not hold children responsible for them. For example, fourth
grade students do not need to know Newton’s Laws, although the teachers discussed
them during the planning sessions. The intent of this lesson was to have students observe
and think about what causes more friction or less friction. Since the mass of the brick
stays the same, the students observe the kind of surface on which the sliding occurred as
a variable. According to our state framework, elementary students should be able to
describe how forces, pushes or pulls, are needed to speed up, or change the direction of a
moving object. Common forces to teach this concept include push, pull, friction, gravity;
real world contexts could include playing ball and sliding objects. In constructivist
teaching, there is sometimes a misunderstanding that children have to construct
everything, that teachers cannot tell them important ideas, they have to figure them out
alone. Perhaps Sharon thought she should not use the word friction because that would
be telling them something they should figure out on their own. I continued the
conversation:
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Monica: You could have said the word, and I thought you were going to say
it.
Sharon: Well they said they mentioned it the day before. They mentioned
friction. So I know they know friction, but they didn't connect the
word friction with what was actually happening.
This part of the conversation shows that Sharon worked with her students the day before
the lesson. She also referred to this at the beginning of the feedback session when she
said:
The kids had more information than I thought they would. I was surprised at their
answers…I was surprised…that they were able to take a very short conversation
the day before and turn it into the understanding that they had when we did the
lesson [and this] was amazing to me.
She seemed to attribute the students’ understanding of the concepts in this lesson to the
work she did with them the day before rather than this day’s investigation. Since they
discussed friction the day before, she seemed to be waiting for one of the students to say
the word again, as though knowing the word means students know the concept. Marilyn
added:
Marilyn: But they did understand the concept friction and that was what was
going on. They just never named it.
Monica: So it might have been a good time at that point, and you may want
to do this tomorrow. [You could say,] You know how something
kept pulling back; something was keeping that brick on the
sandpaper. That's friction.
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After this diversion about the students not using the word friction, I still wanted to
address the issue of a table, chart or graph. I felt that by not gathering group data and
representing them in some way, students miss an opportunity to organize data and use
those data as evidence to draw a conclusion. Although Sharon did not do this, she did ask
the groups to share their results. Group by group, students called out their measurements
and they did get a chance to discuss them. Melissa responded to my feedback in support
of what Sharon did by offering this positive comment:
I wanted to add on to what Monica was saying. You know how she was saying
about having graphs? Even though you didn't do the graph though, you did
verbally go through the groups. They heard the numbers and they felt safe,
knowing that their numbers were very similar to other groups, and I think that
helped them.
Sharon admitted than that she was not yet comfortable with making graphs with
her students. She needed more time to develop this skill before teaching it to her
students. She said:
When we were doing our lesson study, we sort of ran out of time in our planning
because we were writing our procedures up to the last minute. And I think with
the graphing and everything, remember Sylvia was making graphs, and I told you
I am horrible at making graphs? So was I going to stand up there and create this
graph in front of all you people who, you know, are probably really good at it and
I'm not? So that's in my mind too, that probably was stopping me from doing like
a culminating thing that you thought would be a good visual for them. That's not
something I do naturally so unless I can go home and think about and how I am
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going to present it, I don't do that. And that wasn't part of our procedures and it
wasn't something I had gone over and if we had put that into our procedures and
somebody had explained to me in detail: "this is the way you make a graph." I
mean, I can make a graph, you know what I mean? That's not something that
comes naturally to me, and so if it had been part of our procedures, and if we had
had more time to complete everything that we had talked about doing, that
probably would have provided the lesson with what you were looking for.
Recording the data was a part of the procedure, although it was not clear what
form that recording would take: Step 9 - In a whole group discussion, ask individual
groups to share and record their data; Step 10 - Discuss differences in data if needed and
individual groups’ conclusions; what conclusion can we make as a whole class? The
procedures as written did not specifically include make a graph. If we had time to reteach
this lesson, a revision could be made to include the construction of a graph and this
would be an inquiry for the teachers. The teachers could see how a visual representation
of data collected from the individual groups works with students.
It was toward the end of the feedback session and we started to talk about possible
revisions to make, if we were to teach this lesson again. Marilyn offered a suggestion that
more time be allowed for students to play with the brick and the spring scales prior to
starting the lesson. Megan followed that suggestion with another one – that maybe some
of the questions should be saved for the next day because she felt the discussions were
just getting started and they would have to move on to their next thing. She would like to
see “how far they could take that on their own without ever having to answer any
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questions.” Sharon responded to these suggestions with her concern about the students’
behavior. She replied,
If you give them too much time then they have time to argue with each other and
they have time to think and well not stay focused, "Well give me that, I had that
first", you know, and that kind of thing. Which I understand, you're not saying
give them that much time.
Sharon had an opportunity to hear from her peers a perspective about teaching that was
different from her own. They seemed to be telling her to slow down the lesson, but she
had an individual philosophy of teaching and her concerns about time and covering the
curriculum surfaced again. She continued:
I also truly believe that if you, if you, you leave them wanting more. OK, so like,
it's sort of applies to what you are saying and it sort of doesn't because we're
talking about a learning atmosphere where you're wanting them to explore as
much as possible and everything, but it's sort of that old adage if you leave them
wanting more they are going to want to come back the next time and play more
and learn more. And so like if I hurry them through the lesson to a certain extent,
they are going to say "Hey that was fun! I want to go back and do that again!"
Where as if, and I understand you are not saying give them that much time but
when you keep things at a quick pace, you’re doing, you are accomplishing
several things. You're leaving them wanting more; you are presenting enough
time to do the other multiple things you need to do in the day. And I mean, for
this lesson it would be wonderful to say oh let's give them all this time and
everything because that would give us a really better picture of how much they
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are going to explore and everything, but in our true academic daily lives with our
students, that's not a possibility, you know, and for us to cover the curriculum
across the board the way we have to, and cover all the different benchmarks that
we need to covered in a year, we know we don't have time to do that, you know.
So I mean this is addressing what you've said earlier too and I'm not saying that
either of you are wrong, I'm just saying, I guess in my mind and knowing my
students and knowing how they interact when there is no camera and no bunch of
adults standing around observing, I think the quicker pace the lesson goes, the
high achievers are kept busy constantly and challenged constantly and the others
are maybe skating, and there may be a time for skating and a time for not skating,
but at the same time, I don't think they didn't understand what was going on.
Marilyn responded to Sharon. The theme of individualism crept back:
That's why I started out my comment with, "I'm not sure this would be a change."
I think it does depend on whether how your kids are and, you know, your own
personal teaching style. Me, personally, I would have, especially with the class I
have this year, they would have had ten minutes just to look at the stuff.
This issue was resolved with decision that each teacher’s class was different and the
teacher has to make that decision for her class; individualism prevailed.
Marilyn: My group would not tolerate me telling them to do something
before they had a chance to explore it. They wouldn't listen to me.
Sharon: And my group would have to argue and play and maybe break
something or you know.
Marilyn: That's why I think you do have to know your group.
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The Mathematics Feedback Session.
The feedback session for the mathematics lesson followed the feedback session
for the science lesson with a ten minute break in-between. The short term goal for the
lesson was to find a fractional part of a whole number. Marilyn started the feedback
session by stating that she thought the lesson went well, but it took longer than expected
because, “I tend to want to wait until everybody gets it and not move on, so I end up
taking longer or I talk more or let them talk in groups more.” She gave some background
about the development of the lesson for the science teachers who were not a part of the
mathematics lesson planning.
Melissa was first to offer feedback and said she thought it flowed very well. She
liked how it was “organized where there was – you read the problem, you wrote your
notes, you shared, you solved your problems in your journal and then you shared. It was
almost methodical. I just thought it was really, really good.”
There was a silence. Marilyn asked if she could make a comment on Melissa’s
remark. Rather than follow the protocol of having each teacher respond to the lesson, I
allowed the break in protocol and Marilyn made another comment. She said:
Now looking back on it, there are places that I normally, and I don't know
whether it's because people were in there, this was, you know, a different type of
lesson, you know, because you guys were watching, but things that I normally
would have done, I did not do, like writing on the board, because I am a visual
person. I do a lot of things visually and I felt like that was a deficit, that … it
seemed to me to be more auditory and I feel that I failed some of the visual
learners.
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Although Melissa’s feedback was positive, Marilyn didn’t seem to agree and was
concerned about some of the students’ work. She had a chance to look through the
journals and saw that some of her children did not understand the concept she was
teaching. She blamed this on not being able to do what she usually does, that is, tell the
students how to do the problem.
I had one group that was not getting it and it shows from, you know I glanced
through the journals. They didn't get the concept at all. And it seemed a lot of
what the kids weren't getting was when we got to a numerator greater than one.
They weren't getting how to take two of the thirds. So what I am visualizing what
I would have done on the board is draw the cups, the way that Derrick had drawn
them but then circled two of them, OK, and because it would have been
something related to what I talked to: Here are your three [groups] and this is your
denominator; here's the numerator, so it's two out of your three. That's your
fraction. You know, and I would have done that visually for those kids who
weren't getting why did I take two cups.
Megan was sitting by a group that had this problem. She responded to Marilyn
and described their struggles:
So if you want to know where the problem came in, it was when they found the
answer but then they looked back at the question and the question had a fraction
in it and so they thought their answer needed to be a fraction. They most often
would take the answer and put it over, if you were trying to find fourths and the
answer became, um, was a three that you were looking for, they would say, oh the
answer is three-fourths, instead of saying the answer was three and leaving it at
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that. They weren't comfortable with the whole number idea because they didn't
understand. So what I wrote down was that as a revision, we may want to ask
them to explain.
We just finished the feedback session for Sharon and Marilyn started with a
criticism of her own teaching, so these teachers didn’t need much time to warm up to
making suggestions. But not all the teachers felt there was a problem. Sharon said the
students she observed understood the concepts and she described how well those students
interacted with each other, helping each other. But Sylvia said the students in the group
she observed had the same problems as the students in Megan’s group. Sarah thought the
pretzels messed them up and Marilyn reminded us how she kept saying during the
planning sessions that her students did not like to use manipulatives. Melissa thought
that the pretzels helped the students she observed. Sarah agreed with Megan, Sylvia and
Marilyn and said that the students she observed didn’t connect the manipulatives to the
action on the problem. She noticed:
As I'm looking at all of that, I was thinking in my own head, they don't understand
what the cup is, that the cup seemed like another entity…and so they were
confused by that and I kept thinking the cup is confusing, muddying the issue.
Maybe if they just had pretzels and they said, OK, you have twelve pretzels and
now we are going to divide them into groups, but the cups were like this whole
other thing. What are the cups, why are we doing this?
After thinking about this some more, later in the feedback session, Sarah offered another
way to help the students understand the concept of a fractional part of a set. She said:
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I was thinking to myself that the pretzels and the cups were confusing to them
because they didn't seem to understand that the pretzels represented people
initially and that they themselves were a group and the cups were indicating
groups. So then I thought, what if you just had a manipulative of some, like a
cardboard circle cut into twelve wedges and you said each wedge is a teacher, and
together they make this one group and then, um, OK, first problem: half the
teachers can go to this meeting, so that means we've got two groups going. Put a
wedge in each group until you run out of wedges. This is half the group. How
many wedges are there? There's six. And what does each wedge mean? A
teacher. How many teachers are there? Six teachers. That seems very concrete.
The problems where students needed to find a fractional part of a set, other than
one-half, were difficult for the students. It was even more difficult when they needed to
find a fractional part of a set when the numerator of that fraction was more than one.
Most of the teachers talked about how they involved themselves helping students in their
work, although they knew from the classroom observation protocol that they should not
do this. There were phrases, “So I said to them…”; “I had to break it apart for her”; “I
know we weren't supposed to intervene in this lesson, I kept trying to rephrase it to him.”
The feedback session continued with a discussion about what the students did or
did not understand about the concept, the use of the chosen manipulatives, ideas for
improving the lesson for the next time, and what they learned from observing this lesson
for the next year when they had to teach fractions. This discussion was more like the
discussion during the planning sessions, with agreements and disagreements. The talk
seemed to be moving toward the big talk. Most teachers seemed comfortable in saying
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what they were thinking, but the teachers who had the stronger mathematics background
seemed to be more critical.
Teachers were critical of the lesson, but not with the things Marilyn did or did not
do that would have improved the lesson. A review of the video tape of this lesson shows
that a possible problem with this lesson included the way children explained their
thinking and how Marilyn responded, or not, to the students, especially during the whole
group instruction. For example, students were sometimes giving answers as fractions
when they should have been whole numbers; this was not noticed and corrected. Like
Sharon, Marilyn was hesitant about when to say something and when to remain silent.
Like Sharon and other teachers who try to teach to the standards, she needs to learn when
it was alright to give children information and when to let them struggle. Although there
were many opportunities to learn, there were many opportunities missed. There would
have been a chance to discover those opportunities if there were more sessions.
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CHAPTER IV
THE THEMES
Three themes developed as I analyzed the data – individualism, time and talk.
These themes represent the challenges the teachers faced. Teachers had to cope with the
rearrangement of their relationships between the individual and the group. They had to
rethink how they deal with time. They had to learn a new kind of talk and become
comfortable with it. These themes do not represent new challenges. Other researchers
write about them too. In this chapter I will describe the challenges they faced. I will also
describe how having an opportunity to participate in this collaborative experience helped
some of these teachers begin to realize benefits of moving beyond these challenges.
Individualism
In American culture, there has always been tension between the pursuit of
individualism and concern for the community. American society seems to glorify the
individual in sports, politics, business, education and other sectors of society while at the
same time diverse groups struggle in the pursuit of their rights and interests. Recognizing
individual identities and group identities simultaneously is a challenge. In my study more
than half of the teachers expressed concern for losing their individualism by participating
in a collaborative activity with their colleagues.
Lortie (1975) found individualism to be a typical working preference for teachers
in the United States. In his description of teachers’ preferences in day-to-day
interactions, 45% reported that they had no contact with other teachers in their work, 32%
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had some contact, and only 25% had much contact (Lortie, 1975, p. 193). The activities
of the teachers in the category much contact, include: planning classes, reviewing student
work, and sometimes switching classes, but the teachers who had much contact were
usually pairs of teachers who mutually agreed to work together and they held some bond
of friendship. Teachers did not try to influence each other for, or against, this
cooperation. Although it seems laudable that teachers work together, there could be a
problem with this normative permissiveness. Sympathy and assurances are found, rather
than opportunities for growth. Lortie warns:
Normative permissiveness has a self evident function; it encourages individuals
with different needs to satisfy themselves along lines they find most rewarding.
The summative effect is to augment the gratification of the aggregate of group
members; the permissive norms of these teachers foster individual responses to
the question of proximity to or distance from colleagues (Lortie, 1975, p. 194).
Although Lortie’s study is almost 30 years old, the situation in my school was
similar. Three of the eleven teachers in my study, or 27%, might be considered as having
much contact with each other: Two of the teachers paired for mathematics and science
instruction and, in previous years, a third teacher paired with a friend. But also like the
teachers in Lortie’s study, the degree of mutual cooperation among these teachers was a
matter of individual choice, made without normative pressure.
Grossman, Wineburg and Woolworth (2001) argue that pseudocommunities are
prevalent in most schools today. These consist of individuals working with other
individuals. They seem to operate under the premise that everyone is to behave as if they
all agree; challenges to others are against the rules. Their definition of a real teacher
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community draws from Bellah’s definition: “a group of people who are socially
interdependent, who participate together in discussion and decision making, and who
share certain practices that both define the community and are nurtured by it” (Bellah,
1985, p. 333).
In their study in which they worked to build a professional community among 22
high school English and Social Studies teachers, they discovered the challenges of
individualism. Some of the challenges, they argue, arise because education does not have
a shared language of norms and values like the professions of medicine and law.
Teachers vary in their understanding of just about everything that has to do with teaching
– goals of teaching, purpose of education, role of testing. Ironically, they discovered
dangers in bringing teachers out of their isolation. When they formed their community of
teachers from the two departments, conflicts that were contained by teachers’ isolation
were released. These researchers were worried that their program for which they received
a multi-million dollar grant would be over shortly after it began. They persisted however,
worked through the challenges, and their group was able to move toward a community
whose purpose is to improve student learning and teacher learning.
Buchmann (1993) describes teachers’ individualism with respect to role or
personal orientations to teaching. Teachers who exhibit a role orientation place
themselves within a larger picture of colleagues, the curriculum, and accountability.
Teachers who exhibit a personal orientation explain their classroom practices by
references to themselves. Her observation and concern about individualism present in the
teaching culture of the United States is similar to Lortie’s. She argues that an emphasis
on the self –‘this is the kind of person I am’ – is problematic because it can put an end to
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debate and close the door to change or improvement. The dangers of individualized
teaching practice may result in minimal effort. She argues:
The teacher educator slogans of “finding the technique that works for you,”
“discovering your own beliefs,” “no one right way to teach,” and “being creative
and unique” are seductive half-truths. They are seductive because anyone likes
being told that being oneself and doing one’s own thing is all right, even laudable.
Conduct sanctioned in this fashion, while consistent with professional discipline
for those who already have the necessary disposition and competencies, allows for
both minimal effort and idiosyncrasy in other cases. These slogans are half-truths
because, although identifying teachers’ personal and commonsense beliefs is
important, once identified, these beliefs must be appraised as bases and guides for
professional conduct and, where necessary, challenged. (Buchmann, 1993, p. 148)
The teacher’s role carries with it obligations toward students to help them learn
worthwhile things. It entails a shift in concern from self to others. Teachers are
obligated to conform their actions and dispositions to the accepted goals and standards of
their profession. Justification for choices teachers make about what happens in their
classrooms should come from external standards provided by a professional community
rather than teachers’ personal habits, opinions, or interests. One would find it
unacceptable for a doctor or nurse to change standard procedures on the operating table
based on personal whim or choice. Stigler and Hiebert (1999) quote Albert Shanker’s
testimony before the U.S. House of Representative’s Committee on Economic and
Educational Opportunities:
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Doctors don’t try to figure out a new technique or procedure for every patient that
comes into their office; they begin by using the standard techniques and
procedures based on the experiences of many doctors over the years…they do
have a name for failure to use standard practices – it’s malpractice. (p. 176)
Although it is unacceptable for other professions, making personal choices based on
individual standards, standards that developed from their own years in school, seems to
be acceptable for the teaching profession. A role orientation would be preferred because
it is based on professional standards and can guide teachers in their actions, helping them
remember what their work is about and who is to benefit from it.
When the theme of individualism emerged, I analyzed the interviews again using
the lenses of Buchmann’s personal or role orientations. I discovered that during the
initial interviews, these teachers did not place themselves in the larger picture of
colleagues, curriculum or accountability but explained their classroom practices with
references to their personal opinions, habits, or interests. No one mentioned national,
state or local standards and benchmarks or how their actions relate to them. They did not
mention what should have been their more familiar North Central Association (NCA)
school improvement goals. Decisions about what content should be taught were made by
referring to their own standards, a standard which was different from the standard used to
determine academic content for their own children or young relatives. This opportunity
for a collaborative examination of practice exposed a double standard, made them aware
of it and available for discussion.
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Another example of these teachers’ personal orientation is that of one of the more
experienced teachers who didn’t think her ideas fit the norm of the other teachers in the
school so she kept them to herself. She said:
Sometimes there are things that you do, when you're planning your lesson alone,
because you know why you're doing that, and when you're doing it…but, to…
share that and say, well, this would be a good idea; I think sometimes other
people might not see it the way you do.
This teacher said she was always looking for new ideas for her practice. She had many
good ideas to share, but normally does not have an opportunity to share them and she did
not take that opportunity during this program. Still another teacher commented:
“Everyone has their own style and I could never copy someone else because I'm who I
am.”
Although there are dangers in a personal orientation to practice, these teachers’
lack of situating their teaching with other colleagues seemed to be more from a lack of
opportunity than choice. One teacher said she felt she was in her own little world. They
talked about their limited contacts with other teachers and wished they had more. Every
teacher said emphatically they would find conversations with other teachers valuable.
They described creeping out of the room for a few minutes, peeking in rooms, spying and
stealing with respect to observing and sharing ideas with colleagues. This is also
consistent with Lortie’s study. He writes: “Yet although teachers center on their
classroom affairs, they do have an interest in those who work alongside them – they are
at least sources of help and, sometimes, mirrors for assessing one’s performance” (Lortie,
1975, p. 193).
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Moving away from individualism. The teachers who participated in this
collaborative program to the end found working together to be a benefit. They claimed
that this collaboration enhanced the lesson that they planned and increased their
collegiality. They talked about how this collaborative activity could fit in with their
individual ideas. Megan said during her final interview, “We are all very different. There
is not one of us that is alike in the strategies that we, or the way that we teach a lesson.”
Then she added:
So, having said that, we all came together, came up with some kind of a lesson
that we were comfortable with, each in our own way, and you could see that when
you were looking at how incredibly diverse this lesson was; I mean from start to
finish there was a little bit of each one of us in there. So, it was neat to see then
one of us just present all of our ideas.
Melissa was apprehensive about this program at first and claimed that it was
because of her individualism, but she was curious enough to stay to the end. She said:
“What was challenging to me at the beginning was, I wanted to do this to see what it was
like, but I had my apprehensions because for twelve years, I had done everything by
myself, pretty much.” She added:
But the more I did it, the more I liked it… You're getting input from all these
different types of thinking people. You're getting feedback on what they think is
good and what's bad and you can disagree or agree and work things out...It
worked out…because everybody was patient with one another. We listened to
everything until it was completely said, and then we helped each other to
restructure.
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Melissa seemed to grow from a personal orientation of practice to a role
orientation. Others seem to develop a role orientation too. During her final interview,
Sarah acknowledged the complacency that can develop in individualistic thinking. She
said, “I think when you plan independently you could…just get in a rut. You continue to
do things in a comfortable way, a predictable way, a safe way.”
Sharon, who taught one of the lessons, often expressed concern about losing her
individuality, but she was pleased to see that she found a way to include a bit of herself in
the lesson. She explained during the feedback session that:
This morning I was thinking as educational as this whole process has been I had
to think about how doing this lesson study would really benefit me because I
really feel like my teaching is very individual and that I really take ownership in
what I do and how could I possibly take ownership in something that I didn't
really create on my own?… I was concerned that it wasn't my lesson, but as I was
teaching it, I think I was able to add enough of my personality and my style into
the lesson that made it mine.
Restructuring one’s ideas about teaching takes time. These teachers continued to
talk about their individuality. Sharon’s teaching orientation seemed to remain personal
but her willingness to stay until the end gave her new insights into her teaching and into
her students. During the feedback session, Sharon was sharing her thoughts about the
lesson:
I was very, very surprised at their insights about what they were doing…I had
Kyler wrapped. I had Trent wrapped. I had Kevin wrapped. I had James, who
never seems to be in the ball game; I mean they were really into it! All of those
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guys that normally are just the follower of whatever the leader in their group
thinks were all of a sudden leaders, not just into the lesson, but they were leading
the discussion with their questions and answers.
I asked her what she thought made a difference in this lesson compared to other
science lessons she taught. She attributed some of this to the collaboration with her
colleagues. She responded:
I must have gotten some awfully good direction from my cohorts because this was
way different from anything I've ever taught to them on my own, so maybe they
made, maybe their input into the lesson put enough of themselves or somebody
else in something that I usually neglect, that I'm not aware of… I do not ever
spend that much time putting together a lesson unless it is my evaluation lesson or
something like that. I mean I have to be frankly honest. That's the truth of it, so,
because I don't have time…This wasn't just a lesson. It was something the kids
really understood and with all of our collaborative efforts, and Sarah kept getting
us on track that day, and Sylvia with her worksheet and everything helped me stay
focused.
Participating in this program gave Sharon an opportunity to share her ideas about
curriculum with her colleagues as well as design and teach a lesson that involved more of
the national science standards than her usual science lessons. She had an opportunity to
experience and reflect on a teaching experience that was more aligned to a role
orientation than a personal one.
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Her growth was evident several weeks later when I asked during her final
interview about her ideas concerning her individuality in teaching. I asked her to
comment about the statements she made during the feedback session:
Monica: You felt like your teaching is very individual, and you really take
ownership in what you do and you wondered how you could
possibly take ownership in something that you didn't really create
on your own...
Sharon: I can't believe I ever thought that initially.
Monica: That's interesting.
Sharon: That's pretty stupid, now, looking back at it. But I think that may
have been one of those times when I was really frustrated about my
time, you know, time away from my students.
These teachers had an opportunity to channel their efforts toward their common
goals. Teachers talked about how they needed to find their own way to teach but they
also wanted to see what others were doing. Some were apprehensive about the
collaboration. Some could not see how they would benefit from a collaborative effort.
Working together was a challenge for most and allowing others into their physical
classroom space to observe a lesson was a challenge for all, but for the teachers who
stayed, the experience was beneficial. These first steps and the continuation of a process
like this may lead to their development as teachers with a role oriented disposition which
can contribute to the improvement of their practice and change in their school.
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Time
There were five ways in which time showed up as an important factor in the way
teachers were experiencing this professional development as it related to their work and
opportunities to learn. First, these teachers complained they had too much to teach and
too little time. As a result of this perception, most admitted that not having enough time
influences their decisions about what and how they teach. A few felt this also has an
impact on the amount of time they have to be collaborative. Second, these teachers
expressed a need or desire to control their time and choose the way they use it, both in
and out of the classroom. Third, time is needed to construct meaning and process what is
learned. Teachers discussed how this is true for their students but some teachers felt this
was important for their own learning. Fourth, the cultural and traditional perspectives of
teaching and learning influence their outlook on what activities define teacher practice
and their decisions about what they choose to do with their time as it relates to their
practice. Last, despite their concerns about the time it would take to participate in these
activities and the time spent away from their classrooms, the teachers who completed this
professional development program reported that taking the time to collaborate was a
major benefit.
Too Much to Teach, Too Little Time
The teachers in this study complained they had too much to teach and too little
time. They had good reason to say this. The broad curriculum is suggested as one of the
reasons why American students do not perform as well as many of their international
counterparts. In this district, the mathematics and science curricula were undergoing a
lengthy revision process. There were many reasons for this. There was the change in
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curriculum leadership. Two years ago, three different people held the position of district
curriculum director during one single school year. The state department of education was
working on a project to define grade level expectations for the core subjects as required
by federal requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001. The district needed to
update its mathematics and science curricula and resources, but did not want to invest in
new materials without knowing the outcome of the state’s decisions on expectations.
An attempt to align the district curriculum to the state benchmarks through
curriculum mapping was started by another curriculum director but was not complete.
This contributed to confusion and frustration of the teachers. Recommendations for
curriculum changes were made but were interpreted by the teachers differently.
Recommendations were accepted at will. One of the teachers expressed her frustration at
the first meeting:
The only time we're going to get lessons like this is if we spend our entire summer
taking subject by subject, knowing what we are going to be teaching the next
year, which in this district right now we don't know because all of our curriculum
is not set, so that's assuming that we even know what's going to be taught and we
spend our whole summer doing subject by subject maybe we can get far enough
into our curriculum that we will be able to do units like this in our classrooms.
Do I think that will happen? No, because it's really, really hard to sit down and
plan out a lesson like this on your own.
An unclear, broad and shallow curriculum impacts student learning because it
affects the teachers’ ability to provide meaningful and coherent instruction. With so
much to teach and only so much time in the school year, teachers individually determined
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what, when and how to teach it. Contributing to these teachers’ problem was the
availability of resources provided by the district. There were mathematics texts, but few
teachers used them. Not all the elementary schools in the district had the same science
kits and you could find old science books from the previous science curriculum adoption
in some classrooms because a text was not purchased with the science kits. Teachers said
they needed a textbook.
Not all teachers had the expertise in the subject nor had knowledge of curriculum
reform, although they thought they did. This is consistent with Stigler and Hiebert’s
(1999) findings, that 95% of the U.S. teachers surveyed in the TIMSS video study said
that they were aware of reforms advocated by NCTM and most of them claimed to be
implementing them. When teachers in that study pointed out examples of implementing
reform in their video, and the videos were analyzed, the reform ideas – emphasis on
student thinking and problem solving, multiple solution methods, and meaningful student
discourse – were not present. In fact, “reform teaching, as interpreted by some teachers,
might actually be worse than what they were doing previously in their classrooms”
(Stigler & Hiebert, 1999, p. 106).
The Need to Control What to Do With Their Time
These teachers expressed a need or desire to control their time and choose the way
they use it. Teachers’ time is divided among many activities and responsibilities both
during and after school. This can become overwhelming. One teacher described how she
needs to pick and choose what to teach because she can’t do everything. Teachers in this
district, like most teachers in the United States, are able to exercise control over how they
use their time in the classroom. Their choices are influenced by their individually
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perceived value of an activity and the benefits it may hold for their children or for
themselves. Convenience and time constraints in their school day as well as their
personal life are also factors that influence what they choose to teach or not. One teacher
admitted during her first interview: “I’m so busy in my personal life, I don’t have time to
really do a lot of things justice.” Another teacher explained during her final interview
that she thinks teachers do many things in their practice because of time constraints and
this leads to making choices about fitting it all in. She said:
I mean so many things in teaching you do out of convenience or constraints on
your own school day or your own personal life… Right now, it's taking a whole
lot of effort and time, figuring out where each piece fits, and how to get it in the
day, and where the run-off is, and where to slide everything.
Besides controlling their time with respect to teaching, these teachers also desire
to control the time they spend in professional development and they express frustration
when not given the power to choose. Early in the program most teachers wondered if the
time spent away from their classrooms in this professional development activity would be
worth it; some did not believe it would. One teacher said she needed to see how
participating in a professional development activity was going to benefit her and her
students:
I haven’t been here for my students a lot this year because I have chosen to further
my own education so it’s frustrating to me because I don’t have the power to
choose that… the times that I've been out I, were times that I chose. Things that I
really wanted, that I knew were going to benefit me…I didn't know anything
about this. I don't know who it's helping in the long run, or how it's helping
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immediately... I have time to do what I know I need to do and this wasn't one of
those things, so I was very frustrated by that… We're not trying to complain about
you wanting to share information with us. I know that sounds like the way it is
coming off. That's not my intention at all, just to say that. It's just that I'm trying
to say I need to choose what and when I need to get for my classroom and for my
students this year.
A second teacher also did not see the value in this professional development
activity. She didn’t know why it would be important for her or where it would lead to in
the future.
How do we have time to do these lesson studies and meet like this? Half days and
things like that. I mean it seems like this is something we are experimenting with,
but where’s it going to go? I guess my question was where’s it going?
She found a way to gain control of her own professional development despite
what she was asked to do by the district. This teacher attended only that first session.
She planned a field trip for the second session, was absent from school for the third, and
asked her principal to get her out of the rest.
Still another teacher expressed a need to take control over her time. Although she
taught for only three years before this school year, she came to accept the many demands
on teachers’ time as “how education is.” She chose not to complete the program because
she thought the timing was bad and she did not want to take more time away from her
students. She chose to use her time for professional learning by enrolling in graduate
school. Although she thought going back to school and writing papers was awful,
graduate work in education is required by the state.
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But some teachers liked the choice that was made for them and said they would
have chosen this type of professional development. They felt the benefits they received
out weighed the problems they experienced with substitutes or being away from their
classrooms. Marilyn appreciated that during the sessions teachers would collaborate on a
lesson that they were going to use soon with their students and said if given the choice,
she would choose to participate:
I don't know that I had a choice, to be honest. But I think I would have, even if I
had had the choice. Because, as frustrated as my students got, I knew that I was
learning something that was going to benefit them. Especially seeing as how we
were doing something curriculum related and it was going to help me with that
particular lesson in the long run.
Although Melissa was in the mathematics sessions where the teachers were more
positive about the program, she said she was aware of the negative comments made by
the teachers attending the science sessions. She admitted being worried too about the
time she would be spending outside the classroom, but thought it would be worthwhile.
I know there were some remarks, maybe at the beginning of, you know, "I'm out
of my room too much" or "We're working so hard on this. We hope it's going to
be worth our time." I heard comments like that and I was even worried myself
that I hope this is worthy of the time we are taking because we were out of the
classroom…But I really do think that it was beneficial because we did get to
actually go back into our classroom and do the lesson and watch the kids and the
teacher and the lesson unfold, with all those things happening, and then feedback
time. I think that really, it worked.
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The Need for Time to Construct Meaning and Process New Learning
Time is needed to construct meaning and process what is learned. Teachers
discussed how this is true for their students as well as for themselves. During the
feedback session for the science lesson, Megan, a first year teacher, talked about how she
was concerned with the dilemma of finding the balance in allowing enough time for
students’ learning and fitting it in the time frame allowed by the structure of the school
day. During the feedback session, she made this observation about this balance:
I think that I know I'm guilty of this, trying to squeeze too much into one time
frame and not give them enough time to talk about it… but there were some really
great conversations and if you would have given them more time then your lesson
would have been an hour and a half to two hours long. So you're kind of in that
situation where you don't want to spend too much time on one topic, however,
you do need more time to investigate and talk about it. And I don't think that we
need to feel guilty about wasting school time when they are doing that because I
know a lot of times I fell like, gosh, we spent so much time talking about this one
problem and I feel bad about spending that time. But today I realized that I can't
do that anymore, because I saw so many groups that were so close to coming up
with the terminology that you wanted in their discussions, but then we stop them
because it's time to end the lesson, instead of allowing them to just continue with
their conversation.
In this program Megan had an opportunity to observe the lesson from a
perspective other than that of a teacher. From this new perspective, she realized the
importance of giving students time to construct meaning through discourse during the
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inquiry lesson. Sylvia also recognized the importance of giving her students time to
learn. She described what she was planning to change in her practice for the new school
year:
And you know what? This year…I'm going to take my time. I'm going to make
sure they understand it. If we need to go and do another activity on the same
thing, instead of moving on to another unit, then we're going to do it. Because,
it's the deeper understanding that will bring the things that you do later to a more
"aha" moment.
Some teachers felt more time was needed in their learning too. Teachers said they
were overwhelmed with other professional development programs that year. The
elementary schools received a technology grant and part of that grant was required
professional development in project based learning and technology. Teachers were
pulled from their classrooms several times earlier that year to learn to use the software
their students would use for their projects. In addition to that, at the beginning of the
school year, teachers were informed of the state’s professional development requirements
and were encouraged to seek out their own professional development opportunities.
Perhaps this is what is meant when Ball and Cohen (1999) describe current traditional
methods of professional development as being decontextualized and a patchwork of
opportunities stitched together into a fragmented and incoherent curriculum. Ideas and
information from these professional development activities created a cognitive overload
for some. They needed time to figure out what to do with the information.
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Sharon felt her own learning in this upcoming professional development
experience would not benefit her present group of students. She described her need to
process new learning:
Whenever you learn something, you have to go home; you have to think about it.
You have to put it down and collect dust, because you have to process and you
have to think about it and then when something comes up that says, "Oh yeah,
that conference taught me that! Then you dig through there and you say. "That's
exactly what I need!"
Without time to process and practice new ideas, those new ideas may be lost, like
seeds that do not have time to take root but are blown away in the wind. Ms. Seymour
expressed her frustrations:
That's another thing. We don't have time to process it. We have so many
demands placed on us this year, pulling us out of the classroom, train us for this
and train us for that, yet they have given us no time to apply it whatsoever. None,
and then it's gone. Mr. Williams [pseudonym], perfect example, coming in and
taking me out of my classroom for an hour to train me on project based learning
and this or that or that and sending me back to my classroom on my merry way
and I feel like I don't even remember anything he said, I have no time to
implement, I have no time to work with it, no time to process the information and
it's gone…I liked going for my master's program. I learned a lot from that, but we
have no time to process it or apply what we've learned and that's frustrating
because it's gone.
The Influence of the Cultural Perspective on Teachers’ Time
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Some teachers in this study were faced with another dilemma. On one hand, they
felt they would learn a lot by attending the sessions. On the other hand, they felt they
would neglect their students. The cultural perspective on teaching and learning defines
what teachers are expected to do with their time. “As a profession, teaching is primarily
defined by what teachers do when they are not with other teachers” (Cochran-Smith &
Lytle, 1993, p. 86). Yet the work of other professionals includes interacting with
colleagues. Lawyers work inside and outside the courtroom; researching or preparing for
a case with other lawyers is viewed as acceptable professional behavior that provides the
best case for their clients. Doctors do their work in or out of the hospital or office. They
consult with other doctors and work in teams for the benefit of their patients. It is
expected that members of these professions work as teams and keep current with the
knowledge and practices of their profession.
The perception for the teaching profession seems to be different. For some,
teachers are not doing the work of teaching if they are not in the classroom. This
paradigm of teaching leaves little or no time for teachers to interact with colleagues
unless it is on their own time. This Forest Hills teacher’s comments during the first
session seem to illustrate this existing perception of teaching. She felt she should be in
her classroom with her children covering the material she needed to teach. Her
comments include the notion that the parents of her children have this perception too.
My students are very, very behind, not to mention that they feel neglected, that
they feel frustrated that I'm not there. Parents are starting to feel frustrated and
when we add all the stresses we have about behavior and getting this task done
and meeting the school, whatever pops up at the school, like pictures today, or
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whatever, when we have all of that stuff and then we also have to be responsible
to get these things taught in our classroom, it's frustrating to us. And that's a real
frustration for us and something that nobody is willing to admit or discuss, I think.
This Greenfield teacher’s comments reflect her dilemma choosing between
spending time learning to improve her practice and her responsibility for the learning of
her students.
Well how are we supposed to get them prepared for MEAP when we are out of
our classrooms half of the time? [It’s] not a wasted day for me, because I've
learned a lot but for my kids and to me my prime responsibility is those kids and
their learning.
The issue of time and cultural perspective of teaching seems to have affected the
principal who was in his first year in that position after being a teacher at Greenfield for
more than thirty years. Teachers’ days are filled with activities other than instruction and
the number of these activities increase as the year draws to a close. After the third
session, he sent me an e-mail asking to excuse all of his teachers from the next meeting.
His e-mail read:
Good afternoon Monica,
I don't want to be a "pain in the ???" however, I would really like to have the
teachers stay in the building that day ... it is school picture day and the last full
day of testing ... our "plates are full!" Thank you! (Personal communication,
April 26, 2002)
After receiving this e-mail, I went to visit him. He told me that all of his teachers
were asking him to “get them out of it [attending the next session]”. He said his teachers
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didn’t have the time for the upcoming session and they would be busy during the
following session as well. End of the year programs were coming up and there was so
much to prepare. He asked me to excuse them for the next two sessions. He added how
much he appreciated the work I was doing in his school, but the coming month was just
too busy to have his teachers away from their classes. Since there were three sessions
left, attending the last session, the feedback session, would be meaningless if they did not
observe the lesson scheduled for the fifth session; this meant the teachers from Greenfield
dropped out of the program.
The Benefits of Taking the Time
Finding the time was a challenge, but having the time was an affordance. Despite
all the concerns about time, the time spent planning the lesson with their colleagues was
most often mentioned by these teachers as a benefit of the program. One teacher wished
they could have spent more time planning together. Some teachers said their day would
go so much more smoothly, their teaching would improve, and the curriculum would be
better if they could do more collaborative planning like they did in this program. When
asked which particular feature of the process was most beneficial, Sylvia replied,
“Probably the time putting together the lesson and the cooperation between us.” Melissa
also found the time during this professional development opportunity well spent. She
said:
I liked the planning sessions a lot…The planning time I thought was so important
because all the ideas came out. Any questions were answered. Anything we
thought wouldn't work we just got rid of, and we could really think about what we
wanted, because sometimes we added stuff that wasn't necessary. When we do it
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here [alone in school] we don't have the time to think that much. You know, we'll
do it maybe five to ten minutes before school starts and that's just not enough. So
I liked that time. I liked having the time to discuss it…I think if we could do that,
like I said, like a month ahead and get that whole unit planned out and ready to
go, I think everybody would have such a nice day because you are organized. You
would know exactly what you are going to do and when you know what you are
going to do, your day goes smoother because there's no wait time. There's no dull
time. There's no down time to get reorganized of what you are doing next.
When Megan was asked if there were any features of the program that were less
useful she responded, “I can't really think of anything. Maybe just that we could have
used more time, but you know, that would have been my only complaint.” She felt the
time spent in collaborative lesson planning and reflection was beneficial to her and that
the curriculum would improve if there were more time for this type of collaboration.
We were just a great group of teachers, altogether and I had respected everything
they would, all of the information they'd give me in passing. But it was nice to
actually sit down at the table and say this is what we think and this is where we
should go with this lesson, and have some time to just reflect on what we did.
Also I think it was just really important. And it's too bad we don't have that kind
of time to do that for every lesson, which I'm sure the curriculum would look a lot
different then.
Even Sharon who complained during the first session, “We don't have time to sit
down and plan lessons like this on a daily basis, or weekly, or monthly, even” found it
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beneficial to spend time planning a lesson collaboratively. During the feedback session
after she taught the science lesson she remarked:
I do not ever spend that much time putting together a lesson unless it is my
evaluation lesson or something like that. I mean I have to be frankly honest.
That’s the truth of it, so, because I don’t have time. And I think that's what we are
all clamoring for here is, we do not have enough time to put into a lesson to make
it such a successful, understanding, you know.
In her final interview, she admitted there still wasn’t time to plan lessons in detail,
but she said she experienced a real eye-opener by doing so.
The thing that I thought was really eye-opening to me was that when three or four
people sit down together… When you pick something apart, the way that we did,
and put it back together, and we knew it inside and out, and spent that much time
on that one lesson, that becomes a joy to come in and teach. Because you do
know it like the back of your hand, and you're not questioning, ok, "what was I
supposed to do next” you know?
These teachers recognized that this process was time consuming. Sharon said, “I
still have to question how in the world you would have time to do everything that you
have to teach all day long, five days a week, you know, thirty days a month.” Others
thought it might not take so long after it becomes more a part of one’s practice. Sarah
said, “It seemed like an unfathomable amount of time in it, but I imagine with practice it
becomes really quite speedy, quite second nature.” She thought there was a need for the
district to support a program in which teachers are given time to work together to plan a
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lesson and try them out with their children, but also expressed frustration because she
didn’t think the district was going to do that. She remarked:
For me to independently, outside of the school day, be able to go and put in the
thought and the planning, there was a lot of thought and reflection on this - it
wasn't just yank, yank, write it down, present - and that’s what I think our day is.
So without support from the district and all of us having lives beyond our school
day I don't see us being able to do that.
Sarah thought the amount of time away from her students so much was difficult. She
often expressed frustration about the poor behavior of her students when they had
substitutes while she was gone, but to her, the benefits overcame the difficulties. She
offered another perspective on why she chose to participate in this study.
Sometimes it was difficult, being away that frequently. But I enjoyed it so from
the beginning…And once we actually began to meet, I enjoyed it more and more,
got involved in it more and more, and saw more and more benefit in it…. As I
became more knowledgeable about it, I began to see even more merit in it.
Breaking away from traditional expectations of what teachers should do with their
time was a challenge for these teachers. They complained that it was a challenge for
them to leave their children in their classrooms with guest teachers for the six half day
sessions. They felt they were already pulled away from their classrooms too many times
that year for other professional development activities. The administrators complained
about the teachers being away from the building; parents complained that their children’s
teachers would not be in the classroom. Time was a challenge in other ways. They
complained they had too much to teach and too little time. They felt they should have a
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say in how they spend their professional development time. They needed time to
construct meaning and process their new learning from the professional development.
Other teachers felt they did not have time to be collaborative and they did not have time
to teach in the way they knew they should because there was so much to teach in the
curriculum. Finding time was a challenge and not having enough time was the reason
teachers gave for leaving the program, but for the teachers who took the time, time was
an affordance.
Talk
A third theme that developed was that of talk. In order for teachers to benefit
from a collaborative investigation of practice, they need to develop substantial
professional discourse (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Fernandez et al., 2003; Grossman et al.,
2001). By substantial professional discourse Ball and Cohen (1999) mean that teachers
need to cultivate the ability to frame interpretations as conjectures, avoid definitive
conclusions, and learn how to identify and use appropriate evidence. They will need to
practice argumentation, learn to probe their own and others’ ideas, value critique, and
learn that challenges of ideas and interpretations are not meant to be personal challenges
to individuals. These are the same kinds of skills reform in education requires of our
students. The problem is that these new skills and attitudes are contrary to the present
day culture in schools in the United States. Grossman et al. (2001) argue that if teachers
don’t have the skills to argue productively without hurting feelings and to press for
clarification in a public setting, they will not be able to develop them in their students.
Since I was curious about how these teachers would talk and interact during this
program, especially during the feedback session, I asked them during their initial
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interview about their perceived ability to offer critical feedback to their colleagues.
Although teachers thought they could do this, they knew they would have to be
diplomatic and polite. But when it came time to offer critical feedback, they found this
more difficult than they anticipated. They were able to probe, question, agree and
disagree during the planning sessions, but some said they were not completely honest
during the feedback session. In this section, I look at research about conversations as it
relates to the importance of talk in establishing communities to solve problems. This
section is not meant to be an analysis of the discourse that took place but a description of
the conversations and my interpretation of what they meant over time among the
participants.
Small Talk and Big Talk
Cochran-Smith & Lytle (1993) define small talk as the pleasant exchanges in
professional contexts when teachers swap classroom stories, share specific ideas, seek
one another’s advice, or trade opinions about issues and problems in their own school or
in a larger educational arena. They use the words small talk to imply that it is not as
important as big talk; however, small talk is important too because it creates and sustains
interpersonal relationships necessary for the larger project of joint construction of
knowledge.
Senge (1994) also refers to small talk and argues that the most important factor
for learning organizations to become more effective and accept change is for members to
develop the art of conversation. He argues:
As a society we know the art of small talk…But when we face contentious issues
– when there are feelings about rights, or when two worthwhile principles come in
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contact with one another – we have so many defense mechanisms that impede
communications that we are absolutely terrible. To navigate this enormous
change we’re going through, a corporation must become good at conversation that
isn’t polite. (Senge, 1994, p.14)
Conversations are important for knowledge building within a community. “The
conversations serve as a medium for the reciprocal processes that enable participants in a
school community to construct meanings toward a common purpose about teaching and
learning” (Lambert, 1995, p. 83). Recognizing that the process of meaning-making is
developmental, Lambert warns that it is not easy and many problems will be encountered
along the way. “Conversations in school often cease when conversants encounter
discrepancies, opposition, rough spots – people back away, become silent, divert their
interests elsewhere” (Lambert, 1995, p.92). Defense mechanisms and diversions prevent
groups from moving forward and making progress toward the changes they envision.
Stigler and Hiebert (1999) argue that the reason teaching is hard to change is
because teaching is a cultural activity. The problems we have in engaging in discourse
permeate our society and contribute to why reform is difficult. Members of a learning
community, whether it is a business organization or a school, need to learn the big talk as
they build the knowledge necessary to identify and solve their problems and make
changes based on new information learned from research.
Eating lunch together seemed to facilitate the pleasant exchanges of small talk.
The morning sessions ended with a shared lunch; the afternoon sessions began with one.
Small talk often took the form of kidding or joking and continued beyond lunch time
conversations. Between discussions of Newton’s Laws and the multiplication of
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fractions there were school-related discussions about reading groups, substitutes, parents
and standardized testing. These teachers also engaged in small talk about their own
children, diaper rash, potty training, a remedy for a finger infection, credit card fraud,
food and more. Teachers seemed to have a lot on their mind and were not always focused
on the topic I brought to the table, but they were establishing the community.
Developing Big Talk
Looking more carefully at the conversations, I wanted to see if the talk developed
around bigger issues of teaching and learning and what took place when teachers
disagreed. The teachers in my study encountered rough spots. For some, the rough spots
helped them grow; for others, the rough spots may have contributed to the reasons they
dropped out.
There were three big tasks that made up the problems for teachers to work on in
this program. First, they had to define common long term goals and short term lesson
goals. The first part of the long term goal activity was to make a list, so there was no
need to come to a consensus. In some cases, a teacher said her students did not have a
quality that was listed, but since it didn’t really matter if the qualities their students had
were the same or different, the conversation remained pleasant.
The teachers did exhibit the characteristics of diversion, backing away, and
becoming silent as described by Lambert (1995) when they had to agree on the qualities
they would like to see in their students. Because of the nature of this discussion teachers
revealed their attitudes and beliefs about teaching and learning. Differences in opinions
were presented and argued. Disagreements first took place, not face to face, but in
electronic writing using CoWeb (Guzdial, 1999). It was easier for the teachers to
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disagree with a person who was not present. I hoped that conversations would continue
on this web page. They did not; in this respect, Co Web may not be practical for
sustaining conversations. It was useful for recording ideas and making them visible to
the community.
When one of the teachers distanced herself from the community by saying, “It’s
your thing”, another teacher diverted the conversation with a funny anecdote. This
teacher who made the comment left the group after the first meeting. She gave different
reasons for dropping out and these are discussed in the next chapter. Teachers that
remained found personal value in the evolving community and its purpose. They felt
comfortable with each other and started to ask questions, probe for clarification, and
express uncertainty of their own ideas.
The second problem or task of planning the lesson was considered to be a very
worthwhile activity by these participants. They valued the time spent discussing in depth
the content of the lesson, how the lesson would be taught, and thinking about what the
children might do or say. The teachers asked questions, probed for clarification, and
admitted they did not know. They were open to hearing each other’s ideas. They were
developing the disposition of inquiry (Ball & Cohen, 1999).
The Annenberg video, Drag Races (2001), was useful as a resource in planning
the science lesson. For example, following the features of inquiry from Inquiry and the
National Science Education Standards (NRC, 2000), when I asked what would be a good
question to start the guided inquiry lesson, one of the teachers remembered seeing the
teacher in the video start her lesson with two focus questions. A lengthy discussion
evaluated the strengths and weaknesses of different possible inquiry questions for our
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lesson. When I suggested we include a place on the worksheet for the students to write
their conclusion, they remembered that the students in the video discussed conclusions.
We then discussed what conclusions we might expect from the students in our activity.
After the initial confusion about the multiplication of fractions, Taber’s (2002)
chapter was used as a resource to build a framework for the pre-test. The pre-test then
informed the content of the mathematics lesson. Although there were only two other
teachers besides me present for the last planning session of the mathematics lesson we
agreed that instead of teaching an algorithm for multiplying fractions, we would give the
students experiences to develop the meaning.
The video and Taber chapter were examples of distributed material intelligences
(Pea, 1993). Pea argues that intelligence is not a property in the mind of individuals
because the mind rarely works alone. Intelligences are distributed “across minds,
persons, and the symbolic and physical environments, both natural and artificial” (Pea,
1993, p. 47). Material intelligences are artifacts designed by people engaged in an
activity who then distribute them to others to advance and shape their engagement in
similar activities. The video and print materials were very useful resources in discussing
and planning lessons that are aligned with reform standards and helped advance these
teachers’ participation and discourse in the activity.
Comparing Their Ideas about Critical Feedback
The third big task, feedback after the implementation of the lesson, perhaps was
less successful with respect to the disposition of inquiry as some teachers were cautionary
or silent. In this section I compare what the teachers said about their perceived ability to
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give and receive critical feedback at the beginning of the program to what they said
afterwards.
Before the program. Most teachers did not anticipate a problem giving their
colleagues critical feedback during their initial interviews. In giving critical feedback,
they knew that they would have to be tactful, but they also commented that they desired
such feedback for themselves so they could improve their own teaching. Sharon
responded to my question about her ability to offer critical feedback to her colleagues:
Sharon: I don’t think I’d have a problem because I have to do that on a
daily basis with my students. So it’s not like you choose to be
mean. It’s like you’re kind of explaining where you’re coming
from – ‘Gosh, I looked at it totally different than you’ or ‘I think
that was really cool but I’m wondering why you did it this way?’
You have to be very diplomatic.
Monica: Would it make you feel uncomfortable?
Sharon: It would depend on why or who.
Marilyn’s response was similar.
Marilyn: Well, you see. I think you can give any feedback in a positive
way, even if it is something that needs work on. I mean just like
with kids. You don't say to them, that was bad and you did it
wrong. You find a way to say it so that it is helpful and that they
feel like, good, I gave it a good effort and if I do it this way the
next time it will work even better. And I think you do the same
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thing, you know, when giving feedback to adults or kids, it's done
the same way.
Monica: How do you feel about getting that kind of feedback?
Marilyn: I'd love it. I wish somebody would come in and tell me, you know,
because when you go through school and then you get into the
classroom and then there's nobody to help you again and nobody
sees what you're doing so you just have to assume you are doing it
right and I would love to have somebody come in and say, you
know what, maybe you should try this, or maybe you should try
that.
Megan didn’t see a problem with receiving critical feedback. She responded to
this question in her initial interview: “Oh, it makes me feel good. I like having my
feedback. Especially like on my evaluation, because what I think I may be doing, are
really areas that I could use some strengthening or, I need to know those things.” She
was not as sure about how she would give critical feedback to other teachers because she
was a first year teacher and she said she’s not sure of herself and what she offers may not
be right. Responding to the question about how she would give critical feedback, she
replied:
Delicately, because I'm a first year teacher - I don't have the experience of
somebody who's been in the classroom for a long time. What I think may be
right, might not be the best way. So I think I would, I would probably start out by
saying, "I think I would try to do this", or "I might, I might not have tried it the
way you did. I think I probably would have done this differently.” You know, not
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to say that's right or wrong, because I don't have a lot of experience to really say
what is right and wrong…I know it doesn't bother me when people say that I need
to do things differently or if they suggest, it doesn't bother me because I need that
right now at this point in my career. But to give it out is a lot harder, so I think
that I would just probably, maybe, especially if it is something that I've tried
before, and I know works, I might say "You know what, I tried, and I really find
this to work.
She added that she already shares ideas when she’s at lunch but she thinks it's
really difficult when you sit somebody down and say "You know, I noticed about your
lesson, it wasn't working, and you might want to try something different".
Mary Ellen thought she would be comfortable with voicing her opinion if there
was something she didn’t agree with, but she added that she is not the type of person who
strongly disagrees with things because there are multiple methods of teaching:
Monica: If you're talking with another teacher, and they tell you something
that you don't agree with, then what would you say or what would
you do? Would you have a conversation about it?
Mary Ellen: I would voice my opinion, yes.
Monica: And how do you feel about voicing your opinion when it's
different from what that person believes in? How does that make
you feel?
Mary Ellen: Well it doesn't make me feel bad or anything. I just figure, you
know, there is always other ways of looking at things, and I'm not,
if I give a suggestion, it might not be the right way to do it.
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Monica: Are you comfortable giving somebody feedback that...
Mary Ellen: Yeah, I could. But I'm not a person that strongly disagrees on
anything. I really don't. I mean if somebody says this is what
works for them, then, you know, that's what works for them, and
maybe it does work for some children.
Monica: How do you, how would you feel about receiving feedback from
other teachers?
Mary Ellen: I don't think it would bother me, just, I guess it would depend how
they said it… I'd try to say it in a nice way. Oh, that's not any
good, you don't know what you're doing, you know. No, I think
sharing ideas is very important, and I would be glad to hear what
someone else would have to say, any suggestions to make it easier
and to make it better for the children to learn.
Sylvia also felt critical feedback was necessary at times although she hoped
whoever gave her the feedback would be constructive.
Sylvia: I think it is necessary. I would hope someone would do it for me,
because if there was something that I could have done better, but
yet no one told me that, no one said, you know what, I saw what
you did and yeah it worked, but you know, if you maybe
approached it this way...But it needs to be constructive, not
destructive. I don't want someone biting me down and they need to
make sure that they are saying it in the right frame and not a
condescending sort of way.
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Monica: How would you personally feel then if you had to say something to
another person?
Sylvia: It's two ways. I would try to treat the same person the way I want
to be treated. It goes with how you are raised. You treat others
how you want to be treated and that's what I've always learned. I
try my very hardest and sometimes you know I say things before I
really think about it and I may step on someone's toes, but I always
make sure I go back and say, you know, I really didn't mean it this
way. I was trying to look at it in a different light that you may not
have seen and I just wanted to be helpful.
After the program. Teachers thought they would be able to give critical feedback
at the beginning of this experience, but this changed. To compare their feelings before
and after, I asked the teachers during the final interviews how they felt about giving
critical or constructive feedback to their colleagues. The teachers who thought they could
do this found it more difficult than they anticipated. One teacher admitted it was difficult
because she knew she would be seeing these teachers everyday. Another said she was
reluctant to speak during the feedback session because she already felt intimidated by
existing feelings.
During the final interview, I asked Sharon if she felt she received constructive
feedback. She responded:
I don't know if I was just so wonderful or if they just were kind. No, I think, I
don't know. I think we were pretty honest, but I wouldn't expect anyone to, like,
if they totally didn't agree with the lesson, or didn't think it went well, or
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whatever, I wouldn't expect them to be honest about it. I think they might say
"my concern was..." and then limit what they say with that concern, or something
like that. I think that's a really hard thing for people who practice everyday
supporting each other and saying "oh, that's a good idea" and really enjoying what
each other are doing, but when it comes right down to analyzing what that person,
how that person presents something, I think, we're probably not as, I don't want to
say we're not honest. It's just that maybe we're not adding all of the comments
that we could add, or something, if we think it could have gone better, or we think
something might have added or helped, or whatever. I bet you that that's really
hard to find.
I asked her if there was something that she would have found more useful from
her point of view. She responded, “I think seeing somebody else teach the exact same
lesson might have been useful. I think, see I didn't really get a lot of constructive
criticism. I got a lot of very positive comments.”
I asked Marilyn if she felt her colleagues were honest during the feedback session
for the mathematics lesson. She responded:
I think that people were pretty up front and honest. I really do. I mean, I heard
some criticisms about mine, and I know that I gave at least one about Sharon’s, so
I have to think that people were pretty honest.
I asked her what would make feedback more constructive or useful, from her point of
view. She responded:
Well, I mean it has to be something that, and I don't know exactly how to define
this, but, not petty, like not a petty thing, but something that would actually make
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the lesson better. And in a way that does not demean or make the other person
feel bad…Like, you know, my comment about the play time with the equipment
wasn't so much against Sharon, or the way she did her lesson or chose to do that.
It was probably more aimed at me thinking of a lot of what changes would I make
to that. And this is a change I'd make. Not that my change is better or worse, so I
think that, I guess I see the constructive response as more…of well here's
something maybe you didn't think about that I think I would do. So it's not like,
you're bad, you're wrong". It's more like, "well, maybe you didn't even think
about this, and this is something. Yours worked, but maybe this would work too,
or maybe this would work better.
When I asked one of the teachers who observed the lesson how she felt about
giving feedback, she replied that she gave good criticisms. She explained:
I was giving feedback, since I was the feedback giver, I didn't want to be harsh on
anybody because they're my friends. That was the hardest part. But I was honest,
nicely honest. But most of, I think I did two [comments], and I think I gave them
both very good, you know, criticisms. And I praised them for some of the things
that they did that I probably wouldn't have thought of myself.
This teacher was very concerned about not hurting her colleague’s feelings. She
compared this experience to her experiences giving critical feedback to classmates in her
graduate courses. She found it more difficult to give critical feedback to her colleagues
she sees everyday. She said:
I was wondering if people's feelings were going to get hurt. You know that type
thing. Because before it was with strangers and I really didn't care if I hurt their
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feelings because it was like, it was college. It was different. I wouldn't see them
until the next week…but when you are with your colleagues and your friends, you
can't do that. It's different. You have all that invested with them. And you don't
want to hurt anyone and you don't want to step on anyone's toes. And you don't
want to nix their ideas. And so I wasn't sure how that was going to go, but it
ended up fine, which was great, yeah.
She eventually noted that the reason she did not have to be critical of her colleagues
because she felt they did a great job with teaching the lessons.
Like I said, I gave feedback, but I didn't criticize. And I don't think I didn't
criticize because they were my friends. I think I didn't criticize because I actually
did think they did a great job. They covered all the bases. They were very clear
and concise. Their presentations, their introductions were great. Their conclusions
were great with the kids.
Another colleague did not offer critical feedback although she originally said it
would not be a problem for her. The problem of time was offered as one of the reasons
for her difficulty. She said, “I had a hard time with the feedback sessions. I think we
were feeling a little rushed. I think that if we had more time to donate to each of them…I
still felt very reserved about sharing anything I felt.” She seemed to be disappointed that
there were not more constructive ideas shared.
I don't think anyone said anything negative whatsoever. And I don't think that's
constructive. Because there's, yes there are positives that they did that need to be
shared with them so they can see that they had a very good lesson; but I think that
there's constructive ideas of how to better work the lesson. And that's what we
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were there for, is to look at the lesson, and see how it can be improved and how to
give criticism, constructive, towards them.
She explained what she thought about the science lesson but didn’t share with the group:
I just felt that, in some cases, she wasn't going where I necessarily would have
gone, and, I thought in some cases she was beating it, you know, with a broom,
going on too far on one thing, and not moving it on, but, I thought she did a very
good job.
She said she did not offer constructive criticisms during the feedback session because she
had a hard time finding the words and the way to say it:
I think whatever I would have said would have sounded negative to certain
people…sometimes I have a hard time wording things correctly. And, I think
some of the things I might have said I wouldn't have thought through well
enough, and it may have sounded very nasty.
The feedback session was uncomfortable for still another teacher who shared her
thoughts about it, from both the perspective of the teachers who taught the lesson and
how she would feel if she was on the receiving end:
It was a little uncomfortable because I was the low person on the totem pole and
it's kind of difficult to give feedback to a teacher who has experience already
because it's just, to me, they’re brilliant teachers, everyone of them and I love
working with them, but to give constructive criticism, I wasn't trying to criticize
any body's style of teaching. In fact, we were criticizing our own lesson, but I
know personally, I probably would have taken some of that, I would have taken it
personally if I was presenting a lesson and other people were giving me feedback
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about what I could have changed. That was a little uncomfortable, just because, I,
I didn't feel I had the right to tell them what they should do different or what I
would have done different. So that was just a little uncomfortable, but I did enjoy
the openness.
The next teacher thought everyone was honest during the feedback session,
although they were a bit cautious, and thought that this cautiousness would improve if
there were more opportunities:
We were probably a bit cautious of hurting feelings. Still in that I think it would
come with more exposure to this because I just think your comfort level would
increase. But I think we came close to being totally candid and analytical about
it. We were very analytical.
The last teacher I interviewed thought critical feedback was not the
best term for what she observed during the feedback session. She
thought “sharing insights” would be a better phrase. I asked her if
the teachers in our group shared their insights. She said, “Yeah, I
think we did…I think we were sharing our feeling or what we
thought, or felt about it.”
My reflection. Chokshi et al. (2001) designed a protocol for this feedback
session that I had, but did not follow carefully. Had I followed this protocol, all the
members of the group would have an opportunity to comment on some aspect of the
lesson study before the teacher who taught the lesson responds. The teachers who taught
the lesson have qualities that made them more comfortable in volunteering to teach the
lesson. One of these qualities was evident throughout the session - their ability to speak
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up and have their voices heard. This is a good quality to have, but as the facilitator, I
needed to provide more opportunities to hear the voices of those teachers who are less
outspoken. This same problem occurs in the classroom – teachers need to learn to give
all the students an opportunity to offer their ideas. The protocol would allow for every
person to contribute to the discussion. This is important for all the teachers to know that
their ideas are important and needed. Although near the end I asked teachers who did not
contribute much if they had anything to say, but by that time it was too late. They said
they had nothing to say, but I found out that they did. Having two feedback sessions
back to back was also not a good idea. It was an exciting adventure, but it made a long
day.
There was so much more to learn from the lesson. In her handbook, Lewis
(Lewis, 2002b) describes how the Japanese limit the discussion during the feedback time.
Once a problem is identified, their unwritten rule is that it is not mentioned again, but the
Japanese do not consider the research lesson as over. They continue to have informal
discussions about it.
Summary
Themes of individualism, time and talk appear in my study, but these themes are
not new. Grossman et al. (2001) found individualism in what they describe as
pseudocommunities showing that not much has changed since Lortie’s study of nearly 30
years ago. Teachers still work individually, even though they may be grouped in some
way. This is similar to what you see in classrooms – children working individually as
they sit side by side in groups. Until teachers have successful experiences working in
communities where they are socially interdependent, decide on common goals and work
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together to achieve them, they are not going to be able to give these experiences to the
students in their classrooms.
Compared to other professions, teachers don’t have the time to meet with their
colleagues. Almost every minute of the working day teachers are in contact with their
students. Reform efforts recommend new norms of discourse in the classroom, but
unless the teachers have an opportunity to learn and participate in this new kind of talk, it
is not going to appear in their classrooms.
The fact that these issues keep appearing in the literature is a reflection on their
resiliency. Shifts in the structure of the occupation of teaching in America need to occur.
They are not going to happen by introducing programs like Lesson Study. A collaborative
investigation of practice is a very appealing kind of form of professional development,
but unless these issues are addressed in the design of this program, other groups are going
to encounter the same challenges. Some teachers in my study were able to work around
these problems. This shows that it is possible; however, it is not going to happen in a
reliable way until these issues are addressed.
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CHAPTER V
THE CHALLENGES
Half way through the program, the teachers at Greenfield said their plates were
full. They were too busy to continue the sessions and their principal asked me to excuse
them from the rest of the sessions. But the teachers at Forest Hills had a busy schedule
too; they were involved in the same activities that filled the plates of the Greenfield
teachers. Teachers and students at both schools were piloting a new district assessment;
both schools had picture day; field day and all the various end of term activities were
coming up later that month. The Greenfield teachers dropped out while the teachers at
Forest Hills continued with the program. What made the difference? In this chapter, I
will describe what happened and offer my ideas for why some teachers stayed while
others dropped out.
The Surprise Announcement
Between the third and fourth sessions, I heard that two Forest Hills teachers
would be absent for the next session. Of these two teachers, one signed up in the fall for
a reading conference which was scheduled for the same day as our session, but she was
not going to be able to attend that conference. Since the district already paid her
registration fee, she asked other teachers - among them were lesson study participants - if
they wanted to take her place. The second of these two teachers planning to be absent
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told me she would have eye surgery for the day before our scheduled session so she
would need to be absent the following day for her recovery.
I wondered if another lesson study teacher would decide to attend the reading
conference in place of the first teacher or if any of the other teachers also planned an
absence for that day. Since we experienced substitute problems during the previous two
sessions, I sent an e-mail to the group asking them to let me know ahead of time if they
were going to be absent. Almost immediately, the principal from Greenfield sent an e-
mail back asking me to excuse all of his teachers.
Surprised by this message, I went to see him. He explained there was so much
going on at his school - their plates were full. I told him that I was aware of many of
these activities and, at the end of the last session, I tried to accommodate some of them
by trying to figure out a different meeting day, but the calendar was full for everybody.
During this discussion he mentioned the various activities that were scheduled and said,
in fact, that his teachers would have to miss the fifth session too. I explained that the fifth
session was the implementation of the lesson. If teachers did not observe the lesson, the
feedback session for the last meeting date would not be meaningful; thus, if they were
going to miss the next two sessions, they were dropping out of the program. He found
that acceptable and told me that all his teachers asked him to “get them out of this.” I
was surprised that he said all the teachers but he wouldn’t tell me who specifically was
involved in that conversation. He said they were together in the hall discussing this and
they all felt the same way. I told him I would honor his decision.
At the end of the meeting he thanked me and said he supported my efforts at his
school, but I was curious. It did not really surprise me that two of them would want to
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leave, but I wanted to talk to them myself. I called three of the four teachers that
weekend.
Their Reasons
I talked to Ms. Miller on the phone; she told me she was stressed. I knew she had
substitute problems with her students while she attended the sessions. She already told
me about some of these difficulties. All the teachers had some problems with their
students and substitutes; however, Ms. Miller had a particularly difficult incident in her
class while she was out for the second session. She had to switch groups for this session
because of a coverage problem with the substitute. This may have been a part of the
problem.
As mentioned in the description of the second meeting session, while I was
getting ready that morning at central office, the principal from Greenfield called to say
that Ms. Seymour was absent. Of the two substitutes that were scheduled in his building
for the teachers participating in this program, one was needed in Ms. Seymour’s class for
the whole day; she had been absent for several days already because of a back problem.
The second substitute would be needed for the teacher who was attending another all day
workshop. He would only be able to send one of his teachers. Who should it be?
Since Ms. Snyder did not have her own class, she occasionally substituted for
other teachers. It was decided that she would sub for the teacher who was attending the
other workshop. Then Ms. McHugh and Ms. Miller would be able to attend, but this
created another problem - both of these teachers were in the morning group. I needed to
have one of these teachers come to the afternoon meeting.
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Ms. McHugh did not teach science, so I didn’t see how she would benefit from
attending the science group’s session. I decided to have Ms. Miller move to the science
lesson study group for the afternoon. It was not ideal, of course, to have a teacher leave
her group to join another group, even for one session, but I would rather see two teachers
attend the session than just one. Ms. Miller and I worked together in her science class
during the first semester. She enjoyed the science lessons we planned and taught
together. I knew her contributions would benefit the group and she could benefit from
them. This last minute change was made. Ms. McHugh would meet with the morning
group as scheduled; Ms. Miller would come in the afternoon.
Still, another problem surfaced, perhaps as a result of the way this first problem
was resolved. Ms. Miller mentioned that the lessons she prepared for her substitute were
for her morning activities and now her substitute would be there in the afternoon. For
many teachers and classes, this would not be a problem. Sudden changes in the schedule
occur frequently in the classroom. Perhaps this was hard for Ms. Miller, since she was a
new teacher, but it was also hard for one of her students. He created an unusually
difficult situation for the substitute.
During the final interview, Ms. Miller described what happened that contributed
to this student’s problems that afternoon. Earlier that week, the students were preparing
their speeches for career day. This child said he couldn't work on his because he didn't
have any information on what he wanted to be. He said he wanted to be a serial killer.
Thinking that he was just trying to be difficult, she ignored his statement and encouraged
him to work with another student on the classroom computer. While she attended the
second lesson study session later that week, this child shoved desks and books and yelled
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that he was going to kill everybody. The principal removed him from the room and when
Ms. Miller returned to school she had a telephone conference with his mother. They
decided that this student should write an apology to the other students.
At home that evening, the mother read the apology her son wrote but did not
approve of it. She asked him to write it over but he refused. He dropped to the floor and
threw a tantrum. She sent him to his room but within fifteen minutes, he trashed it. Ms.
Miller said, “He took off his shirt. He painted himself red like an Indian; he toilet
papered everything in his room and himself.” The mother took him to the hospital and
the child was admitted. He spent more than a week in observation and therapy. Upon his
return to school he was placed in the district’s emotionally impaired classroom at Forest
Hills.
After this event Ms. Miller said she was hesitant to leave her class again. She told
me during the final interview, “The last time I was out of the classroom, they had to get
two subs for me. I wasn't allowed out anymore.” When I probed for more details about
this situation and asked her who said she was not allowed out, she replied that nobody
did, but that was how she felt. It was easy to understand why she might ask the principal
to get her out of coming to the rest of the lesson study sessions after that experience. It
was easy to imagine how happy the principal would be to have this teacher stay in her
room instead of dealing with her children’s problems while she was not there.
It did also not a surprise to me that Ms. Seymour wanted to get out of the
program. She sent me an e-mail responding to my inquiry about anticipated absences for
the fourth session on the same day I received the one from her principal. She wrote:
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Monica, I'm sorry I will not be able to attend next week's lesson study. I'm very
intrigued by this and find it to be beneficial, but I've been out so much this year
that I just cannot afford any more time out of my classroom. We also have several
things going on that day in the building. (Personal e-mail communication, April
26, 2001)
I sent an e-mail to the science group, which included Ms. Seymour, the next day
about a web site that had the entire text of the forces and motion book (Robertson, 2002)
published by the NSTA press that we referred to during our last meeting. The first two
chapters of this book were shared with them and they found them helpful in
understanding the science content. In this message I asked Ms. Seymour if she received a
copy of those two chapters since she was not present at that meeting. She again
responded by e-mail: “Thank you Monica and again I'm very sorry about the Lesson
Study. I hope you understand that I see its usefulness. It's just a very bad time to be out.”
She already told me she was not attending the next session in her previous e-mail; in a
very nice way she reinforced the idea that she was no longer participating. She didn’t say
if she received the printed copies of the two chapters and I didn’t see a need to call her
that weekend.
During the first session, Ms. Seymour was one of the two teachers who
complained about leaving her classroom. She said then that she did not have the time
because she was already out of her classroom so many times during the year for personal
absences and other professional development activities, including the technology
activities required by the technology grant. She also said didn’t know where this
program was going. During the end of that first session she said,
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How do we have time to do these lesson studies and meet like this; half days and
things like that? I mean it seems like this is something we are experimenting
with, but where's it going to go? I guess my question was, “Where's it going?”
I reflected on her participation up to this point. During the discussion on long
term goals she made the comment, “I don’t know. It’s your thing.” Perhaps she did not
feel a part of the group, but she seemed to be comfortable sharing her classroom
successes with cooperative learning for a lengthy time earlier during this first session.
She was out for an extended absence with a back problem for the second session and she
knowingly planned a field trip with her teaching partner, Ms. McHugh, for the same day
as the third session. From one perspective, it might seem that Ms. Seymour’s choice to
drop out of the program was made during the first session. Considering her absences
from the second and third sessions, it was not hard for me to imagine that she would ask
the principal to get out of the lesson study group. Of all the teachers in the group, Ms.
Seymour was the only teacher who I did not yet work with in her classroom. I did not
know her very well and she did not know me.
What surprised me the most from the principal’s announcement was that the other
two teachers from Greenfield wanted to stop coming to the sessions too. At the time I
was getting a different message from them. After the first session Ms. Snyder went
online and downloaded several science lessons that taught the concepts of forces and
motion, the topic which we were considering for our study lesson. When she found out
that she could not attend the second session, she sent these lessons to the group through
the school mail system so we would have them for our meeting. On another occasion,
Ms. Snyder told me she tried to encourage Ms. Seymour to come to the sessions because
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she was learning so much and that she thought Ms. Seymour would like it too, if she tried
it. It was hard to imagine that Ms. Snyder would ask the principal to be excused from the
rest of the program. I called her at home that weekend. She told me that it was
uncomfortable for her to be the only one from the school attending the sessions. She was
concerned about other teachers’ complaints; they missed their prep time when she was
not in the building. Ms. Snyder later attended the fifth session, which was the
implementation of the science lesson; she also attended the feedback session for the
science lesson.
It also surprised me somewhat that Ms. McHugh wanted to get out of the
program. She volunteered to teach the lesson during the first session. On several
occasions she said that she was excited about doing this, but these words were mixed
with concern. Although I explained that the observations would be focused on the
students and what they were thinking and doing during the lesson, she still seemed to take
it personally. During her first interview she said,
I would just like to know that, and I hope that everybody will be really subjective
and not be worried about hurting my feelings, because I'm not going to hold any
personal grudges because I have never had this and I really am excited…I think it
is fine. I'm excited to do it. It should be interesting to get some different
viewpoints for sure.
When she asked if another teacher would teach the lesson too, I responded that
that was the plan and hoped there was time. She replied, “I'd like to sit on both sides of
the fence. I need to see, especially with me having done it first and then being able to
look back. I'm cool.” She may have been trying to convince herself, more than me, that
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she was cool with the idea of teaching the lesson. I learned more about Ms. McHugh’s
feelings about teaching the lesson after I listened to the audio tapes of the second session
while I analyzed data. In a discussion while I was out of the room, the group talked about
teaching the lesson and Ms. McHugh said to the other teachers present, “You get to slam-
dunk me.”
I called her too that weekend, but she was not home. I left a message. She didn’t
return my call but sent an e-mail message the next day. It read:
I received your [phone] message yesterday but I did not get in until really late. I
wanted to explain to you how I stand on the Group issue. I am all for it. I think it
is a wonderful idea and would love to participate. However, the timing is bad. We
have testing and a million other things going on and I feel that I need to be in my
room. It wouldn’t be fair to my kids. If there was anyway I could do it and we
could rearrange things I would. I respect you as a colleague and appreciate
everything you have done for me and my students this year. I hope this will not
jeapordize [sic] our friendship. (Personal e-mail communication, April 29, 2002)
In her email, Ms. McHugh didn’t think it was fair to her children to be away from
her room so much and the timing was bad. Her given reasons did not change when I
discussed this with her during the final interview. At that time she said:
I think a lot of it was the timing last year. I think near the end of the year a lot of
teachers didn't want to take the time off of school. It had nothing to do with you.
It had nothing to do with the concept or the idea. I think it was last year we had so
much going on with looping. I know for me personally, I had looping; we had the
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whole prospect of the ITI6. I think it was just a lot of things going on at one time
which is, I have the understanding now, that's just how education is. There's never
a dull moment. There's always so many things going on. I think a lot of it had to
do with the timing…That's for me. That was the main reason. I don't want to
answer for the other teachers, but from my perspective, that had a lot to do with it.
Asking these teachers to leave their classrooms for six half day sessions, even
though they were spread out over a period of three months, was an issue for all of them.
Like Ms. Seymour, Ms. McHugh was absent quite a bit that year. She had a medical
condition that required her absence from school, but during the final interview she also
talked about the change in the district’s incentive policy for attendance. Previously,
teachers were paid a pro-rated incentive at the end of the year for not using all or a part of
their allotted sick days for that year. When there was a shortage of substitutes in the
district, the district found this policy helped keep the classrooms staffed, but when the
number of available substitutes increased, this incentive policy was withdrawn. As a
result, teachers felt they may as well use their sick days because they would eventually
lose them. In addition to the withdrawal of the attendance bonus, there was another
recent policy change concerning the accumulation of sick days. Ms. McHugh said, “I
went to that meeting and they said well you can't use these…and then I said, well I got
these. I might as well use them. I'm glad that I have…27 saved right now and I burned
them all.” In contrast to that, Ms. McHugh said that in her first year, she didn’t take off a
single day and she took off only two days in her second year.
6 This school received a grant to participate in Susan Kovalik’s ITI (Integrated Thematic Instruction) program during the following summer and the next school year. See http://www.kovalik.com/ for information about this program.
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In addition to the personal days Ms. McHugh and Ms. Seymour took, there were
the other professional development days for the technology grant where teachers were
required to leave their classrooms for shorter periods of time. Finding time for
professional development is a problem for American schools. The hodge-podge of
professional development (Ball & Cohen, 1999) was evident in this district.
The reasons these teachers gave for dropping out of the program, on the surface,
were reasonable. Ms. Seymour already missed many days of school and she didn’t see
much worth in spending time with this project since she did not see where it was going in
the district. Ms. Miller was stressed and felt she should not be out of the room. Ms.
Snyder didn’t want to be the only one coming from her school and hear comments from
the other teachers about why she was not giving them their extra prep time. It was bad
timing for Ms. McHugh and she also missed many days of school. Their plates were full.
Their excuses and reasons they gave for leaving the program were issues of timing and
having too much to do; they felt that they were out of the classroom too much. They did
not object to this collaborative lesson planning and teaching experience, in fact, they all
said that it was a good idea.
Given the reasons mentioned, I wondered what kept the teachers from Forest Hills
from dropping out of the program too. The data analysis began to reveal other patterns
that were common among the teachers that stayed and those that left. Participation in
this program required risk-taking. Why were the Forest Hills teachers willing to take that
risk? Certain conditions need to exist for this risk-taking to occur and I will describe and
develop these conditions in the sections that follow.
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Behind the Closed Doors
American teachers teach behind closed doors, but the doors were about to open
for the teachers in this study. The teachers from both groups were similar in that they
were curious about what happens in their colleagues’ classrooms. In their initial
interviews, some of these teachers talked about creeping and peeking into rooms, spying
and stealing ideas whenever they could. They all thought sharing ideas with colleagues
was a valuable activity. Inviting other teachers in for a visit during a lesson was a
different matter and the level of confidence needed for interactions with this type of
activity with their colleagues was challenged.
Sharing ideas. All of these teachers thought talking to other teachers and sharing
ideas was a worthwhile activity for them. During their initial interviews, I was impressed
with the enthusiasm displayed when I asked them if they thought talking with other
teachers was worthwhile. Marilyn said,
If I have something that has just been, wow, the kids got it, they liked it, it worked
well, I'll share it with everybody I talk to and I also will ask anybody how to do
anything, even if it is something that I've already found a successful way to teach,
I'm more than willing to add on.
Sarah responded, “Yes. Absolutely! Wow! Emphatic! Three exclamation
marks!!!” She continued:
Because I think we all have such set personalities and set ways of doing
something that when you care how someone else taught it or reached success, it's
just this, I don't know, epiphany, um, of "Oh, I could do it that way!" So
sometimes we just don't think out of our own box that we are in. So sharing, well,
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as much grief as it sounds like these conferences and meetings have caused across
the district, I'm the person who is like real grateful for it because it's giving me
insight into how other people are working, how other buildings are doing
something and even the process. I mean, I'm not even, I'm still not sure what
MLPP is, you know. It's just everyone throws around terms assuming that you
have some knowledge base and quite often you don't. So when we've had an
opportunity to sit and share, that has been most valuable to me as well as
introducing me to personalities in the district that I didn't even know were there.
Sarah’s comment about the grief across the district referred to the complaints
made by the teachers and principals when they were first informed of their expected
participation in this study. Ms. McHugh had fewer words to say about sharing ideas with
other colleagues, but they were, “Absolutely! Absolutely!” Ms. Miller agreed about the
sharing of ideas with other teachers. She said:
I only see it as a plus. I don't know because you can get different ideas from
different people and it gives you time to vent and get over things that have
happened and different things happen in a different way and, no, I've always just
seen it as a plus.
Given such positive reactions, I wondered what they thought about talking to
teachers who had a different philosophy than theirs. I began to ask some of them if they
could imagine a time that sharing ideas with another teacher would not be useful. I first
asked this question of Ms. Miller: “But what if they offer you something that you don't
think is very worthwhile or you don't agree with?” She responded:
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You don't have to use it. You can just take it with a grain of salt or for what it is
worth. There is always good and a suggestion is just a suggestion. It's not the
right way or the wrong way, it's just a suggestion and not everything works for
every person either.
When I asked Mary Ellen if she could think of an example when sharing ideas with
another teacher was not useful, she responded:
I don't think I really can, because if it's something you don't agree with or you
don't, you just don't have to use it, I guess, you know… I just figure, you know,
there is always other ways of looking at things.
Marilyn didn’t think there could there be any time when sharing with another isn't
worthwhile. She replied,
Not that I've found. It’s just, insanity… There are times when you just feel like
you beat your head against the wall with a specific concept and you know you are
not getting it to your kids and I think you've got to be not afraid to go to the other
teachers and say, look, I don't know what else to do. Give me some ideas if you
have them.
At first, Ms. McHugh also could not think of any times when it might not be
worthwhile, but then suggested that she would not bother to have a conversation about
teaching with certain teachers. She revealed her thoughts:
I can think of some teachers that I probably wouldn't ask…I think some teachers
are set in their ways of teaching things and they don't flex and they don't bend and
they don't do anything different. They teach this standard way of doing it and so
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they just have a pattern of teaching and maybe the kids don't learn but they just
are set.
All the teachers in this study were the same in that they were enthusiastic about
sharing ideas about their practice, even if what they did not agree with what they heard.
They could easily choose who to share with or ignore what was said. Perhaps in choosing
not to participate, they were making their choice.
Observing other teachers. Most of the sharing these teachers value so highly
takes place during conversations just before or after school or in the teachers’ lounge
during lunch time, but talking about what was happens in the classroom is not the same
as going into another classroom and observing what actually happens during instruction.
Most teachers do not get a chance to observe each other in their classroom.
Some of the teachers at Forest Hills were different from the teachers at Greenfield
in this regard. Three teachers from Forest Hills said they were already involved in
observing each other teach. Marilyn worked with another teacher combining classes in
previous school years, although this teacher was no longer at the school. In the school
year during which this study took place, Sarah said she once visited Melissa’s room and
observed language arts instruction. Megan said she was arranging a time observe Melissa
also; I do not know that visit actually occurred.
The usual reason for teaching in the presence of other educators in American
schools is for evaluative purposes during student teaching or early in a teacher’s career;
that person present usually has a supervisory or evaluative role. Megan described in her
final interview how she felt about this evaluation process. She said, “Who really likes
evaluation time, when the principal has to evaluate? Nobody does. Everybody is stressed
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out when that happens and you know you don't teach the same as you would any other
day.” Her feeling is probably typical for most teachers.
Other than evaluation time, if teachers teach with another teacher present in the
room, it is because they made that choice. For example, two teachers might choose to
combine their classes to form a multiage grouping or some other kind of team teaching
situation such as one that integrates content. Teachers involved in this arrangement seek
out teachers they trust and who hold common philosophies and beliefs about teaching.
This was the case for Marilyn; for several years previously she teamed with another
teacher from Forest Hills. She told me they liked it so much they wanted the district to
knock down the wall that separated their rooms.
In other cases where one teaches in front of another, the teacher has a coaching or
mentoring role, such as mine; all of my lessons are taught with another teacher present in
the room. I had the position of Learning Specialist for two years at Forest Hills, one year
was full time. But this was my first year at Greenfield and I was there only one day a
week. I did not have a chance to teach in the classrooms of two of the teachers from
Greenfield who participated in this program. In addition, I spent a lot of time working
with a teacher at Greenfield who was having difficulty in her classrooms. Perhaps I was
viewed as a coach for teachers with difficulties by the teachers at Greenfield.
The teachers who taught the lessons could be characterized as risk takers and
confident, but it was still not easy for them. The night before the lesson implementation,
Sharon said she stayed at school until 8:30 p.m. She shared this knowledge with me that
morning while I was setting up the camera to videotape the lessons. I asked her why she
was at school so late and she said she was catching up. She also mentioned that she
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missed an after school activity with her daughter that evening. She was supposed to drive
another child home and she forgot. Shortly after she told me this Marilyn walked into the
room with a cup of coffee in her hand. She told me that morning that she was up from 2
a.m. until 5 a.m. and that this was beginning to become a new sleep pattern for her.
It was not easy for Sharon in still another way. In her first interview she said she
would enjoy comments from other teachers because “I like to learn. That’s why I teach.”
But the day of the lesson implementation and feedback session she found it difficult to
focus her attention on the mathematics lesson she observed shortly after teaching the
science lesson. She told me what was on her mind:
It was extremely hard to focus on her lesson because I'm still reeling from what
people might be thinking about mine, how it went, what I did, what I could have
done differently, how the kids reacted, were the groupings right? I mean, there is
so much to think about.
Being observed by other teachers was difficult for the teachers who were
confident enough to try it, but breaking away from experience in this way may have
contributed to the reasons for the teachers who dropped out of the program. Ms. Miller
said she had problems with leaving her children with a substitute, but in a conversation
with her in between sessions she mentioned that she hoped to attend another all day
workshop later in May. Although this workshop was a more traditional one day
workshop, I was surprised she planned to leave her students with a substitute again. I
later found out that Ms. Miller had other concerns about this program. During her final
interview she admitted the idea of having more experienced teachers coming into her
room to watch her teach was intimidating. She said:
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I'm still in the observation period where the principal comes in and observes me
every so often, but I think it could be intimidating if you have people who have
been teaching a long time who kind of have it together, whereas newer teachers
are struggling with still trying to get it together, [I] could be intimidated very
easily.
Ms. Miller was under the impression that all the participating teachers would
teach a lesson while others observed. During the final interview she said, “I thought
everybody had to teach. We all signed up to teach. I thought everybody taught. Wasn't
that it? I thought everybody was doing it.” She told me that the idea that all would have a
turn to teach a lesson was discussed among teachers at Greenfield between the sessions.
Ms. Miller added:
But I think maybe she [Ms. McHugh] thought like she had to. She never, we did
talk a little bit here and there. I guess we both thought all of us were going to
teach. I guess we didn't realize that it was just voluntary. So that probably should
be clearer.
The teachers at Greenfield arrived at this erroneous conclusion about how this
program would work with respect to the lesson implementation.
I wondered how they could get the impression that in such a short period of time,
they all could collaboratively plan a lesson and each have an opportunity teach it. The
combined processes of collaboration, observation and reflection that are unique to lesson
study are unfamiliar to the practices of teachers in the United States. Although it was
explained that the purpose of the lesson would be to better understand what the students
were doing and what they were thinking and doing during the lesson, it was not clear to
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most Greenfield teachers that the lesson would be observed for the purpose of learning
about the design of the lesson itself and not the performance of the teacher. They did not
understand or trust the process whereby they would collaboratively design a lesson before
implementing it. Talking among themselves between sessions must have lead to this
misinformation and concern that they all had to teach a lesson, dropping their confidence
and comfort levels. Burdened with this concern, this may have been an obstacle for these
teachers and contributed to their reasons for leaving the program. Opening the door to the
classroom involved risk and more breaking away from typical experiences for teachers.
In this program, teachers with different philosophies and beliefs were asked to
gather together to design a lesson and teach it for the others to observe. The teachers were
not given a choice about who would be involved in their group. This involves a break
from normative permissiveness (Lortie, 1975) where teachers seek out and work with
only other teachers with similar philosophies of learning. It was not easy to open the
classroom door. There seemed to be more reasons for leaving the program than lack of
time, bad timing, and full plates.
Choosing the teacher to teach the lesson. Identifying the teacher who would teach
the lesson early in the program was another issue that may have contributed to the
Greenfield teachers’ reason for leaving the program. Teachers are more confident
teaching a lesson when they are well prepared. They admit they teach differently when
they are observed for evaluation purposes. They carefully plan the lesson they teach
before taking the risk of teaching it in front of their evaluator. During the first session for
both groups, a teacher was identified as the one who would teach the lesson; both of these
teachers were from Greenfield.
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During the first session, Ms. Seymour spent a considerable amount of time
sharing her expertise in cooperative learning and describing how well her students
worked with each other in her room. Because the others were so interested in the success
she had with her students, I suggested she consider being the one who taught the lesson.
I did not know her very well. She was one of the two teachers from Greenfield in whose
classroom I did not yet have an opportunity to work, but she immediately agreed to teach
the first lesson and said that she would like to do an electricity lesson that she just taught
to her class. I explained that the lesson would be one that we needed to plan together and
it would be taught later, perhaps April 24. She then responded by saying that she just
planned a field trip for that day. When May 1 was suggested as an alternative date for
teaching the lesson, she said she would be finished with electricity by then. We talked
about planning a lesson on forces and motion, but Ms. Seymour said she would be
teaching food chains in May. By this time, I was beginning to see that maybe she was
not so comfortable with the idea of teaching the lesson, so I said that we did not have to
decide who would teach the lesson until later, but this may have been too late for her.
The damage may already have been done. A similar situation occurred with Ms.
McHugh. Although I did not ask her to teach the lesson; she volunteered during the first
session.
Knowing that you will be the one who teaches the lesson seems to add a level of
concern that can challenge the confidence of the teacher chosen and interfere with the
other processes that are so beneficial in this professional development opportunity.
Instead of focusing on the content, ideas children have, and pedagogy, the teacher
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identified as the one who will teach the lesson starts to worry about how they will
perform in front of their peers and what their children will do.
From this experience I learned that waiting until the lesson is designed before
deciding who will teach it allows time for the teachers to be comfortable and excited
about the lesson designed collaboratively. By then all teachers would have time to
develop ownership in the new lesson. After Ms. McHugh and Ms. Seymour dropped out,
Sharon and Marilyn volunteered to teach the lessons we planned, but this occurred after
the lessons were quite well developed. Sharon volunteered to teach the lesson during the
last planning session. Marilyn expressed interest in teaching the lesson during the second
session, although I did not learn this until I listened to the tapes of the second session.
Marilyn said to the group when I was gone from the room that she would be interested in
being the second person to teach the lesson, but she did not volunteer to teach the lesson
until the third session when Ms. McHugh was absent and it became apparent that it would
be difficult for her to teach the first lesson since she was not present to plan it.
Teaching the lesson involves taking a risk and was very stressful for these
teachers. Knowing too soon that they were the ones who would teach the lesson may
have contributed to the reason why some teachers dropped out, but even the teachers who
stayed found it stressful. It was not easy for me at this time either. I felt so badly
because I was putting so much stress on these teachers. I wrote in my journal, “Who was
I to ask these teachers to do something so difficult?” I wondered if it were not for my
dissertation, would I have continued to ask this of my colleagues.
The motivation to teach the lesson. I wondered what motivated these teachers to
volunteer to teach the lesson; where did they get the confidence to go through with this?
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During the final interview Marilyn said she taught the lesson because she didn’t think the
others would want to do it and she was not afraid of being in front of other people. She
took acting classes and performed in plays. Marilyn also was the one who teamed with
another teacher in previous years; she already had experience teaching in front of another
teacher. When I asked Marilyn what motivated her to volunteer to teach the lesson she
said:
To be honest, I took so many acting classes; it doesn't bother me to be in front of
other people. And the other fifth grade teachers seemed to be so hesitant that I
didn't want something new to be stressful. And I thought, well, I know it won't
stress me out because I don't care if they're in there videoing and if I have five
people watching…I just think from, when we were discussing who was going to
do it, the looks on their faces, everybody was kind of like, "OH!", you know,
people are going to be in there watching…they seemed to be a little stressed about
that. Whether in the end it would have been stressful, I don't know. It just
seemed at that moment when we were discussing it, you could see the panic on
people's faces.
Sharon had many reasons for wanting to teach the lesson. She thought she would
learn more if she was the one who taught it, but she also may have felt some obligation
since she had the most teaching experience of all the members in her group. Although
Sarah actually had more teaching experience, it was several years ago; she just returned
to teaching after several years of staying home to raise her children. Sharon saw this as an
opportunity to let her colleagues have a better understanding of her as a teacher. During
the final interview, I asked Sharon what motivated her to teach the lesson:
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Sharon: Part of it is because I always learn more if I'm actively involved.
And, well, we know that from kids, that they learn more if they're
actively involved, but, part of it also was because of who my group
members were, and I thought some of them would not be
comfortable in front of everybody else, and because of that, also
because, there were several levels to this.
Monica: I'm interested in them all.
Sharon: One is, simply like I said, I learn more if I'm forced to be in the
middle, in the action. And I knew that I would obtain and get more
from it if I were actually teaching it and remember for this year
you know, that kind of thing, if I did it. The other thing is that
people that I worked with closely wouldn't want to do it because of
their position with, like the number of years that they've been here.
Not that I'm the senior member by any means, I'm getting close, I
guess. But, the other reason is because, on a certain level, your
peers have no idea of who you really are as a teacher, or how you
act in the classroom, unless they are actually in here with you
teaching along side of you or work with as you do when you come
in. But, for them to say something to, like, a parent or, like if a
parent were to come to them, I mean, professionally you wouldn't
say anything negative about another professional anyway. But,
sometimes, you have a doubt, in the back of you're mind about
how somebody really teaches, or do they have control, do they not
have control, or do they cover things in detail the way they should,
or you know, just that kind of thing; and so, in a way, for me, it
was an opportunity to present my style of teaching to my peers,
who then can go and have a more educated view of who I really
am as a teacher.
The teachers started out with an interest and curiosity about each other’s teaching
and with confidence in their ability to give and receive critical feedback. Although they
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admitted difficulty with the implementation and feedback part of the lesson study
process, the teachers who stayed had enough of something to persist. Was it confidence
or was there still another factor involved that helped these teachers continue through the
program. In fact, two of these teachers participated in a lesson study group the following
school year. These teachers were beginning to develop the ability to reflect critically on
the lesson during the planning stages and it was the time spent during the lesson planning
stages that most teachers said were valuable. But there was also a level of collegiality
that existed among the teachers at Forest Hills that seemed to be missing with the
teachers at Greenfield. I will talk about that some more in another section.
Satisfaction with Learning Outcomes of All Their Students
From the research we know that learning and a change in thinking is more likely
to occur in environments that encourage questioning, evaluating, criticizing, and where
there is dissatisfaction with the existing states of knowledge (A. L. Brown & Palincsar,
1989). Posner et al. (1982) argue that in order for a change to occur in a learner, several
important conditions must exist. These conditions include dissatisfaction with existing
conceptions and the presence of an intelligible and plausible new conception to take the
place of the old. A teacher taking part in a professional development activity makes
judgments about the practicality and the worth of what is presented. If she has a need and
sees something that may help her with her need, she may consider this new idea.
To study this, I asked the teachers during their initial interviews if they were
satisfied with the learning outcomes of all their students. The teachers that stayed
expressed dissatisfaction with the learning of all their students and/or expressed a
statement that they were always looking to learn new things. These comments were made
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by four different teachers from Forest Hills who completed the program. I asked them if
they were satisfied with the learning outcomes of all their students:
Teacher 1: Of course not! How could you be? I can’t help him [referring to one
of her students by name] the way I want to. I can’t help a lot of my students!
Teacher 2: No. Not in math. I feel that it's my own weaknesses that cause my
students not to be successful, the way I want them to be.
Teacher 3: No. It's a typical pattern of, I guess trying to ram a lesson down the
middle so the children who understand the concept eventually become bored. The
kids in the middle get a grasp of it and the kids on the other extreme end up just
still turning out and not learning it.
Teacher 4: Not entirely. I think in a lot of instances, students get left or they get
missed and trying to rotate around the room where there's a lot of behavior
problems and a lot of people have troubles working cooperatively. I think I
always miss someone, of whether or not they are understanding or they are just
dragging on the coat tails of the person next to them.
These teachers attributed, at least in part, their teaching methods or lack of
knowledge as the reason for dissatisfaction with the learning of all their students; this
dissatisfaction may have been a factor that kept them involved in the program. In her
first interview, the teacher identified as Teacher 3 said she was getting negative feedback
from her students. This created a need for her to learn some new ideas. She said:
Being a rather insecure person anyway…if you are not totally secure in yourself
and if the data you are getting back from your students in terms of poor test
grades or disinterest or whatever is not real bolstering, then you tend to think,
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what am I doing? Am I succeeding? Am I doing OK? So there is no feedback
except whatever your insecurity or your student data tells you and sometimes that
can be quite negative and rather that is accurately assessing your own
performance, I don't know.
This teacher and some of the other teachers who stayed seemed to fit the
description needed for learning as described by Posner et al. (1982) and Brown &
Palinscar (1989). They were not satisfied with her present state of knowledge and were
seeking some new ideas, or at least they were willing to admit this to me.
The other three teachers from Forest Hills teachers said they were satisfied with
the learning outcomes of their students, but they had some reservations. Teacher Five
recognized there was still much to do:
I'm satisfied with what we've done so far. I feel like there still is a lot to do. I feel
like their mathematics computation is weak. I also feel like the problem solving
is a weak area, and, just some of the basics. They’re lacking in some of the basic
areas.
Although satisfied with what she did so far, this teacher was looking for new
ideas. During her initial interview she talked about how she went to another state to visit
her aunt’s school and she visited her friends who were teachers in other states. She stays
in touch with them regularly through e-mail. She also said she works closely with her
mentor teacher.
Teacher Six said she was satisfied with the improvements her students were
making, but thought every teacher has some dissatisfaction with their teaching. She said
she was always looks for new ideas. Three times during the initial interview she made a
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comment about wanting to learn something new. She said, “They are progressing, in not
only math, but reading too. I've seen a big improvement. But I'm always looking for
new ways to teach them things, you know.” In her final interview, I asked her if she
thought lesson study was worthwhile for any teacher in the district. She responded, “I
think it's worthwhile for people who are discouraged with the way they're teaching. Like
they feel they aren't getting things across to other students. And I'm sure there's some
area where everybody feels that way.”
The last teacher from Forest Hills was not satisfied with the learning outcomes of
all her students, but her explanation fit a different pattern that was similar to the
responses of one of the teachers who dropped out. Instead of looking at her own teaching
practices as an explanation for their poor learning outcomes, she explained that some
students have problems that interfere with their learning. For example, she is not happy
with one student that does not speak English. Her response to the question about her
satisfaction with her students’ learning was:
No. There's a few that, you know, but there are problems that interfere that I know
about with those students. I mean like one is an E.S.L. student and I think most of
the time, he speaks almost no English so he's not even getting what I am saying,
so no, I'm not happy with his outcome.
Although she was satisfied with the learning outcomes of all her students, except
for the ones with special needs, there was an additional factor that kept her interested in
this program. It was this teacher’s first time teaching mathematics. Her need to know
may have kept her in the program. She also mentioned several times throughout the
study that she strongly believed in collaborating with other teachers and previously took
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part in collaborative activities with other teachers. The collaborative nature of this
program strongly matched her beliefs about teaching,
The three teachers who dropped out of the program were more satisfied with the
learning outcomes of their students. Ms. Miller said, “Yeah, I think they are doing very
well. They surprise me sometimes.” When I asked how her students surprise her, she
said:
Like when I took them down several weeks ago when we were working on
fraction stuff, so we went to music and it just so happened he [the music teacher]
was teaching quarter notes and different notes, so the kids, when I picked them
up, he said they were the only class that did well on it. Some of the classes didn't
even have a clue what fractions were and mine understood that. Most of them
could answer questions correctly for him. So that's where I did a lot of the
visuals, with the fractions, that worked.
Ms. Miller said that she learned many of her instructional strategies from her
experience as a teachers’ aid in the school her children attended. She valued the time she
spent working with the teachers in their classroom as a teacher’s aid and said during her
initial interview:
I felt like I really got trained to be a teacher when I was an aid because that's when
I worked with all the different teachers and I learned what worked and what didn't
work. That's where I learned everything. It wasn't in my college classes and it
wasn't from subbing obviously.
She valued her experience as an aid but said she has little time now that she is a
teacher to work with other teachers. What were missing from her responses during her
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interview were suggestions or expressions of a desire to continue the practice of
observing other teachers or to continue to learn more from other teachers. When I asked
her if other teachers influence her practice she replied, “Probably not now, but they
probably have heavily in the past.” At this time in her new career, she was not looking to
add to her repertoire of teaching strategies or challenge what she learned from her
previous experiences. Perhaps she was still processing what she already had.
Ms. McHugh said she was not satisfied with the learning outcomes, but was
satisfied with their effort. She blamed her students’ lack of progress as a result of them
coming to her below achievement levels for their grade level. This is how she responded:
Of all my students? No. But I'm satisfied with the effort they put in. I'm not
satisfied with the outcome. Unfortunately too my of my kids come to me that are
way below level so it's hard for me to teach multiplication when they don't
understand addition yet, but as long as, I think I get a good honest effort out of
most of my kids.
Ms. Seymour, the third teacher from Greenfield that dropped out, also seemed
satisfied with the learning outcomes of her students. This is what she shared about her
students during the first meeting:
I notice just from experience with my class. You have to keep working on it. It's
just like anything they don't know how to do. You have to assume they don't
know how to work cooperatively and you just have to practice, practice, practice.
Have them do it all the time. Any time they have a chance to work. Because I've
noticed that since I've done that I have a lot more success. Like I was just telling
Ms. Snyder today, I did a cooperative learning…and I mean it went like
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clockwork. They were on task. It wasn't really loud in there. They had a great
time with it. I really honestly feel like they learned a lot with that lesson.
Because of her absences, I was not able to interview her at the beginning of the program,
but I interpret her description of her successes with cooperative learning with her students
as evidence that she was satisfied with at least this aspect of her students’ performance.
New standards and federal legislation from the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001
require that schools and teachers must find ways to help all children learn. To
accomplish this, teachers need to learn what their students know through a variety of
assessment practices and be accountable for their learning. Stiggins (Stiggins, 2001)
argues that teachers in the United States have a difficult time assessing their students in
their classroom. The emotional factor is one barrier that makes it difficult for teachers in
the United States to implement better strategies for assessment because if an assessment
reveals that the students are not learning, then it could reveal a problem with their
performance. He argues:
It is our own emotions about the prospect of having our performance assessed and
evaluated. This scares many of us, even as adults. These strong negative feelings
about assessment and evaluation stand in the way of quality assessment in your
classroom and prevent you from being willing to both take the risk and invest the
mental energy needed to rigorously assess your students’ achievement and hold
yourself accountable for that achievement (Stiggins, 2001, p. 104).
Although the observations would be on the children, the teachers involved in this
study knew that their performance would play a part. They needed to be emotionally
ready to have their performance assessed and evaluated when the observations of their
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students’ learning is observed by their colleagues because they would not be the sole
judge of the learning outcomes of all their children.
Administrative Support and Knowledge and Purpose of the Program
There was a lack of administrative support for this program as it was
implemented, but the way it was implemented was not the way it was originally designed.
Originally it was designed with the full support of the principal of Forest Hills to meet the
requirement for professional development from a grant received to lower the class size.
Every teacher at Forest Hills was included. The design of using substitutes for half the
day developed from a successful implementation of another professional development
plan to implement a state grant. With that grant, funds for substitutes were available to
allow groups of teachers from the same grade level work together in the building during
the school day to learn the necessary skills for the new literacy program. They met at a
table in the principal’s office. In the morning they learned new strategies; in the
afternoon they practiced their new skills with individual children from their classrooms.
They had time to meet together at the end of the day to further discuss how the new
strategies worked and to have questions answered that came up while working with their
students.
The problem developed when the principal became the district Curriculum
Director and a new principal was assigned to the building. This new principal did not
want to spend his entire budget on my position, so my position as Learning Specialist was
expanded to include Greenfield and the middle school. Because of the size of the
schools, I was assigned two days at the middle school, two days at Forest Hills and one
day at Greenfield. My research study would now include both elementary schools.
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As a new Curriculum Director in a small district, my former principal was
learning what was politically acceptable and not. She thought it best if it was not
announced to the whole district that this program was a research study for my
dissertation. Although I had the support of the district Superintendent, who suggested I
implement lesson study with the entire district, the principals were not given detailed
information about the study, and its purpose; they were told that this professional
development activity would occur in their schools. The teachers were told that it was my
dissertation research at the first meeting, although some of the Forest Hills teachers were
already aware of this aspect of the study.
Not having full knowledge of this program’s purpose made it difficult for the
principals to give it their full support. The principal at Greenfield was the one that asked
that his teachers be excused from the program. This was his first year as principal; he
was promoted to the principal’s position from within the school. Previously, he taught
there for over thirty years and all the teachers in the school were his colleagues for many
years. There are many challenges for a first year principal. One has to learn and
coordinate all the additional responsibilities. When substitutes are in the building and the
children misbehave, they are sent to him. The situation with the student from Ms.
Miller’s room made the problem worse. Since he was new to the job and not fully aware
of the benefits the lesson study program had to offer, it was easy for him to give into his
teachers’ requests to get them out of it.
It was not easier for the principal at Forest Hills to support the program; he was
transferred from Greenfield that year. He voiced his complaints with me and with the
Curriculum Director. He said parents complained teachers were out of the rooms too
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much. Some of the teachers at Forest Hills complained too, at first. He remained
distanced from this program for its duration. During the implementation of the science
lesson, he peeked into the room. One of the teachers invited him in to see the lesson. He
responded by saying he did not want any part of it.
From the principals’ perspective, teachers were already out of their rooms too
much for other required professional development sessions with the technology grant. At
the beginning of that school year, teachers were told they needed to have so many hours
of professional development each year and were required to attend professional
development activities outside of school, so many signed up for these other sessions too.
For most of the teachers and the principals, it was not good to hear that they were going
to participate in six more half day sessions of professional development. Indeed, the
professional development in this district was a hodge-podge of uncoordinated activities.
Collegial School Atmosphere
A factor that surfaced as an attribute of the teachers from the teachers who stayed
was their social collegiality. The atmosphere at Forest Hills was different. Many
teachers arrived at school early and stayed late. You could find them going in each
other’s rooms or conversing in the hallway. Their conversations were sometimes about
school, but sometimes about home. The school year for Forest Hills teachers starts out
with a gathering of all the teachers a week or two before school starts to share their
summer adventures and discuss the coming school year. Every Friday throughout the
year, one of the teachers or other staff members brings breakfast. A sign up list is posted
in the staff lounge at the beginning of the school year so everyone can sign up for two
weeks of their choice. Sometimes on Friday, an e-mail goes out to the instructional staff
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indicating that they are going to the library after school. The library was their code for
arranging a visit to a more social place at the end of the week. Their social collegiality
was similar to what Yoshida (Yoshida, 1999b) discovered about the Japanese teachers in
his dissertation study. During their first year of lesson study, teachers collect data to
determine what the problems are that they will work on during their lesson study. Their
first year is spent getting to know each other better and this often took place outside the
school.
Teachers at Forest Hills made positive comments about their collegiality that
exists at Forest Hills. Sharon said:
I mean, we're not all the best of friends, but, we are very professional, and work
professionally very, very well together. And, I would say that we have become
friends because of our professionalism, but we weren't initially friends, before we
were professionals, if that makes sense.
Sarah agreed with Sharon that the staff works well together but wasn’t sure if that
was the only reason. When Sarah was asked what she thought made the experience
successful, she said:
I don't know whether that's because basically there's a great group of individuals
who just really like each other and work well together, or if it was the atmosphere
that you created bringing us there. But I can hardly think of how it could have
been better.
These positive working relationships may have been a big reason why these
teachers continued with this program despite the difficulties with leaving their children
with substitutes, lack of administrative support, concerns about opening their doors to
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others, and concerns about taking the time to do this when there were so many other
activities happening at the same time. The teachers at both schools were apprehensive
about the program, but their apprehensions led to different outcomes. Early in the
program, Melissa was apprehensive about the program. She said:
I know there were some remarks, maybe at the beginning of, you know, "I'm out
of my room too much" or "We're working so hard on this. We hope it's going to
be worth our time." I heard comments like that and I was even worried myself
that I hope this is worthy of the time we are taking because we were out of the
classroom…I talked to Marilyn the other day…and she says, "Yeah, I think this is
going to be really good” when I know she was very apprehensive at first, but I
think she's, you know, I think she really grasps that in the end, it's going to be so
beneficial for all of us.
It appears that the lesson study process was a topic of conversation in the halls
and classrooms at Forest Hills, but the talk was positive and did not include the
misrepresentations that were present in the between-session talk at Greenfield. The
Forest Hills teachers encouraged and supported each others’ concerns with positive
attitudes. They talked themselves into giving it a try.
The collegiality that was found at Forest Hills was not present at Greenfield. The
teachers at Greenfield didn’t meet as a staff at the library, although on occasion, a couple
of teachers would plan this type of social outing, but they would share it with just a few
others. They didn’t have a Friday morning breakfast together. In fact, they had difficulty
that year having their winter holiday party. During the final interview one of the
Greenfield teachers said:
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We always have a problem here. Our problem is because we have the extra
people that [the principal] always feels kind of responsible for, the Head Start
program and everything. We always feel like and this comes up a lot. It's like
who is the staff here? Well we are all kind of staff here and how big are we? We
almost didn't do Christmas this year because, who do you include?
Greenfield teachers share the building with a Head Start program. Although they share
the building, at that time, they were not recognized as really belonging there.
I believe the collegiality and a sense of community present at Forest Hills made a
difference in the participation efforts between the two schools. The collegiality and
supportive roles that already existed among the teachers at Forest Hills was a positive
influence for them as they waded through the complaints when this program was first
introduced. As you may recall from earlier descriptions, Sharon was one of the two
teachers that complained during the first session about being away from her class and not
having the time. Perhaps she was persuaded by the positive peer pressure to continue. On
the other hand, Ms. Seymour who also complained during the first session, dropped out.
The peer pressure at Greenfield was not so positive and they talked themselves out of
continuing. The lack of administrative support did not seem to matter for the Forest Hills
teachers, but I wonder if administrative support and encouragement was there for the
Greenfield teachers, if it would have made a difference.
Relationship with the Knowledgeable Other
In addition to having a feeling that one was a valued member in a learning
community, a trust in an outside expert is important. From conversations with the
Curriculum Director from a nearby school district that was implementing lesson study on
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a district-wide basis, I learned that her teachers originally struggled with accepting their
outside expert as a member of their group. Stein, Smith & Silver (Stein, Smith, & Silver,
1999) learned that teacher educators and professional developers need to develop
individuals as well as communities when they were engaged in long-term efforts to help
teachers learn new ways of teaching. Teachers in their study did not want to hear more
philosophy and theory; they needed to see how it worked in their classrooms. They
learned that it is more effective when professional developers immerse themselves more
fully in the settings in which they work.
Fortunately, I worked at Forest Hills for two years before implementing this
program. That gave me time to establish a respected and trusted relationship with the
teachers there. I was not considered an outsider for these teachers. This was not the
situation at Greenfield. I was new to Greenfield. I did not yet have a chance to work
with two of the four teachers who were members of the lesson study group from that
school. This trust I established at Forest Hills and the already supportive atmosphere in
the school may have lead to more positive talk in between sessions that encouraged those
teachers to return each time, whereas the lack of trust may have contributed to talk that
misrepresented the goals of this program which lead to anxiety so teachers at the other
school turned to the excuse of having full plates and a lack of time.
.
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CHAPTER VI
BUILDING KNOWLEDGE IN THE COMMUNITY
A mind that is stretched by a new experience
can never go back to its old dimensions.
Oliver Wendell Holmes
Teachers who participated in this professional development activity had
opportunities to stretch their minds and were exposed to ideas during this program.
Accordingly, Oliver Wendell Holmes would argue that their minds can not go back to
what they were before the new experience.
What Teachers Appeared to be Learning
Teachers appeared to be learning content. Marilyn, who taught the fraction
lesson, said she learned about the multiplication of fractions and how to teach this
concept to her children. Previous to this, she said that if she didn’t understand
something about mathematics, she would ask a colleague. The problem was that the
colleague she asked was the teacher in this study who admitted that she hated math!
Marilyn reported that she gained knowledge of fractions and strategies for
teaching. During her final interview, she reflected on how this program gave her the
opportunity to develop deeper understanding about content and this would work for
other content areas too:
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Oh yeah…when you're discussing things on that level, you know, and people are
coming up with questions that you yourself would not come up with, you have to
question things that you were just taking for granted. Therefore, you're having to
go a layer deeper on it, and say, well, I mean, because I could have told the child
what the process of multiplying a fraction by a fraction was. I could not have
explained to a child what that meant. I could have shown them how to do the
numbers, and, you know, the criss-cross and all of that, but I would not have
been able to explain it. Well now, because everybody was questioning more and
talking more, I can actually explain to a child and show them a picture of why it
works. You know, so yeah, I think it does. And I think it would in other areas, if
you did, you know, lesson studies in, you know, grammar, or writing, or social
studies, or science. I think it would. You're starting to question what you
already know, to see if you know, because even as teachers we'll make
generalizations or, ok, yeah, I know that, when maybe you don't know every
piece of it.
During the mathematics lesson feedback session, one of the observing teachers
noticed that the children in the group she observed were not discussing differences in
their answers. They saw that they had different answers, but they seemed to be fine with
it. Marilyn responded that the reason for that might have been that she told them in
advance of the class not to argue. Marilyn said she learned some things she would
change as a result of this experience. During her final interview she said:
Making sure they understand the difference between discussion and argument, so
that they can discuss if they got, you know, different answers and why…making
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sure that they understand [that] because having different answers doesn't just go
for fractions, it goes for any sort of math problem that they would do. If they
have different answers they need to be able to discuss why and who has what and
why they got that, and how they got it. So, that's definitely something that in
overall math I would change.
Another thing Marilyn mentioned in the feedback session that she decided about
teaching fractions in the future was that she will use more than one kind of manipulative
to teach fractions. She said:
One would be using all sorts of sets, when they're using manipulatives with
fractions…You know, I realize, looking back at all manipulatives I used, in, not
just in fractions, but, I always used the same manipulatives over and over and
over, so that if they went, say to the MEAP [state assessment] test, and they gave
them a picture of different manipulatives, those kids weren't going to know what
it was because it didn't look like what they knew. You know, so that's, that's
something that I think has to be changed too.
Learning about mathematics content and pedagogy was not limited to the teacher
who taught the lesson. Melissa especially found the time spent in the collaboration
process of designing the pretest to be valuable. She said:
The thing I liked the most is coming up with the assessment questions because
we all had to make sure we had correct wordage and the question had to make
sense, because some of us even came up with, we came up with questions we
thought "That's not right. We have to reword that whole thing!" Or, “That's not
the right number to use. Maybe that's too hard. That's not the fraction we want.”
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You know, and if I would have been by myself, I might not have done that
revising. And then I also noticed that we did have the different scales of
questions. We went from easy to more complex and I think that's important
when we make our own test, sometimes, we just kind of get the simple facts and
that's all you want. But it should be different level thinking questions so I liked
that idea.
Melissa said she benefited from observing Marilyn teach the lesson. She used
another teacher as a mirror for performance, as did the teachers in Lortie’s study, but
because her observations were first-hand, this mirror reflected what actually happened
rather than what she imagined or was told. She said, “I can compare myself with
Marilyn and we have two different teaching styles so I could see what I was lacking by
watching others and I'm trying to be more organized in the way I present myself now.”
Melissa also said she has another way to teach the multiplication of fractions. She
continued:
It's not as difficult as I made it out to be. There's simpler ways of teaching it than
I did and I think that's going to help me when I teach 5th grade again next year…
The way we did our lesson was with hands on, made it simpler to see it than just
visualize it on the board as numbers. Having the fractions with objects made it
so much simpler for them to see and me to see and to teach.
Megan remarked during the feedback session that she is now better able to
anticipate some problems before they occur. When she said this, several voices were
heard in expressions of agreement. She said she also became more aware of her use of
manipulatives during her mathematics instruction.
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Never did we think that that [the use of pretzels as a manipulative in the lesson]
would distract them from what they were trying to do and it did. So I mean that
really, that really shocked me and changed the way I look at things. I still use
manipulatives in my classroom but I'm careful about why I'm using them, when I
use them and who has them.
Some of the teachers in the science group said during the first session that they
knew how to teach science through inquiry based instruction; they just did not teach that
way because they did not have time. However, during the planning session, a discussion
about drawing conclusions based on evidence revealed that the teachers in this group
don’t ask their children to draw a conclusion during a science lesson.
These teachers discovered that collaborative planning brought each person’s
strengths to the lesson as well as more options to choose from in the lesson design. This
allowed them to develop a lesson that integrated subjects. They said that carefully
planned lessons improved instruction and their day.
Marilyn thought participating in this process improved her ability to
communicate with her colleagues. She said:
I feel that we all learned something from it. We learned a little more about the
subject area. And we learned a little more about working with each other, and
talking to each other, and you know, I find that I do tend to go to teachers more
often after that, than I would have. And I was always very big into going to
everybody. But, I think that I got a little more comfortable with some people in
saying, you know what, hey, I don't really know how to do this. You know.
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Marilyn did get a little more comfortable with the disposition of inquiry. In a very
diplomatic way, she was the only other teacher who made a suggestion to change the
science lesson the next time. She said:
I'm not sure I'm saying necessarily it needs to be revised to include this, but it's
something that I thought of while we were sitting there. The kids, these were
new things to touch and probe with and kind of play with. That I almost think
maybe they should have had a short span of time where they get their materials
and no worksheet, just let them touch it and you know because right away we
saw that going on where they "Here, you see how heavy this is." Well, not all the
groups got that far of experiencing each thing. The group I was watching, they
turned one on the smooth side and one on the rough side and you could see them
all going like this, see and they knew that difference. So I think giving them a
shorter amount of time, a little bit longer time to just play before any directions
were given.
These teachers also discussed what they learned about their students; there were
some surprises. The instructor for the science lesson did not realize that her students,
although noisy, were very productive during the lesson, both socially and academically.
Her students organized themselves within their groups, helped each other with the
investigation and discussed the results with each other in their groups. The children who
could be classified as the low achievers in her classroom were very much involved in
this lesson and gave good explanations of the phenomena observed during the
investigation; normally they are not attentive during lessons. The instructor of the
fraction lesson did not realize how many students had difficulty with the concepts in the
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lesson until she received the feedback from her peers and looked at her students’
journals.
Megan discovered things about her teaching and her students by listening to the
children’s conversation during the lesson. She said:
I assumed a lot of things instead of really taking a look at where the children
were. I assumed that they knew more than they did…But when I had the
opportunity to listen to their conversation, I realized the error of my ways by just
hearing them talk about how basic their knowledge was of numbers.
This professional development experience offered these teachers opportunities to
learn about their practice. A collaborative examination of practice has features that
make this possible.
Affordances of a Collaborative Investigation
There were many affordances in situating teacher learning in this collaborative
inquiry of practice. First, teachers focused on a topic that they would soon teach. This
created a need for them to become active participants in their learning and it made it
their learning relevant. Second, collaborative planning time allowed teachers an
opportunity to learn content and consider new ideas and alternative strategies. Third,
observations of their students provided evidence for the effectiveness of their efforts.
Their personal learning theories were put to the test and having more pairs of eyes
allowed them to see the lesson from multiple perspectives. They had time to be
reflective about their work.
Teacher learning focused on immediate need. By focusing on a topic that
teachers were going to teach very soon and was difficult to teach, there was an
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immediate interest and need for them to learn more about that topic. Teachers were
motivated to continue their learning outside of the session meeting time too. Ms. Snyder
searched the Internet looking for appropriate lessons. While in Sharon’s room one day
in between sessions, I saw her Conceptual Physics (Hewitt, 1993) book from her high
school or college days. She said she was reading more about Newton’s Laws. Sharon
still remembered Newton’s Laws by heart, but rote memorization of a concept does not
indicate understanding and without a good understanding, one cannot to teach it
effectively. Sharon was interested in understanding these concepts better before she
taught them for the study lesson. This program gave these teachers a need and an
opportunity to have an in depth look at the objectives they some could almost recite by
heart but did not understand.
New standards recommend that students be actively involved in their learning. A
comment made by one of the teachers during her final interview indicated that she felt
that by participating in the processes of lesson study, she was more actively involved in
her own learning. When I asked her how her experience compared to other professional
development experiences, she said,
I actually participated! What do you do when you go to a professional
development given by the district? You sit in a chair, you make fun of things
with the people with the cronies sitting next to you, and then you leave. You're
not active in any type of thing.
This response seems to indicate that teachers are very much like their students
when they are not interested or not involved in the lesson when they are the students.
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Giving teachers opportunities to be more active in their professional development may
increase what they learn during that professional development activity.
This professional development was very different for these teachers. In the
United States, much time is spent articulating the curriculum across the grades and
aligning it with local, state or national standards than studying and refining class lessons
to bring those ideas to life (Lewis, 2002b). By the time this is accomplished there is not
adequate time to observe, discuss and improve classroom lessons. This was true for this
district. Previous work in professional development was aimed at the identification of
benchmarks taught in each grade for the purpose of identifying benchmarks that might
be duplicated in other grades and then verifying all benchmarks are assigned to be sure
that students learn all content necessary for the state assessments. To accomplish this,
teachers participated in a curriculum mapping project during district professional
development days. But there was no discussion on which methods or strategies would
best help all their students learn the concepts. It was either assumed that all teachers
knew the subject matter for which they were assigned to teach or if administration knew
there were gaps in this knowledge, there was not much that could be done because there
would not be time to do both.
The collaborative planning process. Most of the teachers in this study described
the collaborative planning time to be one of the most beneficial parts of the process.
Perhaps it was because more time was spent in this phase than in any other because the
curriculum in this district was not well-defined at that time. The elementary schools had
a mathematics text that teachers did not use; most instructional time at the elementary
level was spent on the computation of whole numbers. Fractions, if they were taught,
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involved coloring parts of circles and squares. There were science kits, but no texts, and
teachers were not comfortable using the kits. An appropriate lesson for each of these
topics needed to be designed and it was during the planning session that there were
discussions about the mathematics and science content and strategies for teaching that
content. Similar to project based learning for students, the teachers had a project to
complete to represent their time and effort working together. They designed a lesson
that represented the best efforts of all those present.
In the final interviews, Megan described the benefit of having time plan a lesson
with colleagues:
Especially for me, being a brand new teacher, planning together was awesome
because I was so lost last year trying to find my way through the curriculum,
trying to understand what I should be doing, what do fifth graders look like? As
far as the benchmarks go, what are they supposed to know by the end of the
year? And to have those teachers come together and say, this works, this doesn't
work. Let's try something in between or let's do, let's go with this, or just giving
great suggestions. Some things that I just hadn't even thought of and listening to
them and I just really bought in to everything they were saying. We were just a
great group of teachers, altogether and I had respected everything they would, all
of the information they'd give me in passing. But it was nice to actually sit down
at the table and say this is what we think and this is where we should go with this
lesson and have some time to just reflect on what we did. Also I think it was just
really important. And it's too bad we don't have that kind of time to do that for
every lesson, which I'm sure the curriculum would look a lot different then.
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Putting theories to the test. Acknowledging, comparing and practicing pedagogy
that is different from their lifetime of experiences in the classroom may be a first step in
making that new pedagogy their own. Often times, videos are used to help teachers see
new practices in the classroom, but teachers’ reactions to watching these videos include
comments like: Where did they get those kids? You couldn’t do that with my kids. My
kids are different! My kids don’t act like that! Similarly, when teachers observe lessons
modeled by teachers with more experience, their reaction is, “But you have more
experience. I could never do that!” These teachers designed, taught, and observed a
lesson that was different from what they would normally design or teach. They saw
what was possible with their own students and they saw that they could do it themselves.
Megan said she looked forward to the interactions with other teachers, but she
didn’t realize she would experience even more benefits when the lesson was taught to
the students. Since it was a lesson she helped design, it held greater meaning for her.
She also liked the opportunity to focus her attention more on the students. In her final
interview, she said:
At first I went into it with the understanding that I was going to be doing a lot of
interacting with other teachers and listening to their ideas and discussing
problems that they have in the classroom and try and help each other work
through it. That was my first impression of what we were going to do. But then
I gained even more than just being there the day that she presented the lesson and
being able to be in the audience and look into the children's talk so that at that
point I thought, "Wow! This is just even better than I had expected just because I
had that opportunity to be the fly on the wall…The lesson study gave me an
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opportunity to watch somebody else teach and listen to their [students’]
responses while they were receiving the lesson. It's not something I ever had the
opportunity to do in my own classroom because when I'm teaching, I can't be in
two places at once. So that was probably the most beneficial part of it. Listening
to the children and I watched someone else teach a lesson. And it was a lesson I
helped design, so it wasn't that she was teaching in a way I wouldn't have. So it
was neat to see.
The lesson observation was the most beneficial part of the program for Mary
Ellen too. She also liked having the chance to focus on children’s ideas during a lesson
to see how they react:
I thought that it was nice to just sit and watch somebody teach the lesson like
that. Because sometime your wondering if you're doing the right thing when
you're teaching something, or if you're covering it the right way, or you're saying
things the right way. So, I thought it was good to watch somebody else do it so
you could compare it with what you're doing or you could add something, or you
can also see what they were doing or what they could have done maybe
differently…you have the chance to observe the children, where normally, you
don't see the whole picture; you're focused on what you're saying and you might
only be looking at one child, where when you're doing that lesson study, you can
see all the children in the room, and how they are reacting to it…It was nice to
see the whole picture from a different perspective than just being up there
teaching it.
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This program gave these teachers time to be reflective and consider new topics
and strategies. When I asked Sarah if there were strategies that she observed during the
program that she thought were worthwhile and worthy of trying again, she responded:
Well, I am also a great believer in moving away from paper and pencil, and
trying to do questioning, and inquiry and hands-on. I believe in all that, and I
strive to do that in many, many subjects. Again, this showed me that I probably
do too much lifting the lid up and pouring it in, instead of really just, here, let's
explore a lesson. Do this. So, yes, I thought it was revealing to see that and see
the process of making it where you're more guiding than telling.
Although some of their experiences during the program were rough and
uncomfortable, they were taking the steps needed to break from their experiences.
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CHAPTER VII
CONCLUSION
This study set out to investigate a recently attractive approach to facilitate
teachers’ learning in mathematics and science. Specifically, I wanted to find out how a
collaborative professional development experience, situated in teachers’ own practice,
helps elementary public school teachers develop their knowledge for teaching. I argued
that a professional development experience that requires teachers to become actively
involved in a collaborative effort to solve an immediate problem in and from their
practice would be more meaningful for the teachers and would increase their
opportunities to develop their knowledge for teaching.
Characteristics of Their Engagement in this Intervention
The teachers in this study were similar to the teachers in Lortie’s study (1975).
They worked in isolation and were concerned about their time with their students in their
classrooms. Conservatism was present in one teacher’s question during the first session:
“Where’s it going to go? I guess my question was where’s it going?” She was teaching
in this district long enough to be cynical of the professional development programs
presented over the years. This district is typical of most districts in the United States
where there is a lack of coherence in professional development. Teachers were told at
the beginning of the year to attend professional development workshops of their choice
in order to fulfill state requirements. Additionally, the district received a technology
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grant and teachers were pulled out of their classrooms to learn how to use new hardware
and software acquired with the grant funds.
There was a lack of support for this program from the administrators and this had
an impact on the teachers’ engagement in the program. Only the curriculum director,
who participated in the early design of this program as principal of my school, gave her
total support. Building level support during the time of this research was lacking; the
principal at Forest Hills said he did not want to be “anywhere near” when he peeked in
the door to the classroom during the lesson implementation. The principal at Greenfield
asked that his teachers be excused. This lack of support at the building level can be
explained partially by the fact that they were not introduced to this program ahead of
time and were not made aware of its benefits and how it was aligned with reform
documents.
The lack of administrative support impacted the teachers differently for each
school. Most of the teachers at Forest Hills were excited about this program and decided
to participate whether the principal supported it or not. The curriculum director was the
principal at this school the previous year and the teachers knew she gave her full
support. The principal at Greenfield supported the wishes of his teachers; he was a
teacher there for more than thirty years before he was promoted to be their principal.
These teachers and their administration could be portrayed as individuals
working with other individuals in a pseudocommunity as described by Grossman et al.
(2001). They operated under the premise that everyone is to behave as if they all agree
and challenges to others were against the rules. But these teachers were curious about
their colleagues and wanted to know what they were doing. They talked about creeping,
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sneaking and stealing ideas. They said they wished they had more opportunities to
observe them.
Challenges
Individualism was a challenge. Teachers were concerned that they would lose
their individualism by working together, but discussing long-term school-wide goals
during the first two sessions, planning the lesson and critiquing it presented these
teachers with an opportunity to consider the needs of the larger community rather than
their individual needs. They expressed their surprise at the end of the program that
working together did not make them feel like they lost their individual identity. Making
their individual contribution to the process helped them feel a part of the collective
effort.
However, working and planning together presented another challenge. These
teachers needed to learn to talk to one another. The needed more than their comfortable
small talk. They needed the kind of talk for which there are no norms in schools today.
They needed the kind of talk where they could say what they thought and felt without
worrying that they would hurt somebody’s feelings. They needed to feel that they could
ask questions without being made to feel inadequate, they could argue without being
considered disagreeable. They needed to learn to talk it in such a way that they did not
hurt somebody’s feelings. They also needed to be able to accept the kind of talk that
challenged their ideas without getting their feelings hurt.
These teachers made their ideas about teaching and learning visible to themselves
and their colleagues during this program. They did not always agree with each other.
Compromises were made to accomplish the task of deciding on goals and planning the
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lesson. Their discussions included issues about behavior management, cooperative
learning, guided reading strategies, assessment practices and more. They talked, they
listened, they questioned, they asked for clarification and they even sometimes
challenged one another’s ideas. But when it came time to challenge the lesson as it was
implemented, they had difficulties. Some admitted they could not be critical of their
colleagues’ lessons. Their given reasons were two: (a) it was too hard to give feedback
to teachers who were their friends or not and (b) they didn’t see a need for improvements
to the lesson.
Talk was a challenge for the administration too and this made an impact on the
engagement of these teachers in this study. I was asked by the curriculum director not to
talk about this study because it was my dissertation research and as a new administrator
to the district, she was uncertain to how this program would be accepted. She was afraid
the program might be canceled before it began. After the teachers received notice that
they were selected to participate, it was discovered that administrators did not possess
the norms needed to deal with challenges from their teachers. Their response to the talk
from the teachers who complained about attending the program was to complain to the
superintendent. The superintendent’s response to the talk from her administrators was to
back away and try to silence the talk by canceling the program or changing its structure.
However, one administrator did to listen to the talk without taking back her support. She
convinced the superintendent to allow the program to continue despite the complaints by
the few.
Time was another challenge throughout the program. The teachers said they
didn’t have time to teach the way they know they should because teaching that way takes
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too much time. They also didn’t want to spend time away from their classrooms.
Teachers from Greenfield dropped out because they didn’t have enough time; their
plates were full. The occupation of teaching in the United States does not allow time for
teachers to interact with each other. Teachers spend most of their day in front of
students. In our culture, it is thought that teachers are not performing the duties of
teacher if they are not in the classroom. However, the teachers who took the time to
complete the program and collaborate with other teachers all said it was worth their time.
Why Did Some Leave?
There were three basic differences between the teachers who chose to stay and
finish the program and those who didn’t. First, the teachers who continued to the end of
the program were not satisfied with the learning outcomes of all their students and/or
they expressed an interest in learning new ideas for their practice as an important
ongoing activity for them. These teachers said they found the program increasingly
beneficial as the time went on.
Second, the teachers who stayed already had an established and trusted working
relationship with me. This was my first year of working in the classrooms of the
teachers who dropped out of the program. At the time of the implementation of this
project, I did not yet have an opportunity to work with one of the teachers who quit.
One of the teachers who stayed told me she found the projects she was previously
involved in with me were worthwhile, so she reasoned that this would be valuable as
well. I didn’t have an opportunity to work with Ms. Seymour and her class until the
following school year. If you recall, Ms. Seymour attended only one session. I received
this e-mail from her that October:
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Monica, I just wanted to thank you for all of your help with Science this year. I
appreciate all of your hard work, and your willingness to share all of your good
ideas. Science has been very fun and enjoyable for all of us. I thought you
needed to here [sic] this because sometimes people aren’t acknowledged for their
hard work. You are a wonderful asset to our District. We are lucky to have you.
Keep on doing what you are doing!! (Personal communication, October 22,
2002)
I wondered if I had the opportunity to work with her before my research study would she
have chosen to stay.
Third, there already existed a collegial relationship among the teachers who
stayed. They worked together on committees for the NCA process in their school. Their
social committee was strong, offering many opportunities throughout the year for social
interactions. One of these teachers had previous collaborative experiences with another
teacher. They combined their classes and shared the responsibility for teaching all of
their students.
New Opportunities
Analysis of the data revealed that the teachers who completed the program
appeared to be developing their knowledge for teaching. In their conversations during
the feedback session and final interviews, they talked about what they felt they learned.
These teachers said they realized the value of collaboration in designing a lesson; they
were proud of their lesson they designed and said they would not have had the time or
been able to individually design a lesson similar to the ones they designed as a group.
They said they learned more about the subject we studied - multiplying fractions or force
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and motion. They described new strategies they would try in the next school year. They
also learned new things about their students. They were feeling more comfortable with
each other about asking questions about their practice.
For teachers to develop the kind of teaching practice as recommended by
educational reform, teachers need to overcome their individualism and learn new ways
of talking to each other. This professional development program provided opportunities
to experience collaboration which can help them develop a professional role orientation
to teaching (Buchmann, 1993) in which work with others, on goals shared as
professionals, overrides the powerful draw of personal style. It provided opportunities to
talk, so they could get better at talking to one another in new ways. These teachers were
not yet experts, but to become an expert, opportunities to practice, make mistakes, and
learn from them are vital.
Implications for Professional Development
A common belief in our society is that experience is the best teacher. Buchmann
and Schwille (1983) find fault with this commonsense theory of knowledge - that we
learn most reliably through sense experiences. Sight and sound can convey
misinformation. Consider the way the sun appears to move around the earth. Knowledge
that is limited to being-there experiences can be a cognitive trap. It can hold one captive
to the culture and thinking of their present situation, closing the avenues to conceptual
and social change, closing the door to education reform. One of the challenges of the
teacher educator is to provide the kind of experience that can help teachers overcome
years of classroom experiences as students and develop a practice more consistent with
reform in education (Buchmann & Schwille, 1983; Lortie, 1975). In doing so, teachers
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are faced with many challenges and these challenges make it difficult for them to break
from their previous experiences.
Teachers need to be the primary driving force behind change (Stigler & Hiebert,
1999). It became apparent that teachers in these two schools were the decision makers
concerning their participation in this program. It was the teachers at Forest Hills who
decided in conversations among themselves to go ahead and try this program despite the
lack of administrative support. It was the teachers at Greenfield who decided in
conversations among themselves to leave the program. Greenfield teachers received
administrative support, but in the opposite direction intended by the intervention. The
teachers asked the principal to get them out of the program and he did. In this study, the
teachers were key in deciding their level of participation in this professional
development intervention.
Each building had its own norms that were established by the teachers. Ms.
Snyder wanted to continue the program but found it uncomfortable to be the only one
from her school attending the sessions. Ms. Snyder did not have the support of her
colleagues at Greenfield but found a way to break away from traditional norms. She had
the interest and perhaps experienced enough satisfaction from the sessions she did attend
to make the decision to come back alone for the last two sessions.
Most of the teachers at Forest Hills found a way to work around the challenges of
time, talk and individualism and they supported each other in the process. Sharon, who
like Ms. Seymour complained at the beginning about participating, perhaps yielded to
the norms of the culture that existed at Forest Hills; she continued with the program,
although she was the one who first voiced her complaints during the first session. She
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even taught the science lesson. The challenge for teacher educators is to find a way to
get teachers to break away from their traditional norms of the teaching practice and to
provide support for them in this process.
Teachers will need support of time; this will require a shift in thinking about
what teachers should do with their time. They need to have time during the school day
to have opportunities to collaborate. But time alone will not guarantee that collaboration
takes place. Teachers need a structure to help them organize their time. Solving a
problem, like designing a lesson about a difficult concept for the purpose of inquiry
about their teaching, within this structure could help them focus their time more
productively.
The Japanese spend the first year in their lesson study cycle getting to know one
and another, assessing the needs of the school and deciding on goals. In my study, we
spent only the first session and part of the second session on setting long term goals.
Deciding common goals is a worthwhile process that I believe helped the group to take
their first steps away from their individualism and become a community; long term goals
create a purpose for a community’s existence. But long term goals need sustaining
conversations which are tied to enabling structures and the real work of teachers.
Enabling structures would exist if the intervention were long term. Enabling
structures are characterized by a “specific time set aside with predictable regularity, a
group understanding of the purposes of these times, and someone to facilitate the
conversation” (Lambert, 1995, p. 93). Lambert continues:
Sustaining conversations are those that continue, endure, over a period of time
and are essential to sustaining the development of the community…If the
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individuals are becoming different, that is, taking on new assumptions about
teaching and learning, this is sustainable development, and it emerges primarily
from sustaining conversations. (Lambert, 1995)
Sustaining conversations about long term goals are important in developing the
kind of professional talk needed for school improvement but they can’t exist and endure
without the development of a structure to support them.
Teachers must see a need to create new knowledge or learn something new. A
needs assessment in their school building might help, although this could be difficult,
because not all teachers will be able to recognize the same problems or issues as a need.
Some teachers see external forces such as the environment, culture or language as
problems which influence their students to such a degree that it is impossible for them,
as their teacher, to have an influence or exert control. But observing students in the
classroom during a lesson and discussing observations as evidence of student learning
can lead some teachers to recognize that their students’ successes and difficulties in
learning may be a result of the lesson, their approach, or their own disposition and not
the students’ social class or perceived intellectual abilities.
Groups that are more collegial have a better chance of completing this type of
professional development. Opportunities to learn about each other should be provided
before they begin a program like lesson study if they do not already have collegial
relationships. Principals can play an important role in developing this by creating a
collegial atmosphere, but more research could help discover ways to best develop
collegiality among the school staff. The person leading group needs to establish trust
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among the members of the group. Participants need to believe that person has something
that will benefit them in their practice.
Some teachers may benefit from entering the process more slowly. The program
could start with volunteers first. Participating in classroom observations as an observer
in their own school before they become involved in the full process of an examination of
practice may help scaffold new teachers to this process without creating a threat and help
give that teacher a new vision of what is possible with their colleagues and students.
Waiting to decide who will teach the lesson that is planned until after the lesson is
designed may help support the teachers who are having difficulty with the challenges of
this program. It may not have been a coincidence that two of the teachers who dropped
thought they were going to teach the lesson first. This may have created unnecessary
stress for them.
Implications for Research on Professional Development
The challenges that I found in my study, the issues of time (Cochran-Smith &
Lytle, 1993), talk (Ball & Cohen, 1999; Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993; Fernandez et al.,
2003) and individualism (Grossman et al., 2001; Little, 1990; Lortie, 1975), are the same
challenges that others have found in their work. The fact that these challenges keep
appearing in studies, even after thirty years, shows their resiliency.
Lesson study, a kind of teachers’ collaborative inquiry situated in teachers’
practice, is a very appealing kind of professional development. It was the professional
development process that brought about educational change in Japan (Lewis, 2000). It
provides a comfortable forum for tackling problems about practice (Fernandez et al.,
2003). It meets the standards for professional development because it is collaborative,
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sustained over time, situated in authentic activities of teachers, and includes time for
reflection. But the shifts needed in the structure of the American teaching practice to
overcome the challenges I found are not going to happen just by introducing lesson
study or any other type of professional development. These issues that challenge our
work need to be addressed more directly by design.
Lesson study is successful in Japan, but for it to become successful in the United
States, teachers and their administrators will need support. How do you get teachers to
become collegial? What can administrators do to foster this collegiality among their
teachers in their school? How do you get teachers to move away from their self interests
to consider the bigger needs of the community? How can you develop big talk among all
the members of the community? More research is needed to answer all of these
questions.
Think back to that first year teacher I introduced in the first chapter. Her ideas
were different from others in her school, but she managed by closing the door and
searching for ideas from outside the school. Her work focused on improving instruction
for her students in her classroom, but she had to work alone in her building. My work
today is to assist teachers in providing better opportunities for their students’ learning.
Teachers can learn many things by working together. In this project, I asked my
colleagues to come to the edge, to break away from their comfortable and safe places.
Eight came. I found the courage to push them and they flew!
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APPENDIX A
The Teachers in this Study
Teachers from Forest Hills are identified by a first name; teachers from
Greenfield are identified by last names. Teachers planning the mathematics
lesson have names that begin with “M”; teachers planning the science lesson
have names that begin with “S”. One of these teachers was male, but to mask his
identity, he is referred to in the feminine gender.
239
Mathematics
5th Grade
Science
4th GradeFo
rest
Hill
s
Marilyn
Melissa
Megan
Mary Ellen
Sharon
Sylvia
Sarah
Gre
enfie
ld Ms. McHugh
Ms. Miller
Ms. Snyder
Ms. Seymour
APPENDIX B
Initial Interview Questions
Do you enjoy teaching math/science? Why?
How do your students best learn math and science? Why do you think that? Is that
true for all your students?
Have you ever had an opportunity to do research in your classroom? If yes, what
did you learn? If no, what do you think you might learn?
Are there any special features or elements of a lesson you include in every math or
science lesson? What are they?
Describe a typical math/science lesson in your classroom.
If not already described, ask: How do you assess what your students know before
instruction?
How sure are you about what they know before, during and after a lesson?
Are you satisfied with the learning outcomes of all your students? Explain.
What do you do to help the students who are having a difficult time in learning?
Do other teachers influence the way you teach? How?
Do you get a chance to talk to other teachers about teaching practices?
What kinds of things do you share? Do you feel that talking to other teachers about
teaching is worthwhile? Why? Could there be any times when it may not be
worthwhile?
Do you get a chance to observe other teachers? Do other teachers get a chance to
observe you?
What kind of feedback do you get from others who observe you? How does that
feedback make you feel? Why do you feel that way?
How do you feel about giving feedback to other teachers you observe teaching?
What makes you feel that way?
Is there anything you would like to ask me?
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APPENDIX C
Final Interview Questions
I’d like to start out by thanking you for taking the time to do this interview. As I listened
to the tapes of our lesson study, I thought of questions about what happened. I wonder
what you were thinking then and now. When answering these questions, please be as
honest as possible. Don’t worry about being impolite or critical, or hurting my feelings
because if you are not completely honest I am not going to learn very much. Your
responses will remain confidential and I will protect your identity. As a reminder, this
conversation and your statements are not related to any performance review for the
district. Do you have any questions for me before we begin?
Questions Probes
What was your overall impression of the
lesson study?
Why did you participate in lesson study? Some teachers said they didn’t want to be
out of their classrooms so much. Did you
feel the same way?
Not really wanting to be involved
Thought it was worth a try
Really was the right thing to do
Did you ever think about how you might get
out of it or consider dropping out? Why or
(why not)?
Two teachers did call in sick, one for eye
surgery and the other for a vacation. They
will be asked: How did you feel about
missing the session when you were absent?
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Did your reasons for participating change at
all during the study?
If yes, how and why?
How did you feel about the Greenfield
teachers dropping out? How do you think it
affected the outcome of our sessions? Why do
you think the Greenfield teachers dropped
out?
Was there a particular feature of lesson study
you felt was the most beneficial for you?
Why?
Some people mention these. Did any of
these seem particularly important to you.
Planning a lesson with a group of teachers
Watching other teachers teach
Sharing ideas about teaching
Being able to watch students more carefully
during a lesson
Deciding on common goals (long term and
short term)
Getting feedback from other teachers
Choosing your own topic to study during
professional development
Thinking and learning more about the
content before teaching it to kids.
What features of lesson study do you find
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least useful? Why?
Did you learn anything about your own
teaching practices? What did you learn? How
did you learn this?
Were there any new ideas or strategies that
seem to work better than you thought they
would and you think you might try to use in
the future?
Were there any ideas or strategies that you
have used in the past that you are thinking
aren’t really working so well?
Did you learn anything about the teaching
practices of your colleagues? What did you
learn? How did you learn it?
What did you learn about multiplying
fractions (or forces and motion)? How did
you learn that?
Did you learn anything about your students
by participating in lesson study? What did
you learn? When did this happen? How did
it happen?
Megan was relieved to see that Marilyn’s
students reacted in ways similar to her own
children. Did you notice anything like that
when you observed other teachers’ students?
Did you learn anything about another
teachers’ students or students in general?
What did you learn? Did anything surprise
you? Why? What happened that you
expected?
Sharon was surprised how some of her
students who usually don’t perform very
well were “wrapped” in the lesson. What
did you think when she said that during the
feedback session?
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What did you think about the planning
sessions?
How does planning a lesson alone compare
to planning a lesson together? What kind of
things happened with the group that
probably doesn’t happen when you plan a
lesson alone? Why might this happen (or
not)?
What did you learn during the lesson
enactment?
What did you like about the feedback
sessions? What would you do differently
next time? Why?
What did you learn during the feedback
session?
Researchers say that in order for American
teachers to realize the full benefit of lesson
study, they need to learn to be more honest
and give constructive feedback to each
other. Did you see that happening in our
sessions?
How is lesson study as a form of professional
development different from other
professional development activities you
participated in? Is that good? Why or why
not?
Lesson study seems to give more
responsibility for professional development
on the teacher. Do you think this happened
in our lesson study?
Did you feel like you had ownership in the
lesson? Why?
Did anything happen during lesson study that
challenged what your personal ideas or
beliefs about teaching and learning? How did
it challenge them? What are you thinking
about that now?
Marilyn’s ideas about using manipulatives
in mathematics seemed to be challenged
during the lesson study. She said she likes
to use manipulatives but that her kids don’t
like to use them. She thought the
manipulatives messed the kids up during the
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lesson. But at the end of the feedback
session she said that she would definitely
use different kinds of manipulatives next
year when teaching fractions. Do you think
lesson study created a challenge of beliefs
for Marilyn? Did the lesson challenge your
beliefs about using manipulatives or
anything else?
Research says that before teachers implement
different teaching or learning strategies in
their classroom they need to first experience
them as a learner themselves. Do you think
that is true? Were there any ideas or strategies
you experienced during lesson study that you
think would work for you in the classroom?
Examples:
Using journals for students to record their
thinking
Collaborative learning environment
Designing a project with a team
Taking advantage of the strengths of each
individual to enhance the quality of the
project
Learning from expertise of peers and not just
the teacher as the expert
Depending on the strengths and resources of
others
Peers explaining ideas to each other
(Classroom discourse)
Do you think our lesson study was
successful? Why? What do you think made
it successful (or not)?
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Would this lesson study be worthwhile for
other teachers in the building? In the district?
Why or why not? How could this be done? Is
this a kind of work that would be hard to get
most teachers to do together, or do you think
most teachers would want to do this?
How aware are you of the reformed efforts in
math and science? Is lesson study a good
way to help you learn and practice the ideas
suggested by the math and science reform?
Why?
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APPENDIX D
The CoWeb Page
What are our lesson study goals? We need a broad, long term goal that could be
motivational or social and a short term goal that covers content. First, for the
long term goal, think about the students you serve.
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APPENDIX E
Fifth Grade Fraction Pre-Test
Use the space provided to show how you solve the problems.
Miss K has 24 students in her class. ½ of
the students are going on a field trip. How
many students will be going on the trip?
The three fifth grade classes had a party.
Each class had 3/8 of a pizza left. How
much pizza is left from all three classes?
Miss R has 20 cupcakes. Her class ate 3/4
of those cupcakes. How many cupcakes did
they eat?
A caterpillar is 1/3 of an inch long. After it
turns into a butterfly it is 4 times as long.
How long is the butterfly?
The students in the movie “Econ and Me”
are building a clubhouse. They used a piece
of wood that is 2/3 of a foot long. When
they finished they had ½ of the piece of
wood left. How much wood is left?
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APPENDIX F
Multiplying Fractions Lesson
Finding a fraction of a whole number
Plan of the study lesson
a. Goals
i. Long term - Students will have respect for self, others and
learning and take personal responsibility for their behavior
ii. Short term - Find a fractional part of a whole number
b. How this study lesson is related to the lesson study goal
i. Long term goal - the students will work with partners and
explain their answer and way of thinking. They need to
collaborate with their partners with positive statements.
ii. Short term goal – This is one of the first lessons in the
multiplication of fractions
c. Process of the study lesson
i. Start with a story problem with ½ of 12 have three students
explain their answers and thinking.
12 students from Ms. Marilyn’s class are in chorus.
Only ½ of the students in chorus will attend the spring
concert. How many of Ms. Marilyn’s students will
attend the spring concert?
ii. Give the same story problem using ¼ of 12. Ask students how they
will figure out the answer. Lead to drawing a picture of using
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manipulative. Work out the problem with partner. Share answers and
thinking with the whole class.
12 students from Ms. Marilyn’s class are in chorus.
Only ¼ of the students in chorus will attend the spring
concert. How many of Ms. Marilyn’s students will
attend the spring concert?
iii. Then give two problems to work on independently. The students
will work independently; write their answers for both but the thinking
for one, share their answer and thinking with their partner. Then we
will share with the whole class.
a. 1/6 of 18
b. 1/3 of 24
iv. Then give a story problem with factions that have numerators greater
then one. Read together, answer at their desks, discuss with partner
then share strategies with whole class.
There are 12 teachers at Forest Hills. 2/3 of the teachers
will be at a meeting Wednesday morning. How many
teachers are going to be at the meeting?
v. Give another story problem. Students work independently, share
with their partners, share with the whole class.
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There are 12 teachers at Forest Hills. ¾ of the teachers
will be at a meeting Wednesday morning. How many
teachers are going to be at the meeting?
vi. Then give two problems to work on independently. The
students will work independently; write their answers for both
but the thinking for one, share with a partner, and share with the
class.
a. 3/5 of 20
b. 5/6 of 18
d. Evaluation – Draw a picture of how it is solved, write the answer and write
your thinking in words.
i. There are 24 computers in the lab. 4/6 of the computers are working
today. How many computers are working?
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APPENDIX G
The Science Lesson: Brick Slide
Long Term Goals:
Students will have respect for self, others, and learning.
Short Term Goals:
A force is a push or a pull that can speed up, slow down, stop or change the
direction of an object. Friction is a force that slows things down.
Introduction:
Introduce and read story about Egyptian pyramids
Discuss Egyptian pyramids and how they moved large “bricks” to construct.
Focus Questions:
What happens when we move our brick across different surfaces?
How much force does it take to move a brick?
Materials:
12 small bricks
12 boards (smooth on one side and sand paper glued onto the other)
12 spring scales
Procedure:
1. Show students pictures of the pyramids and the bricks used to build them.
Read story.
2. We know the Egyptians had to move their bricks over different surfaces
because they had to move them from where they quarried or made them.
Over which surfaces would it be easier to move the bricks?
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3. We can simulate the troubles the Egyptians had by moving our bricks over
the various surfaces we will have set up at your desks. Ask students: What
happens when we move our brick across different surfaces? How much force
is needed to pull the bricks across the different surfaces? In our investigation,
we will find out how different surfaces affect the movement of the brick. One
person from each group will retrieve materials from the workstation.
4. Students will be given the opportunity to practice measuring force in
Newtons.
5. Students will predict and record the amount of force needed to pull the
brick.
6. Students will measure and record the force needed to pull the brick from
one end of the board to the other. There will be three trials for each surface.
7. Students will summarize results and draw a conclusion by answering the
questions given.
8. Each group will gather materials to be put away
9. In a whole group discussion, ask individual groups to share and record their
data.
10. Discuss differences in data if needed and individual groups conclusions.
What conclusion can we make as a whole class?
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Observer: ______________________
Teacher:________________________
Name of Lesson_________________
Topic: _________________________
Time Lesson Began: ______________
Time Lesson ends: ________________
Materials: _______________________
Date of Observation: _______________
What are the goals of the lesson?
Where is the lesson situated in the development of the unit?
Lesson Flow: Describe the main tasks or activities that occurred during the class
period and the amount of time devoted to each.
Observations of Tasks/Activities
1. Describe the task as presented orally or in writing by the teachers. Use
the teacher’s language in the description.
2. Describe the interactions of the teacher with the students.
What kinds of questions were asked? How did the teacher respond to
the student?
3. Describe the students’ responses. Did they explain their reasoning?
Did they support or justify their claims?
4. What kinds of questions did students ask?
5. Did the lesson motivate students to work together to solve a problem?
6. How did the students interact with their peers? To what extent did it
reflect substantive conversation about mathematical/science ideas?
7. What was the level of engagement of most students most of the time?
8. Did the lesson match students’ understanding and prior knowledge?
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APPENDIX K
Feedback Session Protocol
1. Assign the role of moderator
2. The moderator begins the session with a brief outline of the agenda for discussion.
The feedback session should end with comments from an outside advisor, if present.
3. The teacher who taught the lesson first comments on the lesson and gives reactions.
This will give the teacher the opportunity to describe what was being studied, what
worked, what didn’t, what she would change about the lesson.
4. When observers begin to share their feedback, they first thank the teacher who taught
the lesson and then discuss what they liked about the lesson. Observers could then
share critical feedback by phrasing it in a statement that might begin like, “When I
taught this lesson, I did (blank) differently because…” They could then ask the
teacher to explain their reasons for why they did it their way.
5. Each observer should comment on a specific aspect of the lesson and give other
observers the chance to reply or comment on related aspects. This is done to avoid the
problem of one observer dominating the conversation and allowing others to share
feedback.
6. The teacher who taught the lesson should wait until all observers have a chance to
comment about a particular aspect of a lesson before responding to observers. This
establishes a waiting etiquette and allows all participants to voice and absorb
feedback in a reflective manner.