Beyond the borders of the local

Abstract

Purpose: In this paper, we present how experiences gained from a theory informed lesson study -learning study -in regard to a specific learning goal can be shared and used by other teachers in new contexts.Design: A group of teachers worked together in a cyclic, iterative process of planning, evaluating and revising teaching. The aim was to provide possibilities for grade 2 and 3 students to become familiar with negative numbers. The teacher group draw the conclusion that the students needed to be able to differentiate some aspects of negative numbers. The conjecture was put to the test in a follow-up study with five new teachers and eight classes. One lesson was taught based on the empirical findings in the learning study.Findings: The results suggest that teachers' collaborative work have possibilities to produce knowledge about critical aspects of learning that can be communicated and adopted in new contexts. The teachers in the follow up study were able to make sense of the results from learning study and incorporate the critical aspects in their teaching in a way that enhanced students' learning.Originality: It is demonstrated that teacher collaboration in learning study can create knowledge that goes beyond the border of the local context. Keywords: Lesson study, sharing instructional products, negative numbers, variation theory, knowledge production. Article classification: Research paper IntroductionThere are extensive reports on the effectiveness of lesson study for teachers' improvement of teaching skills, how they learn to reflect, on changes in motivation and capacity to improve instruction and the development of content and pedagogical content knowledge (e.g. Lewis, Perry and Hurd, 2009). Furthermore, it is reported that Lesson Study can promote the establishment of learning communities and teacher collaboration, a culture of mutual accountability, shared goals for instruction and a common language for analyzing instruction (e.g. Chichibu and Kihara 2013;Hunter and Back, 2011;Toshiya and Toshiyuki, 2013). To us, with these purposes, lesson study will be restricted to a model for professional development only, not as a system that can generate new and relevant knowledge recognized as a legitimate knowledge source for professionals.Hiebert and Morris (2011) take lesson study further when they promote it as a system for "the creation of shared instructional products that guide classroom teaching" (p. 5). 'Instructional products' should be designed with a specific learning goal in focus and detailed enough to guide classroom instruction. An instructional product is the current answer to common and shared problems on teaching and learning. It is tentative, changeable and thereby open to improvement. Therefore, such 'local theories' embedded in the instructional product must be communicated, shared and improved by other teachers in other contexts. In this way, they could be tested and verified under new and local conditions. However, it has been questioned whether this is possible. In a review of practiti...

Teachers and researchers in collaboration. A possibility to overcome the research‐practice gap?

“…Kullberg's study suggests that the identified critical aspects are critical to develop a capability and specific knowing, thus they are features of the object of learning. The same is indicated by Runesson, Lövström, and Hellquist (2018). They tested critical aspects for "realizing the existence of negative numbers" identified in a learning study in Grade 2 in eight classes.…”

“…When the results from the pre-and post-assignments were analysed, it was found that the improvement of students' performance in the "replication lesson" reflected the improvement in the learning study lesson. Runesson et al (2018) suggest not only that identifying critical aspects and embedding them as patterns of variation affect students' learning, but also that they are relevant beyond the local context.…”