Embracing complex adaptive practice: the potential of lesson study

Abstract

The current neoliberal political climate in education has narrowed the focus of teachers' professional development and reduced their work in the classroom to a simple and predictable process. In this article, we challenge this view by deploying a range of complexity thinking concepts to present an account of teachers as self-organising, inquiring, and emergent professionals, whose classroom practice is constantly evolving as they negotiate different boundaries and make connections across the nested layers of the education system. Lesson Study is recognised as a collaborative, school-based, and long-term form of professional development that appears to have the potential to foster these complex and adaptive features of classroom practice. To this end, in the closing stages of this article, we present examples from our involvement in two longitudinal research projects in Scotland. The project leaders have set up appropriate contexts for Lesson Study that are ripe for a focus on complex adaptive practice in the future. We share our next steps in these two projects but remain realistic about the implications of developing complex adaptive practice through Lesson Study in the current political climate.

Exploring online lesson study as a vehicle for teacher collaborative professional learning

“…In order to support learning and development of such knowledge, it holds that teacher PD needs to be ongoing, collaborative and contextualised (McMillan and Jess, 2021). Contemporary transformative models of PD are characterised as a process of problem-identification by professionals and subsequent activity, “where the subsequent activity involves enquiring into one's own practice and understanding more about other practice” (Kennedy, 2014, p. 7)- as in the case of LS.…”

How does lesson study promote district education reform? – A case study of a district in Shanghai

“…Recent studies also demonstrated that LS can develop teachers professionally, especially in enhancing their subject content knowledge, improving their teaching strategies (Gutierez, 2016), impacting their values and conceptions of teaching and learning and developing new pedagogical practices (Shuilleabhain and Seery, 2018). At the same time, LS can also develop teachers' self-efficacy and adaptive teaching behavior to complex classroom practice (McMillan and Jess, 2021;Schipper et al, 2018) and promote collaboration and reduce District education reform feelings of professional isolation, enable teachers to pay more attention to students' learning and eventually improve quality of classroom teaching and pupil learning outcomes (Cajkler et al, 2015). These studies reflected the positive impact of LS on teachers, students and instruction.…”

Thought piece: to what extent could the reflective approach to teaching practicum debriefing strategy be incorporated in lesson study?

“…Through this planning process, a group of teachers determine what students should understand about the lesson content and how best to teach this content (Myers, 2012). McMillan and Jess (2021) state that teachers demonstrate positive changes in teaching, professional beliefs, pedagogical skills, and content knowledge by employing lesson study. Specifically, Dudley (2016) sees the process of Lesson Study as cyclical and identifies several stages of the lesson study cycle.…”

“…McMillan, Jess, and Irvine (2020), McMillan and Jess (2021) and Dudley (2016) refer to this stage as the post-lesson discussion or colloquium. This stage involves interviewing the targeted students about their experiences and teachers' discussing lesson observation notes.…”