Technology-Mediated Lesson Study

What is Lesson Study?

Lesson study is an instructional inquiry model where teachers work face-to-face in small collaborative groups to craft, deliver, observe, and refine teaching practice. During traditional lesson study, colleagues watch one teacher deliver a planned lesson, meet afterward to discuss the observed lesson and plan revisions. This creates a collaborative lesson planning and delivery cycle while building strong relationships between colleagues.

Technology-mediated lesson study

Technology-Mediated Lesson Study (TMLS) uses the same cycle of engaging teachers in iterative, collaborative processes of lesson design, teaching, observation, and lesson redesign but uses technology resources that notably allow teachers to interact and learn together when not co-located.

Because of the geographic distance between rural science teachers, traditional lesson study is impossible, but in TMLS, technology is utilized to connect otherwise isolated teachers to co-create lessons and offer feedback on teaching and the lesson material.

In TMLS, colleagues observe the lesson via video recording, then meet online, transforming how rural science teachers collaborate. The TMLS process invites participants virtually into their colleagues’ classrooms, an intimate, vulnerable act that we believe will support strong collegial relationships, even though the teams will meet via technology.

During traditional lesson study, as seen on the right, colleagues observe as one teacher enacts the planned lesson, then meet in person afterward to discuss the lesson and plan revisions. As seen on the left, in TMLS, colleagues observe the lesson via video recording and then meet online.