Spotlight on Literacy
Lesson Study: Power and Possibility

by Rebecca McKay Director, Literacy and Professional Development

Introduction
While traveling through Memphis last week, reflections of the 2008 Winter Conference Lesson Study caused my imagination to dance.  Grabbed by an advertisement stating that more cargo passed through the Memphis airport than any other airport in the world, I remembered that Memphis is home to FedEx.  Thinking that American public schools have bragging rights about the numbers of students that pass through our doors, I wondered if Cornerstone schools could embrace the FedEx motto: "Relax, it's FedEx" and adapt it to: “Relax, it’s Cornerstone.”  Could Lesson Study aide us with inquiry in literacy and science integration if we continue to tap into the power and possibility within the Lesson Study process?

A Story of Power and Possibility
The Lesson Study I participated in at the conference (at St. Mary’s Elementary School) gave me renewed hope in the power and possibilities of the process.  Melanie Bastien, a teacher of five months, moved through the rituals and routines of the research lesson with 20 children, all a mere five years old.  An act of precision and clarity, the lesson showed the teacher’s in-depth knowledge of rituals and routines, a finding that was an agreed-upon strength among the Lesson Study team.  The team followed their “skeleton lesson plans” [see online article] and furiously took notes to give as feedback in relation to student learning, teaching, and the lesson plan itself.  After the lesson, observers gathered around to provide suggestions on strengthening the lesson. Knowledgeable others [see online handout] with a broad range of perspectives served on the research team. The room epitomized the vision for Lesson Study:

• To study the impact of the lesson on student reading, writing, speaking, listening, and thinking.
• To help improve the lesson developed by the lesson-planning team.
• To grow as a Cornerstone network in understanding best practices.

Scrunched into small chairs around the room, seasoned educators were hard at work. The research team included Ann Southworth, Mary Ellen Ceasar, Joanne Wilson-Keenan, Brenda Byrd, Terry Powe, St. Mary’s staff, including kindergarten teachers.
When the feedback session convened, Nekia Roberts, led the group.  Silence enveloped the room and the novice teacher broke the ice: “Oh come on you guys, I’m a first year teacher.  Surely you can tell me something!” The room warmed with the laughter of nervous participants and the learning began. When the session was over, Melanie Bastein, Nekia Roberts and other members of the kindergarten team at St. Mary’s School benefited from the indepth discussion. The well-received feedback revolved around the importance of building meaning first when working with young writers, using tools for support but monitoring their interference, and tapping vocabulary to build essential rigor into the lesson.  Melanie practically burned a hole in her note-taking pad!

The previous week, when I observed Melanie teach, I realized that rigor would be an important element for her next growth steps. I suggested interactive writing as a strategy to build rigor into the modeled writing that would feed the content of the kindergarteners’ written composition of meaning. The research team’s suggestions were a perfect fit, for all were ways to build rigor into the lesson. So what made this feedback session work and what can we learn from it?
With literacy leaders, coaches, and principals on the Lesson Study research
team, the feedback exemplified the following elements:

1. The research team named rigor and what instructional practices lead to it.
2. The research team extended their learning. For instance, the team knew how to say the lesson could be strengthened, then made suggestions for added rigor while honoring the teacher and the lesson writing team.
3. The research team thought about the phrasing of suggestions and the manner in which they stated a strategy. This took brainwork and real reflection immediately following the lesson.  From the minute the lesson researchers felt that “itch”…that feeling that things were not as they should be…, they started to craft their words to aid the instruction and to move the lesson forward, all the while remembering the Chinese proverb: Do not remove a fly from your friend’s forehead with a hatchet.
4. The research team monitored their prejudices. Coming into this classroom for a one-hour observation hardly gives a Lesson Study team the right to make bold sweeping statements about teachers, students, or schools. This team remembered that their role was to critique the lesson and move the work forward. They were of a mind to ask: ”What would be the smallest thing we could suggest that would make the greatest difference?” Joanne Wilson-Keenan used this technique by phrasing her suggestion in this manner:  “I wonder if the students would attend more to the meaning of their writing if they put the spacing sticks aside?”  Then she did a brilliant thing by quoting E.B. White: “If one is to write, one must believe – in the truth and worth of the scrawl.”
5. The research team stated suggestions with the stems: “Could we try? What would happen if? I wonder why?” These stems provided a safe way to say the essentials to move the teaching and learning forward.
6. The research team used the rich resources of knowledgeable others, the teacher, and the lesson writing team to have the final say in development of content for the lesson rewrite, all the while honoring Melanie and the kindergarten team.

If we stick to this agenda just as this Lesson Study research team did, we position a teacher to move forward in thinking and building habits of mind; and the power and possibilities of Lesson Study are revealed.  The Cornerstone mission of using lesson study for teacher change can be realized, and we can truly say, “Relax, it’s Cornerstone!”

“The education community in the United States is in the midst of debate.  Although people may disagree with each other, they are all concerned about students’ learning.  In order for us all to learn from these debates, we need to make sure that the debates are deeply rooted in the actual practice of teaching, and lesson study offers a systematic forum where such debates can take place.

 Although teaching occurs in contexts, and our contexts vary significantly, our future research can nevertheless inform each other.  An important recommendation for improvement of teaching practices offered in Adding It Up states that professional meetings should be used for “more serious and substantive professional development.”
Likewise, when education researchers throughout the world come together, we should use those occasions for sharing and planning further collaborative efforts to improve teaching practices everywhere.” [Retrieved online February 9, 2008: www.criced.tsukuba.ac.jp/math/apec2006/progress_report/Specialist_Session]

If we follow the advice of the aforementioned experts, our Cornerstone network of schools will continue the path of the Winter Conference Lesson Studies as a means to insure the continuation of “serious and substantive professional development” even though our contexts vary.

Next Steps for Cornerstone:
To improve teaching and learning, revisiting Cornerstone documents to extend our use of Lesson Study is a priority. One document, Lesson Study for Teacher Change – The Role of the Facilitator and Knowledgeable Other, is included in the online version of this article. Literacy Fellows plan to run model lessons as ‘mini-lesson studies’ with lesson plans in the format found in Melanie Bastien’s lesson skeleton [online]. We will seek out knowledgeable others and bring them into our network as a source for fresh perspectives into the complexities of the Cornerstone definition of literacy.  For example, on March 6, Pat Paugh will continue her role as Cornerstone knowledgeable other to finalize our case study of struggling readers. Fellows will team with coaches and teachers to offer Public Research Lessons to build capacity for giving feedback and saying the difficult things to improve student learning and teaching. These are sure routes to closing the achievement gap and allowing the adoption of the motto: “Relax, it’s Cornerstone!”

Lesson Plan: Kindergarten, St. Mary’s Magnet Academy, Melanie Bastien (PDF)
Lesson Study for Teacher Change – The Role of the Facilitator and Knowledgeable Other (PDF)
Results of Lesson Study Reporting Form (PDF)
Knowledgeable Other (PDF)