Collaborative Lesson Research - improving student learning

A School of Education  Seminar Hosted by the Centre for Research in Mathematics Education and Collaborative Lesson Research

Presented by Professor Geoff Wake and Marie Joubert, University of Nottingham 

We often experience some reluctance on the part of school leaders to commit resources to staff wanting to implement collaborative lesson research. They often ask for evidence that doing so will lead to increased student learning - especially in improving their attainment on national tests. This is understandable but few studies can do this convincingly.

As part of a large-scale randomised controlled trial, we introduced an adapted model of lesson study. The study contrasted the intervention with lesson study with a model that introduced all the other support mechanisms available to teachers to support mastery learning. Here we report outcomes in terms of student attainment which was impacted most when taught by teachers who had engaged with the lesson study model. We reflect on our understanding of why this was the case and draw some lessons for how we might best set up lesson studies when working in a culture where its use is not substantially embedded.

Geoff Wake

Geoff Wake has a substantial history of research and design in mathematics education. He convenes the Centre for Research in Mathematics education at the University of Nottingham which has been involved with the IMPULS group of Tokyo Gakugei University since 2012. Since that time Lesson Study has become integral to much of the Centre's work with teachers.

Marie Joubert

Marie Joubert was the Senior Research Fellow working on the Centres for Excellence in Maths research strand. She has much experience of working on intervention programmes with teachers both in the UK and South Africa.