Lesson Study Group at Mills College

What is Lesson Study?

In Japan, teachers improve their teaching through "lesson study," a process in which teachers jointly plan, observe, analyze, and refine actual classroom lessons called "research lessons".  Lesson study is widely credited for the steady improvement of Japanese elementary mathematics and science instruction.  Since 1999, lesson study has rapidly emerged in many sites across the United States.  

In Lesson Study teachers:

• Think about the long-term goals of education - such as love of learning and respect for others;

• Carefully consider the goals of a particular subject area, unit or lesson (for example, why science is taught, what is important about levers, how to introduce levers);

• Plan classroom "research lessons" that bring to life both specific subject matter goals and long term goals for students; and

• Carefully study how students respond to these lessons - including their learning, engagement, and treatment of each other.

Our Research

Since 1999, the Mills College Lesson Study Group has conducted research on lesson study in U.S. settings, including schools, districts and pre-service education.  Our work focuses on adaptation of lesson study to U.S. settings, the nature of teachers’ learning during lesson study, and the ways in which outside experts and resources – especially those from Japan – can support teachers’ learning. Support for the research has come from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences (IES).

Our team is currently engaged in two major research projects, both focused on whether research-based toolkits enable mathematics lesson study groups to access and use content knowledge effectively. Our NSF-funded research examines lesson study toolkits for proportional reasoning and area of polygons.  Our IES-funded research examines mathematical representations of fractions.

For further information or comments, please contact:
Melissa Crockett (mcrockett@mills.edu)

This material is based upon research supported by the National Science Foundation on Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering and under the National Center for Education Research within the Department of Education Institute for Education Sciences. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the grantors.