Eric.ed.gov – Lesson Study: Evaluation Report and Executive Summary

Lesson Study is a popular approach to teacher professional development used widely in Japan. It involves a small group of teachers co-planning a series of lessons based on a shared learning goal for the pupils, with one teacher leading the co-constructed lesson and their colleagues invited to observe pupil learning in the lesson. The team then develop their practice further, based on feedback. Some of the features of Lesson Study have been adopted, in a variety of formats, in the U.K. A team at Edge Hill University developed a Lesson Study programme combined with a Talk for Learning content focus, which involved a team of three teachers collaborating to plan, teach, (informally) observe and analyse the impact of teaching on pupil response and progress. Each teacher identified two ‘case pupils’ in their own class who appeared to be underachieving, and the observation focused on these pupils. The aim of the intervention was to raise pupil attainment by improving teacher effectiveness. This evaluation tested the impact of a particular version of the Edge Hill programme on pupils’ Key Stage 2 (KS2) outcomes. Three teachers from each participating school attended five training sessions from September 2013 to July 2015. Each term, they completed one Lesson Study cycle where one of the team taught three co-planned ‘research’ lessons while the others observed pupil learning, interviewed the case pupils after each research lesson, and met with the teacher to review their practice. Each year, at least one Lesson Study cycle focused on literacy, and at least one on maths; at least one cycle focused on a Year 4 class and one on a Year 5 class. The programme was evaluated using a randomised controlled trial of schools in the South West, East Midlands, and North West. Teachers in 181 schools (teaching 12,747 pupils) took part. The primary outcome was a combination of KS2 maths and reading test scores for pupils who were in Years 4 and 5 in the first year of the trial. The process evaluation involved observation of teacher training, analysis of surveys, school visits, and interviews with participating teachers and senior leaders. Methods, impact evaluation, process evaluation, and findings are discussed herein.