MFM1P 4Si Lesson Study Reflection

LESSON STUDY: MFM1P - Where’s the Math? Data Management Investigation

SYNOPSIS:          

Student groups will examine items at 5 different stations and come up with possible experiment ideas they can conduct with the item(s). Every groups’ ideas will be evaluated to determine the criteria needed to select a “good” experiment idea, to be later conducted.

MFM1P EXPECTATIONS:

Apply data-management techniques to investigate relationships between two variables.

-Create and Interpret scatter plots

-Pose problems, identify variables, and formulate hypotheses associated with relationships between two variables.

-Carry out an investigation or experiment involving relationships between two variables

-Describe trends and relationships observed in data, make inferences with hypotheses about data, and explain any differences between the inferences and the hypotheses.

SSSSI GOALS:

Working in Groups

-Accountable Talk (explaining/clarifying, paraphrasing, asking questions, feedback, critiquing)

-Roles in the groups (Facilitator, Secretary & Active Participant)

-Communication (verbal and written)

-Critical Thinking

    -Connecting prior knowledge and experience

    -Using creativity and thinking beyond their knowledge and experiences

    -Brainstorm, categorize, analyze & evaluate, reflect and justify decisions

-Differentiation & Engagement

-Entry points for all student ability

-Grouping allows for learning

-Opportunities for rich discussion & questioning

CLASS MAKEUP:

            15 students (6 males/9 females)

10 students with IEP (5 LD, 3 Anxiety/Depression, 1 Behaviour, 1 Downs Syndrome)
The class was created 1 week prior to the lesson study. Half the students were taken from a high needs Academic class and the other half from an over-sized Applied class.

               

REFLECTION:

New to 4Si team (but not new to the lesson study experience) and working with the other teachers and my principal, I placed a lot of expectations on the development and plan of my lesson study, as I wanted to prove my assets to the team who had already been working together and shown results for a year now. This and also having to follow two successfully inspiring lessons studies by the team.

The planning of the lesson proved challenging for my current teaching practices as I had to mesh them with the strategies the team had found successful. Being a teacher who needs a lot of time to process new ideas, and have things prepared and planned in great detail from one moment to the next, we discussed how the 4Si goals could be implemented each step of my lesson. I incorporated the strategies my colleagues found successful in their lessons - ability groupings, activity stations, snowballing, anonymous ideas/comments/feedback, categorize by criteria, and consolidation. I left the meeting with a lesson plan idea...but also feelings of excitement and overwhelmingness.

On my own with less than one week to prepare my newly formed class of 1Ps, I felt that the structure on my lesson needed to be detailed and well drawn out for my students. I made worksheets with explicit questions, comment cards requiring explicit feedback, anchor charts with headings for the students to fill out. I informed my students of what they should expect the day prior, I felt really prepared.

The day of the lesson study. There are more adults in the room than originally expected - a student teacher, guest teacher and my principal’s supervisor. The first bell doesn't ring, there’s no music, no anthem, and no announcements. The computer in the room doesn't have the program I planned to use for a timer and I forgot my cell phone. Not a great start - Can it get worse?

Students are grouped by their choosing, which was decided because the class was newly formed and they were still getting use to each other. I explain the details of the activity and what needed to be done at the 5 different stations. Each station had a set of items. They had to brainstorm ideas of experiments they could conduct using those items. Write them down on paper and place them inside a box. The plan was for the groups to visit all 5 stations in 25 minutes. After starting late and the students trying to figure the activity out, they spent 15 minutes just at the first station! As the students moved from station to station, I was able to walk around, talk to and prompt each group to move things along faster. We had enough time for the groups to get back to their home station, categorize and evaluate all the ideas. This ended up being the most engaging part of the activity. The students enjoyed pulling out all the slips from the box and reading each other’s ideas and discussing which their favourite ideas were. Unfortunately the class ended before we could begin to consolidate their criteria of what made for a good experimental idea.

An important aspect in the lesson study approach is to reflect on the lesson right after it occurred, which in the back of my mind, I was dreading the whole period. My impressions during the lesson were that the students were engaged, but more disengaged because I placed too many expectations on them and they withdrew. I felt I was constantly on the move putting out fires to try to keep the students engaged. The essential piece of the lesson, the categorizing of ideas, was so rushed that I didn’t think the students really got it.

The feedback from the other 4Si members as well as the observers were exactly in line with my observations during the lesson; students were initially engaged but lost interest, they came up with ideas they were unable to communicate on paper, they enjoyed sorting through, examining and rating everyone's responses, but the one which resonated with me was how the kids were playing with the items while trying to think of experimental ideas. For example, the balloon station had different sized balloons and one group stretched the balloon and used it to hit the box of ideas to watch it slide across the table, another table tried to hook all the weights together similar the the game Barrel of Monkeys. This struck a chord with me because I pride on trying to make my activities fun for my students, and this lesson just wasn't that fun for them - but they found ways to make it fun.

For the remainder of the day and all of that night I couldn't stop thinking about the lesson and the changes I needed to make in my teaching practices. The idea of student using the balloon to essentially create a game, sparked the idea that that should have been the approach I need to take. The next day, I brought in bags of popped popcorn. I gave each group a bag and asked them to come up with a game using the popcorn. Student came up with “Who can eat the most with or without your hands?”, “Try to eat the whole bag in 1 minute”, “How many can you throw in your mouth?”, “How many can you throw into your partner’s mouth?”, “How high of stack can you make?”, and “If you line up the popcorn, who can hoover them into their mouth the fastest?”. Then we actually tried a few of the games. Then we discussed if these were carnival games and we charged money to participate and gave out prizes, which games would be good to use and why. This became the class discussion and task over the next 2 days. The discussion that came out of this was very rich. We talked about their experiences playing games at fairs, odds of winning and losing and how these were determined,  the cost of the games versus the prizes, the profits of the games, and how all these needed to be considered when creating their games. Students then experimented to determine the scores which could win prizes, but still be profitable. In the end the students got to play their games and determine if they were profitable. As this activity occurred near the end of the semester and we had limited time to prepare for EQAO, we did not get a chance to consolidate or extend our learning of this activity. In the future, when I get the opportunity to do this again, I would follow up with discussing their outcomes, the factors which could make it more profitable, and how this would affect their data in the various representations.

In conclusion, this experience has highlighted the realization of the importance of students taking ownership of the activity is crucial to the success of their engagement, creativity, risk-taking, and learning. I planned to use my revised lesson study and incorporate these ideas in my next 4Si lesson study.

Storyboard Creation

4SI Lesson Study – Glebe Collegiate Institute – English Eng 2P 
First lesson plan – Storyboard Creation.
By Katherine Caldwell

 The idea was to get the students more involved in “accountable talk” and critical thinking. I wanted to engage them in an activity where they could use previous knowledge and create their own meaning.  The students came into the class knowing  the essential components of what a story entails (plot diagram, terms etc) . The desks were placed into groups of 4, with a white board, markers, chart paper , post it notes ,a picture of a random setting and a picture of 2 characters and  the questions: who, what, where, why, when, how.  Students were 3 to a group. Once they were seated and had a chance to look at everything, I discussed with them the idea of story creation...the importance of a good introduction and WHY, and engaged them in a short discussion about what they felt was necessary in a good story. They generated answers of conflict, relatable characters , interesting setting and everything from humour to suspense.

Following the short discussion, I asked them to look at what was on their desks.  I told them that they were to generate a short story outline using the questions, prompts and the ideas taken from discussion.  Also....there were 2 bags at the front of the class, one contained pictures of random settings, the other characters. If they were not satisfied with the pictures on their desk, they were allowed one trade. As well I would walk around with another bag, containing random objects ( Lego, candles, dental floss, toys etc) One member of each group was to blindly select an object. The object was to be used in the story.

Immediately, the groups were engaged. They quickly began discussing what was on their table and how they could be put to use. The objects brought forth many ideas for creativity and they began to work together to put their ideas on the white boards.

The use of whiteboards was very beneficial as they could jot down their ideas and easily erase if needed. They began to talk and each member of the group was contributing to their story plan. I was surprised at how well they were working and talking together. They began to ask questions and they were having fun with it. Even one group of boys, who are generally are not engaged, were creating and talking.

As they put their ideas on the whiteboard, they would review and add or take out information. As the story outline took place, the groups then transferred the ideas onto chart paper. This was done by either following a storyboard outline(sectioned into smaller squares) or along a plot diagram. If they wanted to add information they would use the post it notes and place it right on their paper.

Once the chart paper was filled out, we put them on the front board and groups walked around and looked at each story creation.  The students took pride in their stories and liked having them on display. Having them in small groups, not only encouraged accountable talk but also encouraged critical thinking, as they felt comfortable exploring their own ideas. Essentially there was no wrong answer. It was fun, creative and they were able to successfully accomplish the learning goals.

In the post discussion, we felt that is was a very positive experience. The use of the desk placement, whiteboards and other tools greatly benefited the students and the learning environment. The students became responsible for their learning. Often, applied students are not comfortable speaking up, yet they were offering up ideas and fully engaged...even going back and adding information after having reviewed the other groups up on the board.

Othello Murder Mystery - English 2D - February 2013

By Kathy Bol

The first lesson I did as part of 4SI was for an English 2D class. This was a typical 2D class - about 30 students, some ELL learners, some at-risk students, and some academic students. We were about to start studying Othello and I wanted to do a pre-reading activity to prepare the students for the play. In the past, I would have started this unit by having the students copy a note with all the details about the play - themes, images, etc. With the focus on critical thinking, my aim now is to let the students "unpack" the text on their own as we read. However, I still place a lot of value on pre-reading activities, especially for difficult texts like Shakespeare. I also wanted to incorporate the strategies which we were focusing on with 4SI - accountable talk, questioning and making inferences.

One of the ideas I brought to the group was a "murder mystery" activity which we refined together.  Each group of students would be given a bag containing several items: a picture of a sword, a picture of a pillow, confetti, a letter from Iago, a news article about Othello, and several quotes from the play. One of the ideas that was generated by the team was to change the names and details so that they weren't directly from Othello (in case some students knew the play, and not to give away too much of the story). So, the letter was from Rick to Ian, and the article was about General Leo and his wife Diane. I was careful not to tell them that it was about Othello.

The class would be told that there had been a murder and they were to use the items in their bag to solve it. The questions they had to answer were: Who was killed? By whom? What was the murder weapon? What was the motive?  They had to write out their scenarios on chart paper and justify them to the rest of the class.

Observations

The students were very engaged from the moment they saw the bags on the tables. Fortunately, no one realized that it was about Othello, or if they did, they did not know the story. (When I did it again this year, some of the students figured it out right away, so it didn't work as well). The goals of accountable talk, inferencing and questioning were definitely met as they actively discussed the items in the bag and what they meant. The students presented their ideas to each other, then posted their chart papers around the room. Once we started reading the play, the other benefits became apparent - they were constantly making references back to the activity ("Ohhhh, that's where the pillow comes in!"), and it really helped with their level of engagement and their understanding of the play.

In our debrief session afterwards, the group was positive about the lesson and felt it achieved what we wanted it to achieve. One interesting observation was about the students' presentations to the class. The first group got up to present, said their part, and I responded with  "Good job". France observed that, after that, the other groups started presenting to me, rather than to their peers, and the audience lost interest. We discussed the effect of teacher comments on students. If they think they are being judged or evaluated, even informally, their behaviour and performance changes as they focus on "What does the teacher want?" We have discussed this several times since. We naturally want to encourage our students, but we need to be careful of when we give feedback and what kind of feedback it is. In this case, it should have come from the class and not me, at least not until after everyone was done, and then what is most useful are specific comments. (ie: "I noticed that this group decided that the sword was symbolic rather than a literal weapon.”)

Math Goes To The Movies

By Bruce McLaurin

The lesson we created for my grade 9 applied class (late April 2013) took a page from a lesson that I was involved  in an earlier lesson study.  That lesson involved experimenting with the relationship between the volumes of popcorn kernels and popcorn.  We decided that in this lesson, rather than telling them what to do, we would ask them to come up with the question.  We would provide a number of items around the popcorn theme and asked the students to come up with a good question that could be solved with math and then go ahead and solve it.  Students would work in small groups of 2 or 3.  The groups were based on ability groupings with social considerations.  In other words, students would be working with other students of similar mathematical ability who they had worked with before.  Each group would be given 100 g of kernels and the cost in bulk,movie theatre popcorn pages with the price attached for small medium and large, cubic centimetre linking cubes, a measuring cup and an instruction sheet.  At the top of the question sheet was a For Better or Worse cartoon with the caption "You can tell how smart someone is by the questions they ask."  They also had access to electronic scales and an electric corn popper as well as chart paper and markers for recording their work.

When planning the lesson there was one more critical piece to consider.  What were the teacher moves?  What would I be doing to facilitate the lesson?  We had a guest at the table for that planning session who offered "Do nothing".  So we agreed that instead of moving about the room and encouraging and cajoling, I would sit down and make myself available for questions. 

On the day of the lesson, the observing teachers were given a list of mathematical terms that they could listen for as evidence of accountable talk.  My introduction to the students was very short and the students got down to work rather tentatively at first.  I found it incredibly difficult to just sit there and let things happen.  I answered a few questions and I was pleased when one group eventually got around to using the corn popper to make popcorn.  As it turned out they just wanted to munch on popcorn as they did their question.  In fact in all the groups the mathematics produced was at a very low level.  There was a group of two with the strongest students.  I had little contact with them until the end of the period.  After more than an hour their chart paper showed that 1000 cm linking cubes fit in a cubic measuring cup that was 10 by 10 by 10.  They had asked a question and answered it just like I directed.

The questions that seemed obvious to us never materialized;  "How many kernels to fill a bag?", "What does it cost to fill a popcorn bag?", "Which size bag in the better deal?".   Interestingly the least academic group came closest to what we had in mind. 

In the debrief with the teachers I expressed my disappointment.  How could they not see what we could see?  What a flop!  Thankfully one of the observing teachers picked up on a comment made almost immediately in a group farthest from me.  As soon as they saw the price on the bulk corn kernels and the price on the movie popcorn the comment was "What a rip-off!".  They got it.  But why couldn't they parlay that into a good question?

After some discussion, the thought occurred to us that there was a huge disconnect between the math classroom and what goes on in the 'real world'.  For their good question, these students were giving us bizarre random worksheet/textbook style math questions.  They were giving us what they thought we wanted.  We can speculate that for years they have been subjected to questions that had little context and even less meaning.  Why wouldn't they mirror that?  To quote Pogo, "We have met the enemy and the enemy is us". 

In this lesson the students learned very little.  We learned lots.  We were blown away by how much we learned about the how little the students understood about good questions.  We knew that we had new challenges ahead.  

 

Open Strategy Cup Stacking

By Al Overwijk

I volunteered to do the first lesson study for our professional learning team. Having had some experience with lesson study I figured I would take the risk and jump right in. This lesson was done in April of 2013. This particular idea comes from the Math Twitter BlogoSphere #MTBoS. The idea I brought to the group was based on three act math tasks via Dan Meyer. Cups are stacked inside each other and a model is created so that students can predict how many cups to get to a certain height. Read about it here.

Being our first lesson that we studied everyone was very interested in three act math tasks. Also our math coach from the board participated as well. Thank you Robin McAteer. (@robintg). She did an amazing job observing the lesson, creating a video and creating a summary of observations.

So what was discussed in our pre-planning:

1. Groups would be made by ability. (Since we have learned the negative consequences of this.)

2. The students would ask the questions based on the image of me standing beside a cup. Come up with a stacking plan, guess to low, too high and give a best guess. Letting the students decide how to stack the cups was a risk. Who knew what they would do?

3. Each group would be required to create a poster with the following: a table of values, a graph, an equation and a stacking diagram.

4. Once a group was done a particular stacking method they would redo the process.

5. Students would fill out an exit card at the end of class.

6. Observers would fill in this form while watching the lesson.
 Lesson:  Classroom Observations (Cups Lesson)

Learning Goals:

®    The students will make connections between a real life context and a mathematical model

®    The students will use the mathematical model to solve a problem

®    The students will use different representations, and make connections between representations (algebraic, graphical, numerical / table of values)

  

 Were the learning goals met?

Discouse / Accountable Talk

§  Were the students talking about Math?  Were they asking each other questions?

 Explaining to each other?

§  Were the student thinking critically?

–   making connections, conjectures, choosing tools and strategies, reflecting on thinking, justifying

               Differentiation / Engagement with task

·         Was the task appropriate for students to engage in learning?

·         Were students connecting to prior learning?

·         Grouping for learning (Similar ability groupings)– did it work ?

Questioning

§  Student to Student questioning

§  Teacher questioning / scaffolding – what did the teacher say?  how did students respond?

Other observations? 

7. Here is a picture of the stems I used.

I blogged about the activity on my blog at slamdunkmath.blogspot.ca

Here are notes that I made to help me be organized.

CUP STACKS

·        Provide all observers with:

Photocopy of names with pictures

Observation sheet

Lesson plan

Group Guess Sheet

Groupings

Timing	Teacher Moves	Observations / Improvements
Before students arrive	·         Photo of Al with cup on floor showing on the overhead ·         Desks grouped in 3’s ·         Groups of 3 by ability-pre determined (variable depending on who shows up)-name tags on the desks ·         Scrap paper for students to generate a question or questions ·         Cups, chart paper, markers, rulers, meter sticks ready and waiting ·         Stems ready and waiting
As students arrive	·         Hand them a cup, and encourage them to find their name at a set of desks ·         After announcements ask students to write down any questions that come to mind when looking at the picture ·         Write questions on the board and settle on “How many cups to reach Mr. Overwijk’s height”-hopefully
9:10-9:20	·         Have each group decide how they will stack their cups and fill in Guess Sheet for Cup Stacks ·         Ask them if they need any information to help answer the question? Provide the information or the tools to get the information. ·         Once they are committed they can grab 10 cups, ruler, chart paper, markers, graphing calculator, anything else they need
9:20-9:25	·         Outline product for chart paper. Title, Group members names, diagram (picture) of stacking plan, different representations ( table, graph, equation) ·         Calculation of number of cups needed (multiple ways if possible)
9:25-9:55	·         Monitor group work and discussions ·         Any groups that have generated a poster can redo the entire process with a new stacking plan
9:55-10:05	·         Exit Card ·         Equipment away

In our debriefing session we were all pretty excited. Things went great. A few things I remember:

A) France (the principal) commenting how nervous I was. This was nerve racking. Presenting a lesson in front of many people whom I respected deeply and did not want to disappoint. I think being slightly nervous can increase performance.

B) Other teachers in the room interacted with groups. This would be something that we would need to work on. The lessons needed to be something one teacher could pull off.

C) Student engagement was visible. Accountable talk was visible.

D) I mentioned that I was panicking once groups started because six of seven groups all stacked the same way (top bottom top etc.). I wanted to interrupt and steer some groups in another direction but this was not the plan. I let it go and groups quickly finished and went on to a second technique to stack. Whew!

Questions
The math coach (Robin) was kind enough to create a list of all the student questions.

Student Questions from the Teacher / Cup Picture

How many cups would it take to be the same height of Mr. Overwijk?

How many cups does it take to make Mr. O’s height?

 What is the difference in size?

 How many times is the cup smaller than Mr. O?

 How many cups does it take to make the same size?

 How big is the cup?

 How big is Mr. Overwijk?

What are the dimensions of the blackboard?

How many cups will equal Mr. Overwijk’s height?

 In cups, what is the width of Mr. Ovewijk?

Why is the cup on the floor?ow tall is Mr. O?

What is the height of the cup?

 If  Mr. O is 6 feet tall, how tall is the cup?

How tall is the cup?

How tall is he?

 How many cups would it take to reach Mr. O’s height?

What is the volume of the cup?

Why is  Mr. Overwijk standing next to a cup?

What is the scale?

How do you find the height of the cup if you know Mr. Overwijk’s height?

How many cups do you need to make a Mr. Overwijk?

Are you able to make an outer shell of Mr. Overwijk with the cups?

Why does your shirt match your cup?

Why?

What is the difference in height between Mr. Overwijk and the cup?

Height of the cup?

Height of Mr. Overwijk?

How many cups does it take to get to the same height of Mr. Overwijk?

How far is the teacher from the cup?

How long is the cup?

How tall is the teacher?

How many cups do you need to reach up to the teacher?

How many more cups are needed stacked up on each other to be the same height as Mr. “O”

How tall is this one?

How tall is Mr. “O”?

What’s the height difference between Mr. Overwijk and the cup?

How far are they apart?  (cup/Overwijk)

Is it supposed to be a graph of some kind?  If so, what kind?

What’s the difference in height?

What are you doing beside a cup?

Height difference?

Why the hell is that cup on the floor?

Stand up straight!

Your legs are cracking me up (oompa-loompa)

How many cups equal your height?

Again Robin summarized the exit card responses

Exit Card Summary

Describe what you learned today Red – Math Green- Stuff about Mr. O Brown – Group work/ Social Black - Other	After today’s activity, what are you unsure about or wondering about? Red – Math Blue – Context / situation Brown – Group work/ Social Black – Other	Name
That the result can change depending on how you stack them	If I’m in the right class If the result will change if different cups were used (bigger width)	A
I learned that Mr. O is same as 1 cups height which is 11.3	I’m not sure about the equation	J
I learned how to create proper graphs for this	I am still kinda confused about equations	M
I learned how to find out how tall you have to be if you want to stack 18 cups on top of each other.  I also learned how tall Mr. O is.	I’m wondering how many cups would need to be stacked up to reach my height	K
I learned proper graphing skills and when to use linear regression	Not a lot, just some formula crap	C
I learned that you need at least 1 measurement to make a graph.  It would have been quite hard to figure anything out without the knowledge of Mr. Overwijk’s height	I’m wondering how you would begin to go about the same activity if you do not know the height of the person	D
I learned that the number of cups… the weight of Mr. Overwijk – 80. If cups is 20.4 cm.	There is nothing that I am unsure about or wondering about	R
I learned that you need to stack about 17 cups to make Mr. O’s height	Nothing	S
I learned how to graph properly	I’m wondering you could you start the graph with	I
I learned how many cups Mr. O is in height	What is the point of this	A
I learned how much cups are Mr. O’s height	How much cups does Lebron James take	I
Stacking cups, teamwork , sharing	What was the point of this, will this save my life one day stacking cups	J
I knew how to equal the height and redo something.	Nothing	B
I learned that with every sample of data, an equation and graph are required.  I also learned that John should never be a math teacher	Is it possible to switch x and y?	H
Teaching people is hard	Nothing	J
I’ve learned that there are many ways to find the same answer	That why can one point change the whole equation	Y
I learned that Mr. Overwijk’s height in cups is 16.2 cups	I am wondering how many cups would it take to reach my height	K
I learned today that how much cups is there for Mr. Overwijk	Graphs	Y
I learned B is cranky on Thursday’s, and that I do all the work in the group and she just writes it out	Why B’s cranky, and why people were watching us and taking pictures… kinda weird	M

Robin also created a video which we cannot share (unfortunately). Too bad-it was pretty cool to watch.

At the end of the day we were all amazed at the learning that went on as this became a very student centered lesson as opposed to a teacher centered lesson. A great start to our journey.

Journey of a 4SI Principal

The 4SI ( Student Success School Support Initiative) process has been the richest professional development experience of my 15 years as a Secondary School administrator. There are a number of elements that have contributed to this richness:

1)      Because this was a Ministry mandated program, I needed it to be my #1 priority for moving our teaching practice forward as a school

2)      Because it was my #1 priority, I was thoroughly engaged throughout the process, learning from and with our Professional Learning Team (Plt)

3)      Because we learned together, we built trust in one another, and in the process.

4)      Because we built trust, we could urge each other to “step off the edge”, as one of our group likes to put it.

5)      Because I was at the table, the teachers felt they had “permission” to make mistakes.

6)      Because we made mistakes, we learned from them.

7)      Because we “stepped off the edge”, we created lessons that were accessible to the most at-risk students in our classes and took the teachers off the center stage.

8)      Because we made our lessons accessible to all, our most at-risk students miraculously became engaged in their learning and we were awed by them.

9)      Because we were amazed that our most disconnected students dove in and grabbed their learning by the throat and ran with it, we came to embrace Dweck’s “growth mindset”.

10)   Because we learned to trust in our students’ ability to learn when the conditions were right, we could no longer accept that the old way was good enough. We couldn’t go back and blame them for not learning. We knew in our hearts that if we created lessons that were differentiated and based on Hattie’s prime evidence-based teaching strategies, we would level the playing field and invite all of our students to the table.

11)   Because of all of the above, our student achievement has risen remarkably and our PLT has deepened our understanding of how students learn and how to help make that possible.

12)   The experiences of our PLT have spread throughout the school in rich discussions, shared practice, and an excitement for change in our teaching practice as a school.

During this process, the need to deepen my knowledge of current research on teaching and learning has become increasingly important and because we refer to this research on a regular basis, it’s relevance is the more evident.

At the beginning, although we were identified as a 4SI school, I knew from experience that this could not be “just another Ministry-imposed ‘thing’ ”. We would have to find a way to align it with the important work we were doing on our school’s SMART goal which had been identified as “critical thinking” (find the wording in SIPSA). Our staff had embraced Lucy West’s inspirational work around “accountable talk”. We had rallied around her wonderful quote that “traditional schooling involves 30 people watching 1 person work”. Our staff PD focused on creating strategies and lesson plans that turned the tables on our students and brought them into the learning through cooperative learning and active inquiry into concepts. There was a buzz in the prep rooms about how to make this work. We had understood that if we were going to develop ‘critical thinking’, then we were going to have to, in fact, find a way to know what students were thinking. This had to happen through “accountable talk”.  In studying the Ministry documents which referred to Hattie’s work, the PLT quickly identified two strategies that would promote this reality: “Self-verbalization” and “ Higher-level questioning”

(As an aside, John Hattie’s seminal work “Visible Learning: A synthesis of over 80 Meta-analyses relating to Achievement”, is a must-read  for Administrators. If offers so many insights into evidence-based strategies that can help direct school improvement through an emphasis on teaching and learning.)

One element of the 4SI process involves creating diagnostic tools for each of the subjects involved. This provides baseline data for comparison with post-diagnostic assessments.  In addition, the PLT identifies skill gaps that inhibit success in those subjects.  In English, the teachers identified Inferencing and Making Personal Connections, while the Math group identified Proportional Reasoning as the skill sets that they would be seeking to develop.

The 4SI process directed us to identify a model for our PLT. We benefitted from the previous experience of two of our Math teachers, Bruce McLaurin and Al Overwijk who had participated in Lesson Studies in their earlier Ministry-funded TLLP project. This proved to be the most profound co-learning experience that we could have ever imagined.

The Lesson Study involves bringing together the PLT in order to co-plan, teach, and debrief “our” lesson.

The steps involved are as follows:

1)      As a team of four, then five teachers, two of whom teach English, and three who teach Math, each teacher took a turn in the cycle to teach a lesson.  We recommend that you put aside a full day for the first planning session of the Lesson Study process. You will need this time to learn about the steps, discuss your students in a general way, identify your “learning gap(s)” and begin to get to know one another better. Let me say at the outset that our teachers found it difficult to absent themselves regularly from these most at-risk students. We learned that although this is part of the sacrifice of participating in a Lesson Study, the pay-back was life-changing and the ultimate benefit for our students worth the cost.

2)      You will need two half days for  prepping, teaching and debriefing the co-created lesson. On the first half-day the teacher in question brings along an idea for a lesson, the “big ideas”, or curricular expectations linked to the lesson, and the class list with the students’ pictures attached.

3)      Our first step was to discuss each of the students in the class (because other teachers frequently taught the same students, the insights were even richer). Teachers would describe the students’ strengths and challenges, social behaviours, family or socio-economic situation, attendance, and any other contributing factors to their learning. This is an important element for our observation of our lesson, as we have thus identified the most at-risk students and can focus more effectively on their engagement in the learning process.

4)      The co-creating process is extremely enriching. In our experience, because we had combined English and Math, the English teachers often felt out of their depth in the references to Math concepts. The Math teachers mirrored this feeling in regards to the English lessons. The power of this disconnect became immediately evident:  what was important in the lesson was not so much “what” was being taught as “how” and “to whom”. Our rich conversations reflect  how  difficult it can be to make self-verbalization happen in our classes, and how much thought must go into planning lessons where higher level questions are created, both by the teachers, and more importantly, by our students. ( Another wonderful resource that we have discovered at our Department  Heads’ Book Club, and which has since been disseminated throughout many departments, is “Essential Questions: Opening Doors to Student Understanding” by Jay McTighe and Grant Wiggins )

5)      As the Principal, in addition to formalizing the PLT work through my engagement in it, I have sought to encourage the team to ‘dare” to make mistakes. As Eleanor Duckworth says: “learning is messy”. We have pushed ourselves “off that edge” numerous times. Sometimes it has worked, and sometimes not as well. But we have always learned from it. Sometimes we begin to rely on traditional methods that won’t get us where we want to go. I see part of my role as one of keeping  our collective eye on the ball. Reminding us that we are falling short of creating opportunities for self-verbalization, answering too many questions, not leaving room for student co-creating, taking too much place in the learning process – allowing “30 people to watch 1 person work”.

In doing this, we have all taken on this role in the lesson study process, each teacher bringing his or her expertise to the planning process and challenging the whole to raise the bar.

6)      On the second half day, which is chosen so that the lesson is always the first class in our two-period half day, the teacher provides us with copies of the students’ names and faces, as well as the write-up of the lesson. One of the powers of the Lesson Study is that we are not watching the teacher, it is not his or her lesson, but “our” lesson, and our emphasis is to watch how the students, and particularly those at-risk students, engage in the lesson that we have co-created. We interact very little with the students who are surprisingly unaffected by the presence of five or six teachers in their classes! We observe and take notes, and sometimes pictures of their work, and of them working. We are eager to see how effective our lesson is.

7)      We use the period after the lesson to debrief. The teacher whose class we have observed is first to offer his or her observations about the class. What he thinks worked and didn’t work. What her reactions to various students’ engagement or lack of are, and her feelings in general about the experience. The other members of the PLT then offer their observations about the lesson, about individual students’ engagement and what each has learned through the process. 

8)      It has been our experience that, as we go deeper into the Lesson Study, and as we seek to integrate our identified teaching strategies into our practice, other gaps begin to appear in the students’ learning, and in our own practice.  For example, although we initially created lessons that allowed students to respond to open-ended questions and create their own, it became obvious that, in fact, they frequently did not know what a good question was.  This led to a subsequent lesson study that focused on having students identified the criteria of “good questions”. Further along the practice, and supported by Hattie’s research, we became aware that we needed to develop our students’ ability to self-assess. This underlined how important allowing students to co-create  criteria is to their ability to self-assess.

9)      The importance of the teachers’ identifying the “big ideas” of their courses became increasingly obvious. In this way, as we “designed-down’ our lessons, we helped our students make the links to the over-arching expectations of the course

(I would suggest that you might like to read a very useful little book: ‘Lesson Study: Powerful Assessment and Professional Practice”: by Brenda Augusta, Ruth Gauvreau, and Gerry Hector . It provides you with a fulsome description of the Lesson Study process and its elements.

An interesting spin-off from the Lesson Study experience is how it  has changed my approach to the TPA process. Rather than the previous method of discussing what I will see in the observed lesson, then debriefing based upon my scribed notes, I now approach the experience through the Lesson Study lens. The teacher in question and I co-create the lesson. The teacher presents the students to me, describing their individual strengths and challenges (this is an insight in their relationship building with their students, and if they currently have a Growth Mindset). We discuss the overarching expectations of the course, and how the particular lesson relates to them (knowledge of curriculum and Ministry documents). The teacher describes potential formative feedback opportunities (knowledge of A&E and Assessment As, For, and Of learning). Together we review the initial idea that the teacher has for the lesson, emphasizing that the end product will be judged based upon the engagement of the students in the process.  That this is OUR lesson and if things go poorly based upon what we have attempted, it will not be held against the teacher. The teacher takes away our notes and finalizes the lesson

When I go into the class, I am in a position of knowledge about the students, their needs, and their potential. My note taking will involve observations about the student engagement and the teacher’s adoption of the teaching strategies that we  have identified in the earlier discussions. 

The post-observation discussions are so much richer than previous TPA’s! We have learned together, the teacher has tried something new in an safe environment, and the TPA becomes what it should truly be – a professional development opportunity. Next steps can more easily identified and allow me to direct the teacher to professional development opportunities that reflect his/her needs as well as opening the door to richer conversations between us in subsequent visits. (I would not engage in this process with a teacher who I know is a likely candidate for an Unsatisfactory TPA)

The original Lesson Study activities have generated considerable discussion and curiosity throughout out school. Although teachers were at first reluctant to even consider having one or more colleagues visiting their classes, there is much more openness to such observations now. During the first year, no other department was interested in creating a Lesson Study. Now, most departments in the school have run at least one cycle this (second) year. Either one of the Vice Principals or I participates alongside the teachers, again formalizing the process and learning together with them. The art of teaching is considerably deprivatized as teachers discuss, test, and adopt evidence-based teaching strategies that advance our school SMART goal of critical thinking.