Lesson Study Could Transform Community College Math Instruction
- By Dian Schaffhauser
- 10/19/21
One aspect of
completion rates at community colleges that doesn't get much
attention is the professional development of the instructors. A
recent
research project suggested that better support for
faculty could eventually make a difference in student outcomes, even
though the students who were part of the study did no better in the
courses than their peers who weren't part of the project.
Participants
included the Community
College Research Center (CCRC) and Education
Northwest (EdNW) as well as three community colleges
in Oregon, Clackamas
Community College, Lane
Community College and Portland
Community College.
The subject of the
research was a concept called "lesson study," which has
gained a foothold in K-12 among math teachers but has not been tried
much in higher education. In K-12, the use of lesson study was found
to be one of just two approaches in a review of 643 studies of
math-related PD that showed "rigorous evidence of effectiveness
in improving student outcomes."
Yet lesson study
relies on a practice that isn't common in higher ed: collaborative
PD. Developmental math faculty at the colleges told the researchers
they traditionally have access to two forms of PD: funding to go to
conferences or cover specialized classes; and attending workshops,
speakers and events hosted by their colleges. As a report on the
study noted, "Most on-campus [PD] offerings are relatively low
intensity, in the form of a one-hour workshop or one in-service day.
And most professional learning experiences are pursued by individual
faculty members rather than by groups of faculty together."
In contrast, lesson
study is a form of PD that is both "intensive and
collaborative." The objective is to improve instruction. There
are four stages:
-
Stage 1:
Study and plan, in which a team of instructors identify the
goals for students, investigate the curricula to support their
instruction, examine research on classroom practice and student
learning and then work together to develop a "detailed lesson
plan" with "tasks, anticipated responses, instructor moves
and evaluation questions."
-
Stage 2:
Teach, observe and debrief, in which one of the team members
teaches the lesson while the others "observe and record
evidence of student learning." The team members share their
observations, discuss their evidence and explore whether the
students achieved the goals.
-
Stage 3:
Revise and reteach, in which the team uses its observations to
revise the lesson to be more effective. One of the team members
reteaches the lesson while the rest of the team observes and
collects evidence of student learning. Then the group debriefs again
and reflects on how the changes may have influenced the learning
outcomes.
During a pilot study
in fall 2019, 22 instructors at the three colleges adopted the model
in their courses.
Based on observation
and interviews, the researchers concluded that the faculty who
participated "were overwhelmingly satisfied with their lesson
study experiences. For three-quarters of the instructors, their
teaching practices resulted in lessons that "included more
open-ended, cognitively demanding tasks and new strategies to
increase mathematical communication among students."
However, the
researchers reported that they found "no positive relationship
between lesson study and students' course grades or progression into
college level math." For example, in one course, fewer students
taught by lesson study instructors passed than their peers in
non-lesson study sections. There were two possible reasons offered
for that: First, since the study covered only one cycle of lesson
study, "it may not be reasonable to expect substantial
differences in student learning or academic outcomes"; second,
the researchers didn't have baseline data on students' prior academic
achievement.
Even so, the report
advised, if colleges are serious about redesigning their courses to
address the needs of students coming into college-level classes, they
should also consider supporting their faculty in applying
evidence-based practice, considering how students learn best and
trying new instructional approaches. Lesson study is one route for
achieving that.
The full report and
a webcast
on lesson study are openly available on
the Community College Research Center website.
About the Author
Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.