Text

theses

Lesson study, a collaborative teacher professional development process, affords teachers the opportunity to interact with their peers to analyze, reflect on, and revise their thinking in order to enhance their teaching practices. This case study described what occurred during a lesson study process, including the events that took place in four elementary and middle school mathematics classrooms, with a focus on planning, implementation, and reflection of teachers-both before and after the lesson- and on the ways in which their students solved mathematical problems. The goal of this study was to better understand how the teachers’ actions impacted the mathematical thinking that took place in their classrooms. The following research questions guided this study: 1. What instructional and pedagogical decisions were made by the teachers prior to, during, and after each lesson implementation? 2. What types of interventions (including questions) and interactions with students were enacted by each teacher during his or her lesson implementation? 3. How did teachers’ actions and interactions with students impact the mathematical work and reasoning that took place in the classroom? 4. What evidence is there, if any, of teachers’ recognition of and reflection on their teaching practices, the lessons, and the students’ mathematical work? The main source of data, the video tapes of the lesson implementations and the debriefing sessions, were used in order to identify, transcribe, and code critical events that occurred during the lessons and debriefing sessions. The coding, coupled with other data sources such as students’ work, was used to develop descriptive analyses of the lessons, teachers’ reflections, and the whole lesson study process. Collectively, these were used to answer the research questions. The results of this study highlighted the importance of a) teachers’ autonomy-supportive behaviors in the classroom; b) teachers’ familiarity with a wide range of solution strategies for problem activities; c) opportunities for teachers to work collaboratively and to reflection on students’ mathematical work; and d) understanding the impact of the “in-the-moment” decisions that teachers make on student learning. By examining the ways in which teachers’ actions impacted students’ learning during the lesson study process, this study has implications for designing professional development programs that are potentially effective in helping teachers become reflective practitioners.

ETD_4934

Ed.D.

Includes bibliographical references

by Roya Basu

doi:10.7282/T3KW5D1N

ETD doctoral

The author owns the copyright to this work.