Lesson Study: The Fundamental Driver for Mathematics Teacher Development in Japan
How do Japanese teachers develop knowledge and expertise for teaching mathematics effectively? Their journey begins while in university attending various teacher preparation programs. This undertaking does not end once they become teachers. They are expec
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Lesson Study: The Fundamental Driver for Mathematics Teacher Development in Japan Akihiko Takahashi
Abstract How do Japanese teachers develop knowledge and expertise for teaching mathematics effectively? Their journey begins while in university attending various teacher preparation programs. This undertaking does not end once they become teachers. They are expected to be lifelong learners to become effective educators. Lesson Study has been the fundamental driver of improvement in teaching and learning in Japan. This chapter describes how Lesson Study supports teachers in their continuous growth to become effective teachers of mathematics and provides empirical evidence based on current research projects conducted by the author as a part of Project IMPULS at Tokyo Gakugei University.
Keywords Lesson study School-wide Knowledgeable other Lifelong learning
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Research steering committee
Introduction
It is obvious that teachers cannot teach content beyond their knowledge (National Mathematics Advisory Panel 2008), but knowledge of content is not enough to teach effectively. Japanese mathematics educators and teachers identify three levels of expertise of mathematics teaching (Sugiyama 2008): Level 1: The teacher can tell students the important basic ideas of mathematics such as facts, concepts, and procedures Level 2: The teacher can explain the meanings and reasons of the important basic ideas of mathematics in order for students to understand them
A. Takahashi (&) DePaul University, College of Education, Chicago, USA e-mail: [email protected] A. Takahashi Project IMPULS at Tokyo Gakugei University, Tokyo, Japan © Springer Science+Business Media Singapore 2017 B. Kaur et al. (eds.), Professional Development of Mathematics Teachers, Mathematics Education – An Asian Perspective, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-2598-3_4
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Level 3: The teacher can provide students with opportunities to understand these basic ideas, and support their learning so that the students become independent learners (Trans. Takahashi 2011) Level 1 teaching does not require any special knowledge. In fact, having received decent grades in mathematics in grade school may be all that is necessary. But for Level 2 and Level 3 teaching, special knowledge and expertise are required. Sugiyama (2008) writes that during the early twentieth century, which is early in the evolution of the Japanese public education system, most elementary school teaching was at Level 1. Instructors simply told their students the facts and expected them to memorize those facts through practice, and contemporary textbooks were designed to support this form of instruction. Certainly it is important for teachers to be able to tell students basic facts, but today in Japan a teacher must provide instruction at Level 2 or 3 to be considered a professional. To teach at Level 2, one must possess knowledge of mathematics beyond what is needed in everyday life or what is required to solve problems in school textbooks. For example, knowing the “invert an
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