Traveling Teacher Professional Development Model
Lesson study is a process of instructional improvement in which a group of teachers collaborate to set a goal, study, observe, and discuss teaching and student learning (Lewis & Hurd, 2011). Lesson study originates in Japan and has been practiced by J
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5. TRAVELING TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT MODEL Local Interpretation and Adaptation of Lesson Study in Florida
INTRODUCTION
Lesson study is a process of instructional improvement in which a group of teachers collaborate to set a goal, study, observe, and discuss teaching and student learning (Lewis & Hurd, 2011). Lesson study originates in Japan and has been practiced by Japanese teachers for over a century (Fernandez & Yoshida, 2004; Makinae, 2010). It has spread globally since the late 1990s when lesson study was introduced as a system that supports Japanese teachers to practice high quality instruction in a book, the Teaching Gap by Stigler and Hiebert (1999) based on the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) video study. The global circulation of lesson study has led to the establishment of the World Association of Lesson Studies (WALS) in 2006 with seven founding member countries and council members representing 12 countries around the world.1 The number of countries represented in the WALS conference presenters has grown from 13 in 2007 to 28 in 2014, indicating an increasing practice of lesson study as an emerging global model of teacher professional development. This mixed-method comparative study examined lesson study in Japan as the original model, and interpretation and adaption of lesson study as an emerging new model of teacher professional development in Florida, the United States. Previous studies of teacher-related global reforms focused on developing countries and only a few studies focused on how developed countries voluntarily import global ideas for teacher policy and practice and how these global ideas are interpreted and adapted into the local contexts (Akiba & Shimizu, 2012; Sacilotto-Vasylenko, 2013). Furthermore, despite the global circulation of teacher professional development models such as lesson study and Professional Learning Community (PLC) for improving teaching and student learning, few studies have examined how these global models are interpreted and adapted to fit into the local organizational contexts of teachers in the U.S. or other countries. Examining the organizational contexts of teachers—how the teachers’ work is shaped and supported by organizational structure and routines—in the countries that imported a global reform model will help us understand why a global reform model is interpreted and adapted in
M. F. Astiz & M. Akiba (Eds.), The Global and the Local, 77–97. © 2016 Sense Publishers. All rights reserved.
M. AKIBA
a certain way, leading to diverse implementations and impacts on teachers and students around the globe. Using a sense-making perspective in organizational context as a theoretical framework, this study investigated the process with which a global model of lesson study interacts with local contexts focusing on the organizational contexts surrounding teachers’ professional development in Florida, the U.S. This study was conducted from 2011 to 2014 to address the following questions: 1. What characterize the practice of less
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