Lesson Study

Dear Colleagues,
We look forward to spending our next two staff meetings (January 21
and February 18) focusing on professional development in Language
Arts instruction. We would like for these professional development
sessions to be springboards for learning from the most talented
educators out there: your fellow teachers. Therefore, we are excited
to try using the professional development model of Lesson Study.
Lesson study is a process by which teams of teachers collaboratively
plan, research, and study their lesson instruction as a way to
determine how students learn best. It is used frequently in Japan, and
also by some of our fellow schools in FCPS. It will give us an exciting
chance to get in to one anothers classrooms, and it will do so in a nonthreatening way by observing one anothers student learning, not one
anothers teaching.
Timeline for Franconias Lesson Study:
Staff Meeting Jan. 21
One day between Jan.
22-29

Teams will work together to plan a

minilesson and outline student behaviors
wed hope to see throughout the lesson.
Team members will observe and collect data
on student behaviors as the minilesson is
taught in one team members classroom.

Team members will reflect on evidence of

student learning and create refinements to
lesson.
Second day between Jan. Team members will observe and collect data
22-29
on student behaviors as the minilesson is
taught in a second team members
classroom.
Subsequent CLTs
Team members will reflect on lesson
effectiveness and utilize this learning to
plan future lessons using our Architecture of
a Minilesson.
February
We will repeat this process with a focus on a
small-group, rather than a whole-group,
lesson.

Before next Wednesday, January 21:

Decide, as a team, on a teaching point for a whole-class
reading or writing minilesson that your students will need
between January 2229 (before the end of the quarter).
Bring your laptop and any other materials that will be needed to
plan a minilesson around this teaching point.
Complete the attached form to indicate the two days for which
your team would like class coverage for minilesson observations.
View this two-minute video clip for a brief overview of what
lesson study entails https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=MHHryuuohpM&list=PL8F2DC1E5AE07092F&index=9 (just
keep in mind that, in Franconias abbreviated minilesson version
of lesson study, well spend 45 minutes planning our lessons, not
three hours).
If you are new or need a refresher, review the attached
documents from last years workshop on minilessons.
RI team members will join the following teams:
K
Priscilla
1
Jaya
3
Kira
4
Esther
5
Stephanie,
Alessandra
6
Abby