First Toa Payoh Secondary School

The mathematics lesson study team did their research lesson today - the research theme is developing resilient behaviours and engaged learning. The post-lesson discussion threw up how engagement and resilience look like in a mathematics lessons. The discussion also centred around how to nurture such behaviours. The discussion concluded with the team members being urged to study students fundamental behaviours that may impact on engagement - for examples, students were observed to be logical (although unconventional) in their responses (a plus point) and they were seen to be not confident of their own thinking and often attribute their correct responses to 'being lucky' (a negative point). It seems that the following processes in learning have potential in engaging students in positive ways - (1) visuals (and some suggested hands-on manipulatives) (2) conversation-style lessons (3) ...

2012 Eleventh Annual Lesson Study Conference
Using Level 3 teaching to cultivate the mathematical practices
of the Common Core State Standards
Thursday – Friday, May 3 & 4, 2011
Prieto Math and Science Academy
2231 N. Central, Chicago, IL

CPDUs will be available for Illinois teachers

Description
At the 2011 Chicago Lesson Study Conference, we presented the concept of Level 3 teaching, in which the teacher creates circumstances that lead students to discover important ideas for themselves. This kind of teaching naturally cultivates many of the mathematical practices called for in the Common Core State Standards. But what does that kind of teaching look like, and how can lesson study help teachers progress towards it?
This year’s Chicago Lesson Study Conference will feature speakers and, of course, live research lessons to foster discussion among participants around the challenge of implementing the Mathematical Practices of the Common Core State Standards.

Featured Presentations
Cultivating Mathematical Practices in a Community of All Mathematics Teachers
Sybilla Beckmann, Department of Mathematics, University of Georgia; member of the mathematics writing team for the Common Core State Standards for Mathematics.
Differences in how level 1, level 2, and level 3 teachers use a textbook
Akihiko Takahashi, Department of Teacher Education, DePaul University, Illinois
Japanese bansho: Using the blackboard effectively to support the mathematical practices
Makoto Yoshida, William Paterson University, New Jersey
Using Lesson Study to Cultivate and Spread Mathematical Practices
Catherine Lewis, School of Education, Mills College, California
Lesson study and Race to the Top: Report from Florida
Lance King, Learning Systems Institute, Florida State University, Florida
Research Lessons
There will be four research lessons: 2nd grade mathematics, 4th grade mathematics (2 lessons), and 8/9th grade algebra.

Registration
Lesson study is a collaborative process, so we encourage registration of teams of at least 3 persons.
Special support is available for Chicago Public School teachers and CTU members! See the web site for details.
$280 per person for teams of 3 or more
$310 per person otherwise
Registration includes breakfast, lunch, and refreshments each day.

Register and find more information on-line at the Chicago Lesson Study Group website:
http://LessonStudyGroup.net

First Toa Payoh Secondary and Anglo Chinese Junior College

In a lesson planning meetings, the following is often discussed:

(a) Clarification fo the Research Theme
(b) The Teaching Task(s) and The Approach to be Used in Research Lesson
(c) The Anticipated Responses & Teacher Actions Related to Students' Responses
(d) Preparing Lesson Study Team Members for the research lessons

This entry discusses the first point - clarification of research theme.

During one of the earlier lesson planning meeting, lesson study team should talk more about the research theme.

In the case of FTPS, the team has identified developing resilience as its research theme. The facilitator asked the theme what they hope to see in their students and what are the existing difficulties they often have.

Two things surfaced - students often do not have the confidence to handle complex tasks. They sometime give up even before trying. Thus, being resilient means to develop the confidence to give an apparently complex task a go. This means students must be made to realize that they can succeed at a task and they must be given strategies to do so.

The other thing is that team members wanted students to be able to recover from mistakes and have alternate methods to handle complex tasks. This is an important trait as students often make mistakes or reach roadblocks when they attempt complex tasks. This is the other facet of being resilient that was discussed.

Thus, the FTPS mathematics lesson study team wanted to study how to develop two resilient traits - being confident when faced with a complex task and being able to recover from obstacles in handling complex tasks.

In the case of ACJC physics team, they started off wanting to do a lesson study on a strategy - whiteboarding. The school also has independent learning as its goals for the various PLCs.

The facilitation process allows the team to bring their goal to a higher level.

From a level one goal to study a strategy (in this case, whiteboarding), the process allowed the team to move to level two goal i.e. how to help students visualize concepts in circular motion (to move in a circular path, a particle must experience a resultant force) in a real physical situation. Eventually their research theme became, to help students use critical, self questioning to connect abstract concepts with events / phenomena in the real world. We referred to this during the meeting as the third level goal. The first level goal is tied to a strategy. The second level goal is still tied to a topic. The third level goal could be use in any topic or any subject.

I spent a enriching day with both teams. In the case of FTPS, the other subject teams were present as well. In the case of ACJC, a lead teacher in economics joined our discussing. I had to dig my A-Level Physics out of the woods to facilitate the discussion. Although the FTPS team deals with a subject I am familiar with (mathematics), the questions raised by the science teams and mother tongue languages helped me think more about subjects that I do not usually deal with.

I will write an entry on teaching of vocabulary in the learning of mother tongue languages soon.

Kong Hwa School Lesson Study on Mathematics

Kong Hwa School Primary Three Professional Learning Team used their one hour time-tabled time (TTT) to discuss the anchor tasks in their lesson plan.

The anchor tasks decided at today's meeting is:
Tom had some sweets. Jerry had 5 more sweets than Tom. Later, Tom gave 2 sweets to Jerry.

Possible questions: Who had more sweets in the end? How many more?

Key considerations in subsequent TTTs before the research lesson includes:
In using bar models, students have learn to use a bar to represent known quantities. The use of a bar to represent unknown is new to these students. Models can be used to represent comparison situation (not new) and change situation (new). The team should examine the selected tasks in the lesson so that students have ample opportunities to engage with ideas new to them.

The team should also discuss how to increase the chance of students engaging with critical ideas and behaviours that the lesson is designed for i.e. to engage with problem-solving behaviours that would eventuate in successful independent problem solving.

A week before the research lesson, I will write an entry to prepare the team as to what they should look out for in the research lesson.

First Toa Payoh Secondary School

LSP101 Lesson Study at First Toa Payoh Secondary

View more PowerPoint from Jimmy Keng

The school embarks on MCI Lesson Study Programme with this overview lecture.

Assumption English School - Structure of Lesson Planning Meeting

Gallery participants get to have a glimpse into the types of lesson study discussion that can take place during TTT.

We discussed how the main parts of the lesson have or not, the potential to engage students. In particular, we tried to identify features of a ask that can engage students. The team came up with tasks that have an element of mystery, tasks that have the ability to give students with a sense of achiement and satisfaction, and tasks that a accessible to all.

We also prepare observers for the research lesson. We set up 'hypothesis'. We should attempt to look out for evidence of engagement, and catalysts of engagement.

We also discussed common practice in mathematics teaching - use of worksheet etc- and critically question if some of these common practices an derail our efforts to engage students .

Kong Hwa School - Beginning the Lesson Planning Process

The professional learning team comprising primary three teachers met with me today to begin their lesson planning. The school's research theme is engaging students. The team has decided to focus on a unit on word problem solving involving addition and subtraction. By the time this unit is taught, students would have completed addition and subtraction entirely as well as all the basic multiplication facts 1x1 to 9x9.

In this meeting I model the lesson planning meeting discussion. Today we elect the first part of the lesson where the team decides to use concrete materials to role play the situation embedded in the word problem. The team has identified the target task and will construct a simpler version of the target task for use in the first part of the lesson.

The discussion structure is as follow:

1. Get the team to segment the entire lesson and focus on the part to be discussed in this hour. Today the focus in on using concrete materials to model the situation in a word problem.

2. Have team members discussed why this act-it-out strategy has a potential in engaging students. What are the features of such a strategy that has potential in engaging students?

Four features were raised by the team

a. "easy to handle" - tasks that are easy to access has a potential to engage ( especially ) students aversed to word problems. During the research lesson teachers may want to see for themselves the effects of the introductory task on student engagement.

b. "could try and try" - will this have a potential to engage students in making repeated attempts at a complex tasks?

c. "includes elements of comprehension" - could this way of introducing the task makes students more comfortable in trying to understand the tasks.

d. "provide opportune for students to make connections"

I am interested to see during the research lesson how this way of introducing complex word problems engage students in making sense of the meaning of the situation in the problem. What is the role of the act-it-out situations in helping students engage with the situation n the problem to enhance their understanding of the problem?