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BLENDED
FROM GOOD TO GREAT
Interview Peter Dudley
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Introduction Dr . Pete Dudley is the current President of the World Association of Lesson Studies ( WALS ). At the international education conference ‘ Making Shift Happen ’ in Amsterdam 2016 he was one of the main keynote speakers . Pete has supported Lesson Study research programmes at the Universities of Leicester , Exeter , Queen ' s Belfast and Bethlehem , Palestine . He and Jean Lang are now leading a LS development and research programme in the London Borough of Camden with Cambridge University . In addition to Palestine , Pete ' s international work with Lesson Study has been in Singapore , Hong Kong , Chile and the US . Read more about Pete here . Lesson study originates from the Japanese educational system . What is the big difference between the Western and Eastern professional developments ? Western educators are often criticised for failing closely to define the object of learning closely enough . As a result it may not have a very clear view of what behaviours children show towards the learning goals and exactly what success will look like for a learner . Without that clarity , it ’ s hard to design a lesson to get them there . In Japan they tend to think more than we in the UK do about how every aspect of learning and teaching a student encounters throughout a day , a week , a term - helps to produce the kind of people they want their students to become . They seem to do that far more systematically than we tend to in the UK . It is deeply embedded in their school culture . There is a golden thread linking what they do in the everyday classroom and the curriculum , with both short-term and long-term objectives and the roles they play in developing specific student characteristics .
At the WALS conference 2016 Dr . Catherine Lewis emphasised how we in the West also underestimate what she termed the ‘ study phase ’ in the lesson study cycle . How do you value this phase ? I think we mostly want to do the fun part of Lesson Study or classroom enquiry - go straight for the research lesson design . People have the tendency to jump to conclusions based on their gut feeling , and that can be very misleading . There is often insufficient attention paid to the critical review of the teaching materials that are usually used for teaching the part of the curriculum in question or well as researching possible alternative approaches . The study phase is also important to be linked to the other phases . It helps you zoom in to the things that really need improvement . Another thing we are not so good at in the UK , as simple as it sounds , is creating and looking after our lesson study data . It is important to discuss things in depth but it is also important to write things down . If you don ’ t do this , the knowledge you create and the investment in all that time and effort gets lost , and that is wasteful . When a profession suffers from memory loss or knowledge is not created and shared , we all become more vulnerable to fashion and our field – education – can become a political football because we do not have that solid evidence base upon which to defend our actions and decisions . What other preparation should be made before engaging in the ‘ research lesson ’? How can you create the right culture for such teacher learning to thrive ? I think it is important to protect the sanctity of the lesson study group discussion as a place where people can take risks in what they say without fear of criticism . That does not mean all ideas are accepted . It
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