Implementing Lesson Study Summary

Monday - Friday, July 9 - 13, 2012

This week, we had two chances to teach the lesson that we created during week 1. The first time was a run-through and the second was the actual lesson. As a team, we were able to observe, discuss, and revise the lesson.

On Monday, Sousada taught the first part of the lesson to 11 PCMI high school students who were attending math camp. We discussed how the lesson went, anticipated how the rest of the lesson would have gone, and made revisions accordingly. Some revisions include the launch instructions and the order in which we introduced the vocabulary. We also spent Tuesday fine tuning the lesson. Some items added include a graphic organizer for the vocabulary terms and a list of effective questions to ask during the lesson.

On Wednesday, the much anticipated lesson day, we met at 7:30 in the morning to drive to the local high school together. We missed the first half of the morning math session. Dave delivered the lesson to the seven students, two of whom arrived late. The lesson went smoothly and we were able to cover everything that we had planned.

Thursday and Friday were spent reviewing and discussing the video of the lesson. We watched one part at a time, discussed what went well and what could be improved. Some points of discussion include

  • biconditional statement and the most effective order to introduce the vocabulary [ie. valid true-true or false-false) biconditional statements versus invalid statements]
  • students' understanding of the structure of the biconditional statements and when they are true or false
  • how to have the students work with each other more in order to promote more student understanding and self-assessment (such as catching their own errors or mistakes)
  • how much time is needed to teach the lesson to include more or less activity in the lesson to make it as effective as possible given the time constraints

With this list, we refined the lesson even more and decided on what we need to submit as a final lesson study report. The week ended with the following to-do list:

  1. Construct an abstract
  2. Write reflections on the pre-teaching, teaching, and lesson study process
  3. Finish the video transcript
  4. Revise lesson plan; create alternate activities

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