Psychology
2013. Vol.4, No.2, 101-105
Published Online February 2013 in SciRes
(http://www.scirp.org/journal/psych) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/psych.2013.42014
Professional Development of Mathematics Teachers with Lesson
Study and Open Approach: The Process for Changing Teachers
Values about Teaching Mathematics
Thanya Kadroon1, Maitree Inpr asitha2
1Doctoral Program in Math ematics Education, Faculty of E du c a ti o n , Khon Kaen University,
KhonKaen, Thailand
2Center for Research in Mathematics Education, F acul ty of Education, Khon Kaen University,
KhonKaen, Thailand
Received December 4th, 2012; r evised December 31st, 2012; accepted January 21st, 2013
The aim of this study was to analyze the process for changing values about teaching mathematics for
teachers in a pilot school implementing Lesson Study and Open Approach. The study was structured
through a questionnaire survey of 83 teachers in 4 pilot schools. Case studies were then conducted with 3
of the teachers and involved participatory observations and video recording in 3 phases of Lesson Study,
interviews and document analysis. Theoretically, the conceptualization of professional development with
Lesson Study and Open Approach, values change (Rescher, 1969 cited in Seah, 2004) and change process
(Fullan, 1985; Joyce & Showers, 1980) helps to explain the process for changing values about teaching
mathematics. The study shows that teachers in a pilot school implementing Lesson Study and Open Ap-
proach have developed a new view and values about teaching mathematics (e.g. values in designing les-
son plans, values in teaching practice, values in classroom assessment). The components were essential
for changing teachers values about teaching mathematics and consisted of 1) Teachers participating and
learning about the underlying theoretical principles of Lesson Study and Open Approach 2) Practicing
weekly cycles of Lesson Study into school culture 3) Seeing Lesson Study and Open Approach demon-
strated from expert and Japanese teachers 4) Ongoing coaching or support from the project and 5) Ob-
taining feedback from outsiders such as educators, parents, school board members etc.
Keywords: Professional Development; Community of Practice; Lesson Study; Open Approach; Values
about Teaching Mathematics
Introduction
Professional development can be modeled in a various ways.
Some researchers view professional development as a “training
model” and other researchers view “the sociocultural model”
(Johnson, Lustick, & Kim, 2011). It seems that neither one may
be able to reveal a complete picture of professional develop-
ment and a system-wide improvement of education. In this
study, Lesson Study and Open Approach were used as an in-
novation for a school-based professional development system.
Lesson Study refers to a major form of professional develop-
ment and professional learning chosen by Japanese teachers, an
approach to instructional development, and also provides a
powerful mechanism for a system-wide improvement of educa-
tion that has spread rapidly in North America and other coun-
tries (Stigler & Hiebert, 1999; Fernandez & Yoshida, 2004;
Wang-Iverson & Yoshida, 2005; Baba, 2007; Inprasitha, 2010;
Lewis, 2002, 2011).
Thailand has been implementing Lesson Study since 2002.
An adaptive feature of this implementation is to incorporate
Open Approach as a teaching approach into Lesson Study
processes (Inprasitha, 2010). Teaching is a cultural activity
(Stigler & Hiebert, 1999) and because of the different cultural
backgrounds and also values about teaching mathematics be-
tween Thai teachers and Japanese teachers, it is not to easy to
implement Lesson Study and Open Approach in Thai schools
as mentioned by Inprasitha (2010). Values are very important in
research studies and teachers’ professional development since
the values which teachers of mathematics bring to various as-
pects of their work profoundly affect what and how they teach,
and therefore what and how their students learn. Mathematics
classrooms can be regarded as places where values are ex-
pressed, communicated and learned (Bishop et al., 2003).
In exploring values encountered in mathematics classrooms,
Bishop (1996, 1998, 2001a cited in Bishop et al., 2003) identi-
fied three categories of values of interest-general educational,
mathematical and mathematics educational. Mathematical val-
ues: values which have developed as the knowledge of mathe-
matics have developed within any particular culture. General
educational values: values associated with the norms of the
particular society and of the particular educational institution.
Mathematics educational values: values embedded in the cur-
riculum, textbooks, classroom practices, etc. as a result of the
other sets of values (Bishop, 2007). Teacher reflection on their
pedagogical decisions and actions represents a complementary
approach to finding out what is valued and considered impor-
tant by the teacher. Such decisions are made, and actions dem-
ons tr ate d i n var iou s a spe ct s of our professional lives as teachers,
from lesson planning to lesson execution and to assessment
(Seah, 2002). In my work I have used Seah’s (2002) ideas to

T. KADROON, M. INPRASITHA
consider values about teach i ng mathematics-values in designing
lesson plans, values in teaching practice and values in class-
room assessment .
Values are expressed through views and behavior (Veugelers
& Kat, 2000). Changing the behavior of others by repeating and
reinforcing behaviors that they develop into patterns and habits
which can ultimately lead to changed values (Listenberger, 2004).
Change is a process and there are four broad phases in the
change process: initiation, implementation, continuation, and
outcome (Fullan, 1982, 1991). Any recommendation for chang-
ing teaching invariably carries with it the implication of a
change in the values being taught. Any significant development
in mathematics education probably implies a change in values
(Bishop et al., 2003).
Researching values development or values change is no easy
matter, but Lesson Study is an excellent method for studying
the development or change of values in the classroom. In Les-
son Study cycle, it would be necessary to plan together with the
teachers what values they would try to develop and what values
they thought they were going to develop. To observe and re-
corded the lessons and interviewed the teachers after the les-
sons to have them explain what they thought they had achieved
(Bishop, 2007). The differences between teachers’ professional
development with Lesson Study and traditional professional
development in Table 1. will set up values conflicts but for this
reason Bishop and Seah mentioned that it will be a crucial point
to observe teachers solving the values conflict leading to values
change and also educational change as the need of educational
reform is calling for changes in teaching practices from a tradi-
tional teaching style to emphasize students’ learning process
and attitudes toward learning with understanding (Office of the
Education Council (OEC), 2008; Forman, 1996; Inprasitha,
2010). There are many crucial aspects of the educational reform
movement; professional development of teachers is a central
issue. Teachers need to learn how to capture students’ learning
processes and to examine their own practice. Lesson Study and
Open Approach are a comprehensive and well-articulated proc-
ess for examining practices (Inprasitha, 2010).
Professional Development of Mathematics
Teachers with Lesson Study and Open
Approach in the Thai Context
Lesson Study as a Japanese teaching professional develop-
ment has been developed and used in Japan for more than 130
years. Now, it is expanded throughout the world for improving
teacher’s profession. During the years 2006-2008, Thailand and
Japan have jointly led “Lesson Study” in teacher professional
Table 1.
Contrasting views of professional development. By Lynn Liptak (cited
in Lewis, 2002).
Traditional Lesson study
Begins with answer Begins with que stion
Driven by outside “expert” Driven by participants
Communication flow:
trainer to teacher Communication flow: among teacher
Hierarchical relations between trainer
& learners Reciprocal relations among learner
Research informs practice Practice is research
development under the APEC Lesson Study project in 17
countries. Thailand as the owner of the project has implemented
the project in 4 pilot schools. In order to make it easy for
implementation, Lesson Study in Thai school Inprasitha (2010)
started with three basic steps: collaboratively designing research
lesson (Plan), collaboratively observing their friend teaching the
research lesson (Do) and collaboratively doing post-discussion
or reflection on teaching practice (See). An Adaptive feature of
this implementation is to incorporate Open Approach as a
teaching approach into Lesson Study processes. Four phases of
Open approach as a teaching approach are 1) Posing open-
ended problem; 2) Students’ self learning; 3) Whole class dis-
cussion and comparison; and 4) Summarization through con-
necting students’ mathematical ideas emerged in the classroom
as show in Figure 1.
Thailand has been implementing Lesson Study since 2002
with an initiative of Inprasitha (2004) by conducting a pilot
stu dy pro ject at the faculty of Education, Khon Kaen University,
with 15 student teachers. Later on, in 2003, it was implemented
in 2 schools in Khon Kaen Province. In 2006, Lesson Study
was expanded for in-service teacher professional development
by focusing on a whole-school approach in two schools in the
lab school project of the Ministry of Education of Thailand. In
addition, in 2007, another two schools participated in this pro-
ject. In 2009, the Center for Research in Mathematics Educa-
tion (CRME) accepted an assignment from the office of the
Higher Education Commission collaborating with the Office of
Basic Education Commission extending the results of imple-
mented Lesson Study and Open Approach by creating networks
with Ubonratchathani University and Chiang Mai University to
extend results in 12 provinces in the northern region area and
the north-eastern region of Thailand including 19 schools.
These extended results followed the government policy allow-
ing the implementation for extending the national findings in
2010 school year (Inprasitha, 2009).
In this project, Open Approach as a teaching approach was
incorporated in Lesson Study and has been implemented. The
idea of integrating Open Approach into the three steps of Les-
son Study; collaboratively plan the lesson together for creating
lesson plans with emphasis on creating “open-ended problems”
in terms of 3 - 4 short instructions, teachers have to anticipate
the students’ responses to their instructions, and bring to dis-
cussion at the end of the week. In a sense, Open Approach is
used as a subject matter of Lesson Study and Lesson Study is
used as the tool for creating “open-ended problems” in this
im p l emen t a t i o n ( K a dro o n & In p r asit h a , 201 1 ; Inp ra sit h a , 2012).
Figure 1.
An adaptive feature of lesson study in Thailand (Inprasitha, 2010).
102

T. KADROON, M. INPRASITHA
For implementation of the first phase in the project work-
shops were provided for every school teacher in the project
under the care of Center for Research in Mathematics Educa-
tion, Khon Kean University. Then, in the second phase, the
Lesson Study cycle was implemented in schools starting from
preparation/planning every Monday or Tuesday after 3 pm,
application in classroom planning team came to observe class
and reflecting after the class every Wednesday or Thursday
after 3 pm ( See Tables 2 and 3, Figures 2 and 3) and for the
third phase at the end of semester, an open class and summing
up of the results of implemented Lesson Study and Open Ap-
proach were conducted together at faculty of Education, Khon
Kaen University.
Method
The research design is mixing methods (Brannen, 1992). The
study was structured through questionnaire surveys of 83 teach-
ers in 4 pilot schools including Koo Kham Pittayasan School,
Chumchon Ban Chonnabot School, Banbeungniam Beungkrai-
noon School and Nongtoom Nongngulueam School. Case stud-
ies were then conducted with 3 mathematics teachers from the
1st grade, 4th grade and 7th grade. Koo Kham Pittayasan School
was in the first group of schools to join the project in 2006 and
is still implementing Lesson Study and Open Approach gradu-
ally and involving participatory observations and video re-
cording in the 3 phases of Lesson Study (Collaboratively de-
signing research lesson, Collaboratively observing their friends
teaching the research lesson and Collaboratively doing post-
discussion or reflection on teaching practice), interviews with
teachers and students, and document analysis. Theoretically, the
conceptualization of professional development with Lesson
Study and Open Approach, value changes (Rescher, 1969 cited
in Seah, 2004) and process changes (Fullan, 1985; Joyce &
Showers, 1980) helps to explain the process for changing valu es
about teaching mathematics .
Results
The results of the study from document analysis, question-
naire, participatory observations, video recordings and inter-
views of teachers and students found teacher professional de-
velopment with Lesson Study and Open Approach was differ-
ent from Thai traditional teacher professional development
which often used short term training and have no continuous
monitoring. Teacher professional development with Lesson
Study and Open Approach lead teachers is needed to create a
new culture in the school system that emphasizes the “collabo-
rative” and brings about change for both teachers and students
as show in Table 4.
And also found changes in teachers’ values about teaching
mathematics (e.g. values in designing lesson plan, values in
teaching practice, and values in classroom assessment). Te ach er ’s
values in designing lesson plan such as value collaboration with
a team working in designing lesson plan, value lesson plan that
can be applied to teach in the real classroom also value collect-
ing data in the classroom for designing lesson plan and value
the lesson plan in which students can participate and stimulate
their thinking. Teacher’s values in teaching practice such as
value teaching approach that be hands on activity and can gen-
erate their body of knowledge with themselves, value class-
room observation and reflection after class as a tool for improve
Table 2.
Weekly cycle of lesson study in Thai school.
Weekly cycle detailed (case study: Koo Kham Pittayasan School)
Activity Date/time/place Participant
Collaboratively design research lesson (Plan) Date: every Monda y and Tuesday Time: after 3 pm
Place: at Koo Kham Pittayasan school meeting room
Collaboratively observing their friend teaching the research lesson (Do) Depends on timetable in each class
Collaboratively doing post-discussion or reflection on teaching practice (See)Date: every Thursday Time: after 3 pm
Place: at Koo Kham Pittayasan School meeting room
Mathematic s teacher
Observer teacher
Internship student
School coordinator school
Principal supervisor
Researcher team
Outside expert
Table 3.
Observing team (Case study: 3 clas s r ooms from Koo Kham Pittayasan School).
Team Teacher Observer
1st Grade 1st Grade
Mathematics t eacher
Science teacher (1)
1st Grade Internship student (2)
School coordinator (3)
School principal, Supervisor, Researcher team, Outside expert (4)
4th Grade 4th Grade
Mathematics t eacher
5th Grade Mathematics teacher (1)
4th Grade Internship student (2)
School coordinator (3)
School principal, Supervisor, Researcher team, Outside expert (4)
7th Grade 7th Grade
Mathematics t eacher
English teacher (1)
7th Grade Internship student (2)
School coordinator (3)
School principal, Supervisor, Researcher team, Outside expert (4)
Note: Observer (1)-(3) Attend and observe regularly. Observer (4) Attends and ob ser ves s ometime s.

T. KADROON, M. INPRASITHA
Figure 2.
Implemented lesson study in Thai school system (Koo Kham
Pittayasan School).
their teaching. Teacher’s values in classroom assessment such
as value the evaluation method that corresponds with the
teaching method, value classroom observation and reflection
after class as a tool for assessment to improve their teaching.
The components were essential for change processes con-
sisting of 1) Teachers participating and learning about the un-
derlying theoretical principles of Lesson Study and Open Ap-
proach; 2) Practicing weekly cycles of Lesson Study and incur-
porating into school culture; 3) Seeing Lesson Study and Open
Figure 3.
4 Steps of open approach as a teaching method in a Thai class-
room (Koo Kham Pittaya san School).
Table 4.
Teachers’ change and students’ change.
Case study Teacher’s change (fro m teacher’s view and p eer view) Student’s c hange (from teacher’ s vi ew and peer v iew)
1st grade mathematics
teacher
“I have changed the teaching methods from explaining and
directing to stimulating the students’ idea”
“I value student- centere d instruction a nd
learning by themselves”
“The role of the teacher is observation and t aking note o f
students’ behavior while they are solving the problem”
“Student adapt their learning from following teacher command
to inquiry and exploration to find an answer for thems elves”
“Learning with hands on experience and happiness”
“Students have a systematic analysis and have a
reasoning in their thinking”
“Students learning t o work with pe ers and team”
“Students have more confidence in their thinking and speaking”
4th grade mathematics
teacher
“Teachers modify the teaching methods from explaining the
content, the rule or principles to listening to the student”
“Teachers develop their own teaching strategies and have more
confident with their role”
“Students have more confidence in their thinking and speaking”
“Students have learning to work with peer and team”
“Learning with hands on experience and happiness”
“Student have a systematic anal ysis and have a
reasoning in their thinking”
7th grade mathematics
teachers
“Be a teaching approach where teachers have to prepare
themselves for all aspects, such as preparing the plan. We have to
discuss with the team. During teaching practices we have to
stimulate students, observe and take note of student’s ideas also
note the real problems in the classroom for discussion and share
with other teachers and the team after class. This process will
help the teacher with lesson development.”
“Students learn to work with peer s and team”
“Student have a systematic anal ysis and have a
reasoning in their thinking”
“Students have more confidence in their thinking and speaking”
“Students have more participation in learning activitie s”
104

T. KADROON, M. INPRASITHA
Approach demonstrated by expert and Japanese teachers; 4)
Ongoing coaching or support from the project; and 5) Obtain-
ing feedback from outsiders such as educators, parents, school
board members etc.
Conclusion
The efforts in applying an innovation such as Lesson Study
and Open Approach into Thai school context and shifting from
the traditional professional development where emphasis is on
short term training to emphasizing the collaboration of teachers
in the school system to creating a community of good practice.
In the beginning, the school situation was analyzed and training
workshops for teachers in school were implemented. The im-
plementation process of Lesson Study and Open Approach
continued in the week. Specialists from Thailand and from
abroad were invited to educate teachers on a regular basis.
Teachers had the opportunity to have open class at the end of
the semester and include an opportunity for agencies and or-
ganizations to visit the class. All of these processes help teach-
ers to modify patterns of teaching, learning habits and culture in
the workplace and also to gain a perspective on teaching
mathematics. It can be said that teachers have developed a new
view on how to teach mathematics and how to view and evalu-
ate the class. These processes have contributed to the process of
changing values about teaching mathematics for teachers. As
Inprasitha (2010) mentioned, introducing Lesson Study into
Thai schools has much influence not only for improving teach-
ing practice in schools, but also for improving the system of
teacher education as a whole.
Acknowledgements
This research is supported by the Commission on Higher
Education and also Center for Research in Mathematics Educa-
tion, Khon Kaen University, Thailand.
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