N. CHANGSRI ET AL.
academic year. In the academic year 2007, the school imple-
mented three phases of lesson study in the 1st grade and in the
4th grade. In 2008 academic year, they extended to 4 classrooms;
1st grade, 2nd grade, 4th grade and 5th grade.
Their teaching practices were as followings:
Lesson study team (teachers, the 5th year undergraduate
students and graduate students) collaboratively planning the
research lessons at least once a week (every Monday or
Tuesday).
Members of lesson study team (teachers, the 5th year un-
dergraduate students and graduate students) collaboratively
observing their friends teaching the research lessons at least
2 - 4 hours per a week.
All teachers (principal, teachers in lesson study team and
other teachers), graduate students attend the phase of doing
post-discussion or reflection on the activities of the two
phases every Wednesday or Thursday.
Moreover, mathematics educators from the University had
engaged in three phases of lesson study at the three project
schools once a month in the academic years 2006 and 2007 and
a semester in the academic year 2008. Researchers had partici-
pated in the school twice a week in the academic year 2007 and
at least four times per month in the acade m i c ye a r 2008.
Context of a Case-Study Teacher
It was until in the academic year 2007, the case-study school
participated in the project. In the initial phase of the project, the
Center for Research in Mathematics Education provided a
workshop on lesson study and Open Approach for the teachers
in the school. In this workshop, the participating teachers were
offered opportunities to express their views on how to apply the
gained concepts in the school. According to their opinions, the
following concerns were revealed:
1) Difficulty in the rearrangement of the regular teaching
schedules to allow at least one teacher to observe the class in
the 1st grade and 4th grade levels which were subject to intro-
duce lesson study an d i n c o r p o rating open approach,
2) Difficulty in the class participation and observation due to
limited number of school’s teachers,
3) They worry that they could not design research lesson, in
which open-ended problems were emphasized, and
4) They worry that their students could not gain learning
achievement nor obtain class content.
After they participated in the workshop, the school imple-
mented the project on June 26, 2007. The implemented active-
ties were as follows.
1) Collaboratively designing research lesson
Every Thursday after reflection session, a case-study teach er,
observing teacher, graduate students and mathematics educators
collaborated in designing lesson plan with emphasis on open-
ended problems in the form of short instruction. The process of
designing the materials has patterned the Japanese mathematics
textbook. It was noted that the case—study teacher played a
dominant role in providing comments on the developed direc-
tions for suitability on students’ ways of thinking.
2) Collaboratively observing their friend teaching the re-
search lesson
The research lessons would be taught in classroom by a case-
study teacher in 1st grade which was carried-out for four times a
week. Teaching was conducted in a sequential order. First, the
case-study teacher posed the open-ended problem by either
mounting or writing the instructions on the blackboard, include-
ing introducing teaching materials. Thereafter, the students
were allowed to be involved in problem solving or doing group
activities; meanwhile, the case-study teacher walked around,
observing actions of the students during the activity interaction.
The case-study teacher approached the students to repeat the
directions in the event that the students were thought that they
didn’t understand the instructions. Moreover, the case-study
teacher kept stimulating the students to collaborate in solving
the problems. Then, at the end of the class, the teacher let the
students present their work by telling what they had done. Next,
after the presentation by every single of group, the case-study
teacher again made a summary of the current lesson taught and
learnt. In fact, the lesson summary of the case-study teacher
was mainly based on the content of the materials used regard-
less of connecting students’ concept.
In this phase, all of the observers underwent observation and
recording the activities performed by the students. Contents of
the observation included the students’ problem interpretation,
problem solving, presentation and group process. The period of
time spent by the observers was different i.e. the observing
teacher participated in class observation at least once a week;
the school coordination (graduate student) did from Monday to
Thursday; the researcher (graduate student) did every Tuesday
and Thursday; and the principal and a mathematics educator
attended once a month.
3) Collaboratively doing post-discussion or reflection on the
activities of the two phases
Every Thursday from 3 p.m. a reflection session was set. The
reflection, which has emphasis on the students’ interaction, was
provided mainly by the principal and attended by all of the
school’s teachers as well as members of the lesson study team.
The post-discussion or reflection proceeded as follows.
The case-study teacher, who was a class teacher, reported
what was observed during activity interaction of the stu-
dents and what were the objectives of the lesson, including
problems that were arisen.
The observing teacher reflected what was observed from
the students’ activities, whose perspectives could be either
similar or different from those of the case-study teacher.
The researcher or school coordinator (graduate students) re-
flected viewpoints observed in the classroom and not men-
tioned by the case-study teacher and the observing teacher,
for instance the given directions, thinking process of the
students. Occasionally, educational supervisor and mathe-
matics educator collaboratively provided reflection. The re-
flection by the mathematics educator additionally provided
profound academic perspectives from observing the stu-
dents’ thinking process.
The academic year 2008 was the second year the case-study
school participated in the ProDev project. It was noted that
there were internship mathematics students (the 5th year under-
graduate students) from Mathematics Education Program, Khon
Kaen University, who practiced teaching in the case-study
school. Thus, the school system was revised as follows.
1) Collaboratively designing research lesson
Previously, in the academic year 2007, when the collabora-
tive research lesson was designed, it caused some proble ms and
these were: conducting the reflection session has taken pretty
long. This was resulted in the delay of designing lesson and
producing teaching material, which took as late as 7 p.m. Thus,
in the academic year 2008, the phase of designing research
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