Lesson study is a professional development program that combines teachers’ active engagement and observation of teachers’ lessons. During a lesson study teachers collaborate in a lesson study team. In this study, four participating research supervisors have developed, taught, evaluated and redesigned a supervision meeting with a focus on undergraduate students’ research skills. During so-called research lessons, supervisors experimented with open questioning and giving positive feedback instead of giving instruction and explanations. As a result, the participating supervisors expected their students to substantiate, argue, and consider the choices they made. We aimed to identify the impact of this lesson study approach on research supervisors’ professionaldevelopment and specifically on their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as most important learning outcome. Triangulation by method was applied to measure supervisors’ learning outcomes and learning activities; learning reports, videotaped lesson study meetings, and exit interviews were analyzed on indicators of change (e.g. ‘I have learned’). Coding results showed two different learning outcomes and four different learning activities. Each learning outcome, and the corresponding activities were connected to the four domains of the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth. Different pathways for each supervisor’s PCK were determined by constructing pictorial representations per supervisor. This study shows that lesson study is a promising professionaldevelopment method that can have an impact on research supervisors’ PCK. Our supervisors followed different pathways of PCK change, in which the learningactivities of considering your own practice and getting ideas from others contributed the most to these changes.
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In this study, we aimed to identify how the learning activities elicited in a lesson study project contributed to self-perceived change in supervisors’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK). Lesson study is a method which combines both professional and educational development. During a lesson study project, teachers collaborate in a team and develop, teach, evaluate, and redesign a research lesson. During the 4-month lesson study project described here, four supervisors designed a protocol for research supervision meetings aimed at enhancing undergraduate students’ learning. During the project, they experimented with open questioning and giving positive feedback instead of giving instruction and explanations. A mixed-methods design was used in this study. Data on the supervisors’ learning activities and PCK were gathered using learner reports, video-recordings of meetings, and exit interviews. The analyses of these data showed that the lesson study project contributed to the development of the supervisors’ PCK on instructional strategies and student understanding. The learning activity that contributed most to these changes was reflecting on their own practice and that of their students.
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Most professionalisation programmes to support teacher educators as research supervisors focus on the development of research skills. The methodology of practice-oriented research, in addition to a clear vision on the function, and purpose of student research often receives little attention. At the Amsterdam University of Applied Science, we developed such a vision and methodology and studied the development of 17 teacher educators as research supervisors during a programme that introduced this methodology. We questioned participants about affect, and understanding regarding their role as a student research supervisor, and their perception of their competences to perform that role. Results showed that teacher educators became more aware of their role, and became more critical about their own competencies. Growing awareness of the implications of their role as student research supervisors seemed to result in a lower self-efficacy regarding the performance of this role. Implications for the training of teacher educators are discussed.
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