Lesson Study 3
This iteration of the lesson study cycle provided my lesson study group and I the opportunity to take the learning into our own hands. This cycle was completely hands off with minimal assistance from our professors. My lesson study group and I developed a problem of practice that felt authentic and meaningful to all of us: How can we develop criticality in our students so that they learn to question and/or unlearn their own hegemonic ideas/experiences? This problem of practice lead us all down a truly introspective road that required a significant amount of research, synthesizing, and collaboration to gather useful takeaways to inform and enhance our practice.
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Equity-Based Research Theme:
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We will encourage students to be critical of existing power structures affecting a diverse group of people. We will empower students to believe that they can use their learning to direct change.
Content Understanding Goal:
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Students will critically identify which identities are included in, and which are excluded from, visions of the future, and what those imaginings say about the current experiences of marginalized groups in a collaborative socratic discussion.
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Lesson Study Memorialization Document:
PDSA Cycle
The PDSA Cycle is a process that helps educators pinpoint a specific activity or lesson that they think will help an area that they see is in their classes (i.e. engagement, collaboration, grammar skills, etc). The common question that my group chose to focus on was how to help students develop criticality so that they question and/or unlearn their own hegemonic ideas and experiences. Our PDSA cycle focused on how we can get students to develop a more personal investment in the content they are learning with the hopes that student engagement will increase and lead to deeper understanding of the content. We found that students felt disconnected from diverse perspectives and experiences. We believed this was happening because students were inclined to focus their attention on themselves while also feeling uncomfortable being curious about others for fear of offending. We decided to try using an interview of a diverse/marginalized person as a primary source for a writing reflection. What we found was that students connected more with the emotions, feelings, and thoughts of the person being interviewed. The students expressed that using interviews helped them feel like they were learning about the content from an expert who experienced an event firsthand. Overall, the data we collected showed that students responded extremely positively to the incorporation of interviews as primary sources. Students were more engaged, more enthusiastic, and more invested in forming personal connections to their learning.
1 / Before the Lesson
Before our research lesson took place, the host teacher's students had been working on a unit about dystopian literature. They had been reading Fahrenheit 451 and The Giver to explore common themes in dystopian literature. Students had been doing activities to examine what features are characteristic of dystopias/utopias as well as reasons why they exist.
2 / Lesson Day
The research lesson was designed to be a simulation for students. The goal was to have students feel like they were a part of an unjust dystopian society. Students were put into random groups of six with each member being in charge of one particular job. The students' goal was to produce 25 cards by the end of the lesson but students could only work during work hours and no two students could do their job at the same time. There was a list of forbidden words and actions and if students were caught saying/doing any of those things they were removed from class and placed in "jail" for 1 minute.
3 / Final Product
The main product that students created were the cards they had to work in their groups to make. Students also participated in an informal discussion about the simulation directly after the activity. The upcoming class also had students complete a written reflection exercise that asked about what takeaways they left with and their thoughts on how impactful the activity was to them.
As people who were directly involved in the planning and facilitation of the research lesson, it was an extremely valuable experience to be a part of. Overall, we found that facilitating a simulation garnered a much higher level of engagement from the students. For the goals of this particular lesson, a simulation also felt like the best instructional method to use because we wanted students to truly feel what other feel when faced with injustice in the midst of oppressive power structures. We also learned that it is crucial to have thorough structures and clear expectations to ensure that the simulation runs as smoothly as possible. The reflections from the students also shed valuable insight on their experience in the simulation. Many students reported that they thought the simulation was set up to be unfair and they made real life connections to injustices they are aware of in the world. The way that the students were able to apply their learning to the world around them shows that our simulation was successful in our goal.
Research Base
The coursework for the third trimester requires the completion of multiple academic writing pieces. The first was a Read 1-Ask 1-Reflection (RAR) which was a writing piece synthesizing one article and an interview conducted with another educator. Another writing piece we completed was an annotated bibliography that consists of all the readings completed in trimester two. Finally, the third trimester also requires the completion of a literature synthesis which outlines the common themes found across all the literature we have engaged with this trimester while illustrating how our thinking evolved around our problem of practice. Overall, these writing pieces helped inform the entire lesson study process as we went through each stage.
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The RAR paper was a way for me to synthesize and connect the individual areas of research that went into our lesson study. This particular paper was focused on different instructional strategies that can help increase the level of engagement among students when teaching history. It was really eye-opening when looking at the research surrounding the incorporation of interviews in instruction. I learned how oral interviews and video interviews can help students feel like they are learning from an expert and feel more closely connected on a personal level to the content.
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The Literature Synthesis was another great opportunity to make strong and relevant connections across the research our group has conducted. Some of the common themes I found when reflecting were:
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Building Empathy and Establishing a Culture of Care
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Perspective Taking as a Classroom Practice to Develop Deep Understanding
These themes were found across the research and both provided my group and I with an insightful line of thinking that allowed us to really consolidate all of the learning that occurred thoughout the lesson study process.
Reflection
The entire lesson study process has been such a valuable experience and this iteration of it has been the most impactful one yet. This cycle of the lesson study was different because our goals were more centered on creating a deep personal change in the ways that our students view their world and their power to change it. Another component that felt extremely valuable was our research lesson. This lesson felt so much more impactful because my entire group was much more intimately involved in the lesson as opposed to merely observing. Our research that led up to the creation of our research lesson also served as a strong addition to our "teacher toolbox". The articles and research we conducted shed so much valuable insight on how to motivate and facilitate the development of criticality, empathy, and understanding in our students. The PDSA cycles also provided good practice of using student data to adjust instruction. This is something that I want to continue to grow in because I have seen the incredibly positive effect that it has on students and the classroom culture.