Lesson Study Reflection (2015)

What We Did:

We carried out a Lesson Study that focused on enhancing students thinking and analysis skills. Through our Lesson Study, we hoped to encourage students to produce more detailed and in-depth responses to exam-style analysis tasks. We carried out the joint planning and predicting of student responses that is associated with a Lesson Study approach. We completed this cycle twice – once with Ed Jeffries teaching an S3 IGCSE music lesson and once with Damian teaching a series of 5B IB English (Language and Literature) lessons (English is only taught in single lessons).

The focus for the Music lesson was on students being able to analyse a piece of music they heard (IGCSE exam) and for the English lesson the focus was on the HL Comparative Textual Analysis (Paper 1). In both lessons, students were encouraged to use an acronym (THIS SMART for Music; PACTSS for English) to help structure their analytical thinking.

Both lessons made use of paired work and a carousel-type activity that aimed to have students gain access to the thinking of other students, as well as to be prompted other students’ responses (Music) or pre-constructed questions (English).

Both lessons (or lesson cycles) began with a focus on the key terminology required for the analysis and ended with some form of written responses by the students (in pairs for Music; individually for English).

The Lesson Study began with Ed Jeffries, Matthew Lambert and myself (for the Music Lesson Study cycle); after Matt Lambert left at the end of Semester 1, he was replaced by Mark Lovell (for the English Lesson Study cycle).

Successes:

Both carousel activities were successful in helping all students to engage with both the materials and the processes of analysis. In some ways, students who benefited the most from the carousels were the lower-ability students (Case Pupil C for both lessons), who may have struggled to access the materials or complete the process of analysis individually.

Most students in both cases were able to show a deeper level of analysis and thought than they were previously (in most cases during the lesson; in other cases, as part of the written response).

Having students develop answers (and provide examples for) already given during earlier rotations of the carousel (in Music) was successful in making students provide evidence, as well as add greater detail. Having students construct probing questions prior to the carousel lesson (in English) was also successful in prompting students to think about a wider variety of aspects for the texts.

In both lessons, students produced written responses that were more effective than their previous analytical work. The best examples of this were Case Study Pupil B, who improved on her average grade by 0.7 and Student X, who improved by 1.0.

Evidence:

In Music, all students produced responses (in pairs) that would have been assessed as at least a Grade 5 (against IB-level criteria), even though they are still only S3. The case study pupils responded as expected with the higher achieving pupil A producing results that were of a good IB standard and the middle ability pupil B needed their work to be shaped. The most surprising element of this class was the positive impact of the third less able pupil C's response and the way in which it benefitted a great portion of the class both during the lesson and subsequently. Pupil C was able to create and shape a response that although not up to the standard of the other members of the class, still used academically appropriate language that related to the musical score that was being studied. Her response boosted not only her confidence but also gave others within the class the courage to openly make mistakes in a classroom setting thus allowing their responses to be better shaped and to test their actual understanding of the topic.

In English, the class grades for the individual Paper 1 went up, on average, +.2 of an IB grade overall. 7 of the 11 students in the class achieved a grade higher than their average IB grades from throughout the year (average of +.64 for those). 1 girl achieved the exact same score as her average grade, whilst 3 students (1 girl, 2 boys) performed worse than their grade average (average of -0.45 for those students). One of those students was Case Study Pupil C. The 2 boys who underperformed both have poor homework records. The decision to have students complete the individual writing task for homework may have had an impact on these grades. When students completed this task as a proper exam (end-of-year, full exam conditions), the overall average grade for the class matched the total average grades for the year. However, 6 of the 11 students performed higher than their average grade for the year.

Recommendations:

Ensuring students understand key terminology (Academic Language) and frameworks for analysis before the lesson is important.

When trying to encourage deeper thinking, it is important to have students move from group work based on discussion to writing. Perhaps going from group work to paired planning, before then tackling individual writing, may be more effective than going straight from group work to individual writing.

Carousel-type activities can be very effective in encouraging depth of thinking, as well as breadth of thinking.

It may be helpful to provide lower-performing students with prompts and checklists during the discussion phase, to ensure they add the requisite layers to their contributions.

Possibly avoid setting individual writing (in the first instance, at least) as a homework task.

It is important not to allow the limitations of the syllabus to dictate levels of thinking and depth of responses encouraged – S3 Music students produced responses that were satisfactory for IB level.