Manabu Sato (Professor of the University of Tokyo and Chairperson of the conference organising committee) welcomed all delegates to the conference.
Keynote Speech 1
Going Beyond Dialogism in Learning and Instruction : Lessons for Lesson Study
– Yrjo Engerstrom ( University of Helsinki)
Engerstrom argues that the origins of human communication and dialogue are in practical, object-orientated collaborative activities. Divorcing dialogue from object-orientated activity reduces learning to verbal interaction without practical consequences. If education is to have a transformative impact on life, he continues, then the object of learning and teaching must be kept at the centre of inquiry.
Keynote Speech 2
Crossing Borders : The Global Spread of Lesson Study
– Christine Kim-Eng Lee ( Associate Professor,National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore)
The focus of Kim-Eng Lee’s presentation was on the spread of Japanese Lesson Study to many countries around the world. She posed the following questions :
– How and why has Japanese Lesson Study spread to other countries with different contexts and cultures?
– What happens as a result of this movement?
– What conditions need to be in place to ensure that Lesson Study is not a passing fad but is practised in the right spirit?
There has been a rapid rise in the number of schools in Singapore using Lesson Study as a means of improving the quality of teaching and learning. In 2004, only 1 school was using Lesson Study – by 2011, 162 schools were involved. The programme has benefited from the support from the Government and from the Academy of Principals.
She went on to outline the development and the various phases of adoption, noting the organisations through which Lesson Study was introduced into different countries e.g. support from governments was instrumental to the adoption of Lesson Study in Singapore, Indonesia and Hong Kong.
She noted the adaptations which have been made: e.g the use of ‘case pupils’ and the formal involvement of pupils in UK research lessons; the development of a hybrid, focusing on the ‘object of learning’ and the use of Variation Theory in Hong Kong; the integration of curriculum design models in planning research lessons in Singapore.
The future : there is a real need to collect evidence of practice in different countries in order to develop a deep understanding of their effectiveness.