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Lesson Study for a Distance Education Statics Course

Abstract

A lesson study by definition is a process where faculty develop, teach, observe, analyze, and revise a single lesson for a single class period. The objectives are to understand student learning, create useable lessons, improve teaching, and build knowledge of pedagogy using a manageable unit of analysis. A lesson study begins by first determining the student learning goals. A lesson is then developed by a group of instructors to achieve these established outcomes. During the planning, the instructors anticipate student reactions, interpretations, and difficulties with the lesson and alter the instructional experiences accordingly. Once developed, one instructor delivers the lesson while the other instructors observe student learning. The group then analyzes these observations and the lesson is revised. This paper considers a lesson study conducted for a Statics course delivered via distance education. This course is delivered synchronously using an audiographics setup. The instructor and the students connect to a web conference and a telephone conference simultaneously allowing real-time discussion and data sharing. The lesson was also designed to create a hands-on learning activity for the students who are engaged in a passive learning environment. The lesson study gave insight into how engineering students learn via this distance education delivery mode, methods of creating an interactive classroom in a distance education environment, and improved teaching all engineering courses delivered by this method.

Introduction

A lesson study is where a small group of teachers develop, teach, observe, analyze, and revise a single lesson to meet certain student learning objectives1-3. A lesson study is usually focused on a lesson requiring a single class period. Focusing on a single class period gives the teachers a more manageable component in which to concentrate their teaching. In planning the lesson, teachers start by determining the learning goals they want students to achieve. From these goals, learning objectives are formed and then the student exercises or activities are developed to attain the objectives. The lesson plan consists of the instructor methodology and techniques for instruction as well as the expected reaction of the students. The lesson is developed with student learning as the focal point, including how students will interpret the information and the difficulties they may have in reaching the learning goals.

The overarching goal of a lesson study is to improve teaching. This goal is achieved by three specific objectives. The first objective of a lesson study is to understand how students learn. This understanding comes from observing student behavior during the lesson and then analyzing the behavior and modifying the lesson to allow for better student understanding. The second objective of a lesson study is to create a database of usable lessons for use by other teachers. As lessons are created, and modified to enhance student learning they are then deposited into a repository for use by other teachers, thus allowing for more effective teaching and learning in the engineering classroom. The third objective of a lesson study is improved teaching through collaboration. As with most problems, better solutions can be devised by a team rather than an individual. The teachers meet to develop the lesson’s goals, objectives and delivery methods.

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Holdhusen, M., & James-Byrnes, C., & Rodriguez, L. (2008, June), Lesson Study For A Distance Education Statics Course Paper presented at 2008 Annual Conference & Exposition, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 10.18260/1-2--3472