How Does Lesson Study Promote District Education Reform? – A Case Study of a District in Shanghai

Item

Title

How Does Lesson Study Promote District Education Reform? – A Case Study of a District in Shanghai

Abstract/Description

Purpose
Lesson study (LS) is generally regarded as a pathway for teachers' professional development and a method for teachers' instructional research. LS has been regarded as having the potential to drive large-scale reform but little is known about how it does so from a district level. Therefore, this paper aims to reveal how lesson study promote district education reform.

Design/methodology/approach
This study offers an in-depth case study of how District Y of Shanghai, China, took LS as the primary method in promoting its District Project of Building Curriculum Leadership in Schools. By analyzing the key project documents and achievements in project promotion, and interviews with the major Project leaders at District and school levels, this study explored the practice and impact of LS as a tool to promote district reform.

Findings
In the District Project, LS has been a medium to address each individual school's real problems of practice and turn them into reform vision and reform will in alignment with District goals. Five levels of school curriculum texts have been planned, designed, translated, implemented, reflected on, updated and mutually adjusted systematically through LS to ensure consistency in transforming District reform vision into classroom practice. Different models of teaching-research community building were found in sampled project schools and professional expertise was built with district support to promote reform. The curriculum leadership development through LS has shaped reform leader schools and formed a collection of LS exemplars circulated in schools as high-quality curriculum packages, which laid the foundation for district-wide reform.

Originality/value
The innovative practice of LS in China's education reform has expanded its reach from within one classroom to the entire district curriculum system and made it an important tool to drive large-school district-based education reform.

Author/creator

An, Guiqing

Chen, Yanru

Fang, Yanping

Liu, Jingwen

Date

2022

In publication

International Journal for Lesson and Learning Studies

Volume

11

Issue

2

Pages

106-120

Resource type

en Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

en Published Text

Scholarship genre

en Empirical

Keywords

curriculum example study

curriculum texts

district education reform

lesson study

IRE Approach/Concept

Lesson Study

Chinese Lesson Study

Primary national context

China

Open access/full-text available

en No

Peer reviewed

en Yes

ISSN

2046-8253

DOI

10.1108/IJLLS-01-2022-0003

URL

Official Publisher's Webpage (Emerald Insight)

Is part of

Chinese Lesson Study Reconceptualized in Time of Core Competencies-based (hexin suyang 核心素养) Reform [Special Issue]

Citation

An, G., Chen, Y., Fang, Y., & Liu, J. (2022). How Does Lesson Study Promote District Education Reform? – A Case Study of a District in Shanghai. International Journal for Lesson & Learning Studies, 11(2), 106–120. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLLS-01-2022-0003

Item sets

Int J Lesson Learning Std 11(2)

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