Benefits of Using Lesson Study for SoTL, Cross-Disciplinary Research, and Assessment

Abstract

Lesson study is a technique that helps faculty examine student learning that encourages scholarly teaching. In lesson study, faculty identify a concept and develop a lesson plan to support student learning of the concept. The opportunity to collaborate on lesson development and to examine student learning opens up a space for faculty to exchange ideas about effective teaching. Most faculty do not have opportunities to collaborate on their teaching at this deeper level, but a lesson study project provides guidance for instructors to explore student learning in-depth. This article examines how lesson study provides opportunities for college faculty to engage in cross-disciplinary Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) projects. In addition to structuring SoTL projects, lesson study can aid faculty in the development of assessment plans to improve student learning. 1 IJ-SoTL, Vol. 14 [2020], No. 1, Art. 2 https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2020.140102 PLANNING LESSON STUDY The starting point in developing a lesson study project is to determine a concept that is challenging for students, and then identify faculty as well as individuals from related academic support areas that may be interested in participating in the curricular research project. Often the learning outcome that is the focus of the lesson study functions as threshold concepts, which are problematic or appear contradictory to students but must be understood in order to progress in their studies (Nicola-Richmond, Pépin, Larkin, & Taylor, 2018, p. 102). Some threshold concepts such as source attribution prevent students from being able to progress in more than one discipline because students must transfer this knowledge to new contexts. Threshold concepts, especially ones requiring transfer, are fertile ground for interdisciplinary lesson study teams. The team researches best practices in teaching the concept or skill that students find difficult. For our project, the integration of sources into written and oral communication exemplified a consistent area of difficulty for our students. Integrating sources and properly citing them in a research assignment or project can be challenging for students across disciplines. Our project began with this specific student challenge and an invitation from the college’s composition coordinator to faculty from composition, communication, and the library. The final research team consisted of four full-time faculty, one adjunct instructor, and one visiting instructor. The next step in developing a lesson study project is to consider which course(s) would be the best fit given the challenging concept that has been identified. For our project, we identified two courses that each had a research assignment requiring sources. English Composition 1001 (taught by the adjunct instructor team member) and Business Communication 2081 (taught by the communication faculty team member) both represented a natural fit for this project given their course research component. These selected courses also provided an opportunity to examine the challenging concept from the firstand second-year levels. Both courses met on a Tuesday/Thursday schedule for 80 minutes. As part of integrating sources into their projects, students needed to be able to find sources, know the differences between types of sources, and determine the credibility of those sources. With the challenging concepts and course(s) determined, the next step in lesson study is to research pedagogical strategies or techniques used to teach the topic, which provides one of the two opportunities for instructor growth in the lesson study process. Instructor growth can occur during two phases of the lesson study process the developmental phase and the class enactment phase (Coenders & Verhoef, 2019, p. 219). During the developmental phase, instructors are exposed to unfamiliar pedagogies and materials from their colleagues. This can be done by reviewing the literature to see how others have addressed this concept in their courses. For our team, we examined and discussed research on how students learn to integrate sources in their own writing. These conversations centered on student learning needs while also providing a chance to learn from each other and reflect about what we do in the classroom and in our teaching. This initial meeting also helped formulate the goal for our lesson study group: determine an effective method for teaching students how to integrate sources responsibly as well as learning how to do this purposefully and ethically. Once the concept and courses were selected, the lesson study team needed to consider how students would demonstrate their learning of the concept such as a homework assignment or research project. With our group’s goal determined, we examined the research project required for each course. For composition, students wrote a traditional research paper using a topic of their choosing. For business communication, students wrote a formal report that presented an improvement to a business. Both projects required the use of multiple sources. Given our research team’s overarching goal and the research project for each course, we developed the following framework for the lesson plan: 1. Library instruction sessions that focused on the location and evaluation of sources (taught by the library faculty member) 2. Pre-lesson study class that focused on citation formatting (taught by the course instructor) 3. Lesson study class that focused on the integration of sources (taught by the course instructor) This framework involved a process to assess, collect, reflect, and analyze. The step-by-step process that our research team took for each class session is shown in Figure 1. The research team’s subsequent meetings concentrated on brainstorming and developing ideas for the lesson plan. One of the composition course outcomes is for students to be able to “quote, paraphrase, summarize, document, and cite sources accurately.” In business communication, students should be able to “conduct and report business research.” Given the student learning outcomes, we collectively designed a lesson plan that included preand postquizzes, in-class activities, class discussion and reflection. An important component of the lesson study process is to assess what students already know and are able to do. We used the preand post-quizzes to evaluate what students knew before the lesson and after. We used qualitative field notes to gather data about the effectiveness of the in-class activities and discussion. Each team member observed a group of students noting their involvement in the lesson as it unfolded. The team analyzed these field notes to evaluate the effectiveness of the lesson in engaging students. The research team selected example topics as well as three sources used in the teaching of the lesson plan. The business communication course, which first implemented the lesson plan, used three articles on three topics: childhood obesity, social media, and global warming for the in-class practice. The composition class focused on three articles about social media for the in-class practice. Figure 1. Step-by-step process for each class in our Lesson Study project 2 Benefits of Using Lesson Study https://doi.org/10.20429/ijsotl.2020.140102 The library faculty member taught two library instruction sessions for each course. These sessions preceded the lesson plan on integrating sources. As part of the planning for the information literacy instruction, the library faculty member met with each instructor to discuss the course’s research needs. Although the library instruction learning outcomes were the same for each course, the content and in-class activities differed given the research projects. The sessions for the second-year students included more emphasis on strengthening their foundational research skills whereas the sessions for the first-year students focused on introducing foundational research concepts. The following are the learning outcomes used in the library instruction sessions for both courses: 1st Library Instruction Session • Construct main ideas and keywords in research topic in order to build effective search strategies • Distinguish between different sources and their purposes in order to choose the appropriate source for the information need 2nd Library Instruction Session • Apply currency, authority, accuracy, relevancy, and point of view criteria in order to evaluate the information and its source For both courses, the first library instruction session focused on team-based activities where students worked with sources then presented their findings to the class for discussion. For the second-year course, students examined popular, scholarly, and trade publication articles to identify source characteristics and to determine when it is appropriate to use one versus another. For the first-year course, students developed keywords about a topic, located a specific type of source (e.g. scholarly journal article, website) and described the source’s characteristics and their search process. The second library instruction session focused on evaluating information to determine credibility using the following criteria: currency, relevancy, authority, accuracy, and point of view. For the second-year course, each student brought an article found during the first instruction session. Working in teams, students exchanged articles for an initial peer evaluation using one of the five criteria. The teams discussed their findings, determined which two articles were most appropriate for a professional business audience and presented to the class. The first-year students continued their discussion about the different source types and followed with a team-based activity to find and evaluate two sources, using the same criteria as the second-year students, and to present the better of the two sources to the class. This practical application of critically examining sources to dete