Incorporating teacher noticing video case reflection into scaffolded Lesson Study to encourage authentic pedagogy in social studies

Abstract

Authentic pedagogy is a complex enterprise for students and teachers. Planning and developing the instructional procedures and scaffolds for student success is daunting. In addition, the teacher implementing the lesson makes dozens of quick decisions as they attend to student thinking and decide how to respond. These spontaneous decisions can have large impacts in the level of student thinking demanded in an authentic pedagogy lesson. This two-year project integrated video teacher noticing reflection with scaffolded Lesson Study in a professional development project with two U.S. Government teachers. I investigated what teachers would notice while reflecting on six video cases of authentic pedagogy lessons, four of which they developed as a team. I also analyzed what teachers noticed during the lesson implementations, including the two research lessons and two independently developed lessons at the start and end of the project. Data revealed shifts in teacher attentiveness to student thinking in video reflection. However, the increased attention to student thinking did not play a significant role in decision-making while implementing independently developed lessons after two years. This article explores these findings and raises questions for future studies.