Upcoming Events
2023 Lesson Study Summer Institute
Teaching through Problem-Solving
Prieto Math and Science Academy
August 7 – 11, 2023
Are you concerned about your students’ ability to understand and solve problems? Do your students give up or ask for help right away when faced with an unfamiliar problem? Would you like to see more active discussions in your classes, with students formulating arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others?
Bring your colleagues for an invigorating dive into designing a lesson that engages students in deep mathematical thinking and lively classroom discourse. Read more here.
Lesson Study Reports Database
Check out our searchable database of research lesson reports. These reports are intended to support the work of lesson study teams and are free to download.
About Lesson Study
Lesson Study is a structured process for teachers to work together to discover solutions to common teaching-learning challenges. Read “What is Lesson Study? A Primer”.
The members of Lesson Study Alliance help teachers and schools implement an especially powerful form of Lesson Study called Collaborative Lesson Research, or CLR.
About Us
We are a coalition of educators dedicated to helping each other and others learn about lesson study and use the process to improve teaching and learning. The most important work is done by the hard-working teachers who design and teach public research lessons, assist with the annual conference or summer workshops, and more. Backing them up are Tom McDougal, who handles the day-to-day business of Lesson Study Alliance and supports teachers through the lesson study process, and Dr. Akihiko Takahashi of DePaul, who contributes his expertise by giving talks and serving as a knowledgeable other.
Our activities include:
- hosting the international Chicago Lesson Study Conference
- hosting smaller conferences and training sessions for teams of teachers;
- facilitating and giving final comments for research lessons;
- providing site-based professional development, including knowledgeable other services; and
- supporting and distributing LessonNote, a free iPad application used in classroom observation and discussion.
Contact us at info@LSAlliance.org or 773-888-3404.
Blog
Making sure the problem context supports student learning
I had a delightful opportunity to join a planning meeting with a group of teachers from one of the schools we work with in Chicago. The team was working on a lesson for their 8-year old students about interpreting remainders in problem contexts. Here is how the...
Great article on division with remainders
One of Chicago's Lesson Study Leaders, Joshua Lerner, wrote a terrific article in NCTM's journal Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching in PK-12. It is titled, "Recommendations for Teaching Division with Remainders." From the introduction: Recently our team of...
Fractions as numbers vs. fractions as ratios
A grade 4 team was recently considering the following task for a lesson in which they hoped to have students make a connection between fractions and decimals: What would you say about this? I wrote them two emails about it. First email: What would be the purpose of...
Learning goals should describe cognitive change
A surprisingly difficult but critically important part of designing a lesson is establishing the learning goals. Many teachers write learning goals in the form of behavioral outcomes: “Students will be able to…” Frequently this is what their administrators want, and...
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