2018 Fiscal Year Annual Research Report
Cutting Edge Reflective Practice to Promote Teacher Development on an International Scale
| Project/Area Number |
17H02676
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| Research Institution | Iwate University |
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Principal Investigator |
Hall James 岩手大学, 教育学部, 准教授 (80361038)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
田代 高章 岩手大学, 教育学部, 教授 (70294486)
小川 春美 岩手大学, 教育学部, 准教授 (30598561)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2017-04-01 – 2020-03-31
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| Keywords | reflective practice / lesson study application / teacher development / wordpress |
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| Outline of Annual Research Achievements |
The overall purpose of this project is to develop a lesson study (LS) application (LS APP). In the second year of this research the LS Process and APP were further synthesized, which improved both the LS process and APP usability. The LS APP facilitates the following process:
(1) Instructors create a lesson page in which they write their lesson plan, their lesson rationale, and issues that they want observers of lessons to focus on. (2)A class page is created for each individual lesson a teacher conducts. On this page, observers can post written observations, video files, or pictures. These observations can be categorized into the various issues the instructor wanted observers to focus on. (3) A LS is conducted using the class page comments as a reference. (4) The instructors write what they learned into the class page and the process repeats itself. The LS APP has been used in Lesson Studies at institutions in both Japan and Thailand.
In FY 2018, we had the following milestones:
1) WordPress as a content-management-system was used as the LS APP Platform. It is effective for archiving previous lesson studies and its various plugins enable developers to give it the necessary functionalities for LS observation. (2) The LS APP was moved to a more powerful server which improved performance.(3) Commenting was changed from back-end to front-end and media uploading and comment search functionality were improved. (4) The LS APP was better integrated with the LS Process so that it could support each stage. (5) The LS APP was used by more than 100 people in Japan and Thailand.
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| Current Status of Research Progress |
Current Status of Research Progress
2: Research has progressed on the whole more than it was originally planned.
Reason
In the second year of this research project, we improved the usability of the LS APP. Furthermore, as mention above, it was used by more than 100 people. We have developed a way to customize WordPress so that it can be used as a Lesson Study Application. Therefore, this can be replicated by others. We end the second year with a more reliable APP that we have more confidence using in a variety of contexts.
Most of the second year was focused on improving the technical aspects of the APP. It is difficult to do both APP development and teacher development at the same time. We experienced difficulties with being able to upload media depending on the device and we also experienced difficulties with server compatibility. Sometimes during the teaching practicum, our attention would be more on the APP rather than the actual instruction and helping observers to use the APP. Furthermore, because of our technical concerns, we were unable to devote as much time to investigating how the LS APP was used as a tool to mediate teacher development. Because the lesson study data remains, it will be a priority to analyze this data at the beginning of FY 2019.
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| Strategy for Future Research Activity |
The primary goals for this year are:
(1) Improve usability and design of the APP
(2) Conduct workshops on using the APP for lesson study and write manuals on how to customize WordPress to conduct lesson study research.(3) Investigate how the Lesson Study process and usage of the APP can facilitate reflective practice.
(4) Have schools in Thailand use the APP independently. (5) Increase the number of users of the APP.
To accomplish these goals, we have planned the following:
(1) (April 21, 2019) Presentation at a WordPress conference to show the current functionality of the APP and receive feedback. (2) (May 28 - May 31)Lesson Studies involving teachers from Japan and Thailand at Iwate University and the Iwate University Affiliated Junior High School. (3) (June 1) Lesson Study presentation/ workshop at the JALT CALL conference. (4) (July, 2019) Lesson studies at elementary schools and junior high schools in Iwate using the APP. (5) (August 7) Lesson Study presentation/ workshop at the Foreign Language Education and Technology (FLEAT) Conference in Tokyo Japan. (6) (November 1) Presentation at the WordPress conference in Tokyo. (7) (November) Use of the LS APP at Iwate University for a Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) seminar at Iwate University. (8) (December) Use of the LS APP at an elementary school in Morioka. (9) (January) Teaching practicum in Thailand. (10) (January) Participation in Thai TESOL. (11) (February - March) Production of LS APP Manual.
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| Remarks |
A username and password is necessary to view the lesson study data. Site 1 is completely developed. Site 2 is accessible but the design will not be finished until July, 2019.
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