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Modern Classroom

Lesson Study: Cycle II

Lesson Study Cycle II was conducted in February 2023 in my seventh grade classroom at High Tech Middle Chula Vista. After researching and attempting change ideas, we designed and executed our lesson study. Team members were there for observations and all debriefed afterwards.  Below, are details regarding the focal students, the lesson itself and plans for moving forward.

Context for Cycle II

The lesson study team was comprised of five teachers working in grades 3-12 in both traditional, charter and project-based settings. All teachers work in either humanities or elementary classes. Together, the team identified a problem of practice related to student discussion through which we created goals for our lesson study. 

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Problem of Practice: Students appear to be lack of self awareness, lack of social and emotional connection, fear of being incorrect (also tied to lack of social and emotional connection) which inequitably affects student voice.

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Research Theme: The research theme is how to include and balance all voices while fostering student's awareness about their voice. 

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Equity Goal: Students will understand the significance of exercising their agency and stepping forward in group discussions, while also having the awareness to share the space with other students.

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To read about the resources that formed our lesson study process, please click here. 

Click here to see our full lesson plan!

Focal Students 

Below are each of the focal students, their respective observations, and student work samples.  The observations were made during the research lesson. The student work sample is the student's preparation sheet for the seminar. 

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Focal Student One:

Focal student 1  is  the oldest daughter in a family of her two parents, and two younger brothers. She is a bright and social thirteen year old. She describes herself as independent and a hard worker. She joined High Tech in sixth grade and says she’s found it more engaging than her previous schools, and she’s still getting used to not having regular tests. She acknowledges most things come easily to her, but is proud of the way she pays attention to detail. FS1 has many friends, and on her happiest days is spending her time at Disneyland with them and her family, or with her dogs.

Image by Nicholas Fuentes

Observations:  She was the first one to open the conversation after being called on by the teacher. She was smiling, laughing, nodding, and engaged. She shared her opinion statement that society is selfish but nobody built upon it. She was engaged with the conversation, but not connected with the group in the conversation. She said the government has the power and mentioned how COVID affected the economy and inflation. When in the outer circle, she was diligently providing feedback to her partner. She spoke softly and made lots of connections.

Image by Sven Kucinic

Focal Student Two:

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FS1 Student work sample:

Lesson Study Cycle I Reflection

Below are each of the focal students, their respective observations, and student work samples. 

FS2 is  a funny and creative twelve year old. He is the middle child - one brother in ninth grade and one sister in fifth grade. He is passionate about sports, and can often be found playing soccer at the park close to his house. FS2 perceives himself as the “class clown” and takes pride in that because he likes to make his friends laugh. He feels comfortable in this role, but also is happy to share with the class in an academic sense because he sees value in learning other perspectives. 

Observations: He demonstrated active listening and turned to each person as they spoke but seemed to lose interest as opening statements continued. He maintained  eye contact when the conversation first started. One of the students who brought in other students toward the end of the conversation. It appeared that he realized he was zoning out and caught himself to bring it back. He had a smile every time he spoke. He was the first to respond any time the teacher posed a question to the group including raising his hand. While in the outer circle, he was throwing m&ms, appeared to be on his phone and not paying attention. He filled out his form immediately and pushed it to the side to not participate. 

FS2 Student work sample:

IMG_9166.HEIC

Focal Student Three:

FS3 is a thoughtful and creative twelve year old. He is the younger sibling to an older sister in ninth grade. He loves drawing, music and video games. His grandmother recently passed away and he missed a lot of school while she was sick and in the wake of her passing. He is normally quiet in larger group settings and very social and active with his circle of friends. He has displayed both of these behaviors to extremes during this time period. He feels nervous to share out in class because he is, in his own words, “just really shy.” He does however, feel confident in his own thoughts and sharing them one on one with teachers verbally. 

Observations: He only spoke once during his opening statement and it was hard to hear what he said due to being soft spoken and wearing a mask. He spoke a second time when someone addressed him toward the end of the conversation. He respectfully nodded his head in agreement with everything everyone else said. Though he didn’t speak much, he was very engaged with his body language, eye tracking, and active listening.  He appeared to be  deeply listening and hyper-observant of others in the classroom. 

Storyboard

FS3 Student work sample:

IMG_9170.HEIC

Reflection on Cycle II

Lesson Study Cycle II offered a way to closely examine student voice in my very own classroom. First, it allowed me to obtain student perspective about how they feel about sharing in our space. This is invaluable as much of the research points towards community and student safety as two major elements that foster student voice. From there, I was able to continue my research, this time into strategies centered around participation.  This helps my growth as a facilitator - how to sustain a safe space for students and to push them to use their voices. 

 

Second, when it was time for our research lesson, I was excited by the opportunity to get other educators' perspectives. The lessons leading to our research lesson were well-scaffolded to help students review our historical case studies. This material was then used to build their arguments to answer our seminar question: what do our food choices say about our priorities as a society? The research lesson was a fishbowl-styled socratic seminar. After debriefing with the lesson team, it seems as though the prior lessons and the warm-up strategy effectively increased awareness around student voice. A question we were left grappling with is: if a topic relates to positionality that students hold does it make them more or less inclined to participate because it is so personal to them? Altogether, the research, wonderings, and discussions lead to a deeper understanding of student voice. 

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