Lesson study in teacher education: Learning from a challenging case

Abstract

Whereas most studies of lesson study in teacher education seem to report on success stories, this article investigates a negative case. From an implementation of lesson study in Norwegian teacher education, we analyse data from a mathematics group that struggled with their implementation. Analysis of data from group interviews, mentoring sessions and teaching the research lesson indicates that several crucial aspects of lesson study were missing. The student teachers did not formulate a research question for their research lesson, they did not focus on observing pupil learning, and their lesson was not organized to make pupil learning visible.