Reflexive professional development in reflective practice: what lesson study can offer

Abstract

PurposeIn response to the top-down professional development (PD) practice, this study conceptualizes lesson study (LS) as a bottom-up approach to foreign language teacher PD in the Turkish context. Relatedly, the authors seek to empower teachers so that they can engage in reflexive PD and claim voice over their practices.Design/methodology/approachAn LS project including four teachers was implemented at a higher education language centre and conducted as a critical ethnographic study. Using ethnographic research qualitative data collection methods such as field notes, interviews and artefacts, the data were analysed with a thematic analytic approach.FindingsDrawing on cultural-historical activity theory (CHAT), findings revealed that LS was a meta-activity that allowed teachers to be agents of the PD practices. More significantly, LS empowers teachers to have a situated impact on their development activities in addition to the meta-activity's impact on them.Originality/valueThis study is one of the few that goes beyond the reflective value of LS and gives contextual evidence of how reflexive PD can occur in LS. The reflexive relationship between the agent (participant–teachers) and the process (LS practice) provides a strong implication revealing the transformative impact of bottom-up PD activit(ies).

Preparing, leading, and reflecting on whole-class discussions: How prospective mathematics teachers develop their knowledge during lesson study

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Teacher-practitioner Inquiry in Professional Development A Case of Adaptation and Resistance to Genre-based Systemic Functional Linguistic as a New Writing Instruction: A Case of Adaptation and Resistance to Genre-based Systemic Functional Linguistic as a New Writing Instruction

“…Another thing that matters is that teacher-practitioner inquiry does not only involve collaboration, skill building, and critical thinking but also reflection. Teacher-practitioner inquiry is a professional stance, a mechanism that allows a teacher to systematically study his or her own practice and then create a critically-inquiring community of professionals (Dana and Yendol-Hoppey, 2019;Murray, 2013;Uştuk and Çomoğlu, 2021). Thinking, particularly reflective thinking or reflective inquiry, is essential to teachers.…”

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“…Correspondingly, teachers learn about a PD practice, they understand the meaning and importance of it, they develop competence in using it and they reach the point where they skillfully use this competence to inform themselves of what they do at work. As it is evident, traditional PD practices are far from helping teachers complete these stages as they are dictated in a top-down fashion (Borko, 2004;Broad and Evans, 2006;Kumaravadivelu, 2006;Uştuk and Çomoglu, 2021). Traditional PD addresses practical methodological issues such as teaching writing or classroom management.…”

“…To this end, a variety of PD forms have been introduced and practiced. Some examples of these include exploratory action research (e.g., Akcan et al 2019;Dikilitaş and Çomoglu, 2022), critical friend groups (e.g., Carlson, 2019;Vo and Mai Nguyen, 2010), lesson study (e.g., Cajkler et al, 2014;Hurd and Licciardo-Musso, 2005;Uştuk and Çomoglu, 2021), reflection groups (e.g., Aydın and Çomoglu, 2023;Mayoral, 2014), professional learning communities (e.g., Goodyear et al, 2019;Owen, 2016), curriculum study groups (e.g., Heikkilä, 2021;Unlu, 2018), and mentoring (e.g., Gjedia and Gardinier, 2018;Suchánková and Hrbáčková, 2017;Walters et al, 2019). CO has been utilized as a tool in some of these contemporary forms of PD.…”