Lesson Study
Lesson study (jugyou kenkyuu) is a collaborative, cyclical form of teacher professional development and practitioner inquiry that originated in Japan. A team of teachers studies the curriculum, sets a shared learning goal, jointly designs a 'research lesson,' has one member teach it while the others observe students closely, and then debriefs against the evidence to revise the lesson and their understanding of teaching. Rather than improving a single lesson, its deeper aim is to build teachers' professional knowledge through disciplined, evidence-based collective inquiry.
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Sources
- Lewis, C., Perry, R., & Murata, A. (2006). How should research contribute to instructional improvement? The case of lesson study. Educational Researcher, 35(3), 3–14. DOI: 10.3102/0013189X035003003 ↗
- Stigler, J. W., & Hiebert, J. (1999). The Teaching Gap: Best Ideas from the World's Teachers for Improving Education in the Classroom. Free Press. ISBN: 9780684852744
How to cite this page
ScholarGate. (2026, June 22). Lesson Study for Collaborative Instructional Improvement. ScholarGate. https://scholargate.app/en/education/lesson-study-method
Which method?
Set this method beside its closest kin and read them side by side — the library lays the books on the table; the choice is yours.
- Classroom Observation ProtocolEducation↔ compare
- Design-based ResearchField Methods↔ compare
- Formative AssessmentEducation↔ compare