Lesson Study on "Simple Machines"

   Second graders at the Kent Heights School were the subject of a new form of professional development for teachers.   Fourth grade teacher Regina Jones taught a lesson on simple machines while a team of teachers and principal David Britto looked on.  Lesson Study is a teaching methodology used extensively in Japan where a team of teachers plan and conduct a lesson with students and then meet as a team to discuss the lesson and define ways that the lesson might be improved.  Subsequently, the lesson is taught again with the suggested recommendations made by the team.  According to principal David Britto, "this type of collaboration has great potential to improve the quality of instruction at schools across the country."

    The question under study was "What do you think you can do with the board to make the car go faster?"  Students discussed their ideas and came up with heir own predictions.  Using lego-constructed cars, the students investigated the results of changing the position of the board to see how it affects the speed of the car.  Working in groups, they made several trials as the teachers observed their conversations and notebook entries. 

    Kent Heights participation in Lesson Study is part of a year-long project called SLIP (Science Literacy Integration Project) offered through Rhode Island College in partnership with the East Bay Collaborative. 

Predictions