Mathematics teachers' professional noticing as an immanent feature of Lesson Study

Abstract

Teachers’ professional noticing is an essential pedagogical skill for the effective teaching and learning of mathematics. Professional noticing is an inherent attribute of Lesson Study (LS). Therefore, LS is the perfect context to explore how mathematics teachers used professional noticing when offering lessons within the LS setting; thereby making instant instructional decisions while the lesson unfolds. My qualitative case study research is situated within the interpretivist paradigm, wherein two LS groups were studied to gain insights into how mathematics teachers’ professional noticing informs their instructional decisions. I used two theoretical lenses, namely, Situated Learning Theory (Lave & Wenger, 1991), to provide a theoretical basis for LS and FOCUS Framework for Productive Noticing (FFPN) (Choy, 2015) to provide a theoretical basis for professional noticing. The two LS groups were purposively selected because of their familiarity with and implementation of LS. Data were collected through observation, document analysis and unstructured interviews to answer the primary research question: How do mathematics teachers use professional noticing to facilitate lessons within LS? The findings of this research have practical implications for mathematics teaching. The study revealed that while teachers noticed learners struggling with specific mathematics ideas, their noticing was only superficial. This led to instructional decisions that were not optimal for enhancing or developing learners’ mathematical thinking. The dominant instructional decision was to, in the same way, re-explain a mathematics idea in the same way when learners were struggling with it. The study also revealed that teachers could reflect on practice cosmetically and suggest alternatives for the future. The recommendations from this research can guide teachers to use purposeful activities when teaching in the LS context to enable them to notice specific issues regarding learners’ mathematical thinking and then make suitable instructional decisions. It also suggests that teachers consult curriculum policy when engaging in post-lesson reflections to enrich their reflection-on-practice.