Establishing Trigonometric Identities: THE STUDY Approach Professor K.

Bhatia taught the lesson establishing trigonometric identities in spring 2007, using the Lesson Study approach for the first time. Professors Jinbo Lu and Laverne Harrison were observers. The lesson was videotaped. The role of the observers was to verify that the instructor followed the strict lesson plan. The observers also recorded the classroom interactions between the students and the teacher, and took notes of how each student progressed on problems from the aforementioned worksheet. During the instruction phase of the lecture, the observers kept a low profile; but during the problem phase, the observers moved from student to student, watching over their shoulders. We collected the evidence related to the following issues: Is a student confident in answering questions when called upon? Do the students ask questions? Do the students display familiarity with the basic knowledge (as laid out in the toolbox) through their exchanges with the instructor? When the students work on the worksheet problems, what mistakes do they make? If a student stops to think, what step is he on? Does he eventually progress from that step? Do the students write their answers in a certain format? In their writings, do the steps follow deductive logic? Are there missing steps? After the lesson, the team met to carefully review the collected worksheets, paying close attention to how many problems a student completed successfully. The team had but anecdotal evidence regarding the student performance before the lesson study on this particular topic. Findings We were impressed the students were generally confident about giving answers to the individual steps required to complete a proof. In solving problems on their own, the students were able to logically combine these steps - those students who had better grasp of the toolbox were quicker. But whats more important was that the students were intent on coming up an idea and moving the problem at hand one step forward at a time. A significant statistic was the average number of correct solutions, which was 4 out of 6. Discussions While we have no doubts about the effectiveness of Lesson Study, we do not yet have a sound statistical analysis of the approach because comparisons are hard to make, except based on impressions. For example, we have not tried a randomized experiment involving two groups, one taught with Lesson Study and another control group taught with the traditional approach. Such an experiment would be impossible to carry out because of the many potential confounding variables. We can not follow a student long enough either on how s/he does in more advanced math courses. In the lesson study as conducted, the awareness of the students about them being under observation might also have affected their attentiveness to the instructor.

Nonetheless, the experience we had with Lesson Study has been positive. After the first lesson, the Lesson Study approach has been used to teach the same topic a few more times by Prof. Bhatia and Prof. Lu and also some other topics, such as word problems. The average student performance based on our impression has improved. In fact, when were not sure how to teach a certain topic or a topic to a certain group of students, we can follow the Lesson Study framework to come up with a plan. In terms of changing the way a student thinks, we believe the students can have a structured approach to problem solving, as in putting together the pieces in the toolbox to produce something asked for. So in many cases, the students can at least get the problems started and then progress from there. In other words, structured teaching leads to structured learning. Forcing the students to stick with the toolbox also makes the students derive in a logical manner, therefore reducing the mistakes they make. However, we think while the lesson study can teach the students to solve certain types of problems, it might have limited function in reducing student misconceptions, unless the student is also simultaneously motivated as a result of their ability to solve problems.