ABSTRACT
This profile provides documentation for the first implementation of the lesson study process in the United States today. Lesson study continues to be viewed as a valuable form of professional development for teachers. While most of the lead players in the profile are no longer at Paterson 2, I have chosen to keep most of the profile in its original tense but provide an update at the end of the chapter. The information on lesson study as well as the handouts are currently used by lesson study groups in the United States. The content was suitable to fifth graders in 1999 but is now a CCSS seventh grade topic.
In 1991, Paterson Public Schools were taken over by state. All the schools were assessed and our PRE K-8 School was declared one of the four worst in the system. Our population of 720 students is pretty diverse: Ninety-eight percent of our students qualify for free lunch; many come from high stress environments including a hotel for the homeless, a battered women’s shelter, and a housing project for children with seriously disabled parents; Ten classes of special education students are bussed to the school from throughout the district, and our rate of transience is 42%.
Collaborative support for applying the Lesson Study process of Japanese teachers in our own classes helped us to create a study group to focus on enhancing the teaching and learning of mathematics. Four main areas guide discussion of the group: curriculum, instruction, professional development, and school culture.
(Middle School Lesson Study Group team members from Paterson School 2, Paterson, New Jersey: Lynn Liptak, Fran Dransfield, Bill Jackson, Isabel Lopez, Magnolia Montilla, Beverly Pikema, Cynthia Sanchez and NickTimpone)
