ABSTRACT
The path of teacher learning through lesson study (LS) and learning study extends from separation to fusion. Necessary conditions of teacher learning through participation in collaborative subject-based professional development groups appear to be (1) separation of teaching and learning through the experience of contrast when, through participation in LS, teachers adopt a second-order perspective to discover critical aspects of the object of learning (OL) for their students; (2) experience of generalization when teachers (and facilitators working with teachers) vary the teaching (change the design) so that teachers come to see the effect of their new design on their students’ experience of the OL, and, if the design is ineffective, the teachers may, in the light of the evidence, reconfigure the OL for their students and redesign and teach the lesson again; (3) experience of fusion whereby teaching and learning are reconnected in a different relationship than before when teachers see that, to be effective, teaching must be focused on evidence of the achievement of the OL for their students; and (4) overcoming the constraints experienced by teachers that syllabus and standardized assessment may impose on the context for teaching and learning.
