Lesson Study Cycle 3

The Lesson including three preparatory lessons designed to facilitate student success to understand content goals. All lessons were led by myself, a 2nd Grade Teacher at High Tech Elementary North County.

Lesson Study Plan

Lesson Goal: Students will participate in collaborative conversations with a diverse group of peers to sequence the order of a Kumeyaay legend. Students will embody their assigned roles (facilitator, sharer, feelings monitor, materials manager) to ensure equity of voice.

Task: After a weekend and a brief, low-stakes attentive listening activity, students will work in purposefully paired groups with previously assigned roles to collaboratively sequence the order of a Kumeyaay legend, Kakuktut. Students will share their thoughts and feelings related to the assigned task throughout the lesson. After groups have laid their story cards in an agreed upon order, groups will receive captions to order with their sequenced story cards. Students will then take a gallery walk to look at other groups' work and return to their original groups to share their takeaways regarding similarities and/or differences. Next, students will meet at the carpet to listen to Kakuktut and make connections to the actual order of the story.

Materials Needed: Images from Kumeyaay legend, Kakuktut, mounted on colored construction paper; Paraphrased captions mounted on colored construction paper; Kakuktut on slides; Exit tickets.

Lesson Study Launch

Led by myself and supported with data tracking by the rest of the team.

Our Lesson Study was conducted in an elementary school classroom with all team members present to collect data on focus students. Our Lesson Study was conducted as planned. One of our focal students was absent, so another student was selected that fit the criteria of a quiet student whose voice needed to be lifted. Research we used to support this lesson proved successful. Research and data section to follow below.

Research

Our research informed the design of our lesson as we used materials and strategies specifically researched to support our equity theme and (Annotated Bibliography and Literature Synthesis above). The materials and strategies included a Kumeyaay legend, Kakutut, five story images adhered to colored construction paper (per group), and five captions.

All focal students participated by sharing their thinking with their group by making suggestions to the sequential order of the story image cards and captions. All focal students' voices were lifted by being selected as the Sharer for the Group Roles. Sharers were responsible for giving an informal assessment in the form of 'fist to five' when teacher checked for understanding and group progress. (See images in Data section below).

Data

Student Thinking and Participation:

Focal Student 1: FS1 shared their thinking and participated in the collaborative process of the lesson design. FS1 used hand motions with a thumbs up to show agreement (observational notes below). FS1 spoke twelve times. After FS1's group completed sequencing their story cards, they shared glows and grows. FS1 said they "want to grow at not touching the paper." This shows that they are aware of the group roles and that materials manager was not theirs. FS1 showed engagement during the gallery walk and noticed that some groups' work was different than his. FS1's exit ticket (below) shows that they circled three emojis for the activity. This reflects confusion. FS1 would change the photos of the activity. I asked FS1 if this meant to add color and he affirmed.

Focal Student 2: FS2 shared their thinking and self-advocated when one of our team members joined their group; participated in all activities though one of their group members did not acknowledge FS2's thinking more than once. FS2 is a quiet student who takes time to think before sharing verbally. FS2 showed a sideways thumb during one of the informal assessments, which led me to stop and check in to support her. FS2's exit ticket (below) shows that they enjoyed the activity because it was fun.

Focal Student 3: FS3 shared their thinking aloud, especially when prompted by the feelings monitor in their group, as well as one of our team members joining the group. FS3 participated in all activities. FS3 spoke softly and their group was patient with their participation. FS2's exit ticket (below) shows that she loved the activity and that she noticed "it's not the same." She was one of two students to make a comment regarding the paraphrased captions being different than the actual text of the story.

Observational notes of focus students during the lesson study and lesson data are provided below and were included in the Data above.

Debrief

Our group discussed how each of our focal students participated in the lesson study and we learned that self advocacy was evident with FS2, while FS1 and FS3 were better supported by their groups. Our goal was met by students embracing their roles in the groups and by all voices being heard. Classroom culture was highlighted as an area of strength and one member felt that my classroom is decolonized by the evidence shown in the lesson. While many students were complimented for their ability to support students as facilitators, a couple of students displayed unsavory behavior toward by not supporting their ideas and using an aggressive tone of voice to hurry another student's thinking. We discussed the value and importance of providing visuals for students and I recognized this is an area of growth. It was mentioned that it would have been solidifying for students to have been asked to check in with one another to verbalize the sequence of their story cards and captions a further time, or to have made a deeper connection to what realizations they made after the read aloud of Kakuktut.

Reflection

This lesson study cycle offered the most room for me to grow as an educator by being a host. My team sought to incorporate SJE (Social Justice Education) and UDL (Universal Design for Learning) through providing multiple modalities for student engagement and learning. The focus of our lesson study was to engage all students in participating by sharing their voice in a collaborative activity while lifting the stories of Kumeyaay legends. The UDL article we read emphasized that all learners benefit from inclusive education. My class consists of 24 students. 8 students with an SST for reading and/or writing, 4 students with IEPs and more than half the class being below grade level in reading. My class is very sensory seeking and it is challenging to serve the needs of all the diverse learners of my class at all times. This is why improving my UDL practices is paramount, especially when providing visuals for students to refer to during lessons. While I use slides for various lessons throughout the day, I do not consistently have a visual on display as some of my team members shared. This is where I fell short in the lesson study experience. Regretfully, I did not have a slide on display for students to refer to as they worked in their groups. I look forward to preparing for lessons in the future with intentionality in preparing visual supports. Another important growth area was that I printed the story cards in black and white. In my desire to save copy ink, as our school encourages, my students were not able to clearly see images that would have helped them to better decipher how to order the cards. I really ought to have printed them in color. This could have had a huge impact on the outcomes for the lesson. The UDL supports that were supported in the lesson were as follows: 1) purposefully paired groups to elevate students strengths and support weaknesses, 2) purposefully selected roles (facilitator, feelings monitor, sharer, materials manager) for each student, 3) a visual/kinesthetic learning experience using images of a story mounted on colored construction paper and mounted captions, 4) informal assessments to check for understanding using fist to five and thumbs up, thumbs side, thumbs down, 5) visuals at the launch of the lesson with slides showing prior knowledge and group assignments, 6) non-verbal check ins with a chime, 6) gallery walk to learn from other groups' work, 7) informal active listening with partners, 8) turn and talks with group members to self reflect, a read aloud book on slides, 9) exit tickets with visuals (emojis). Our SJE focus was highlighting Kumeyaay legends and acknowledging that Kumeyaay are a living people rather than people of the past. It felt very special having my lesson study team in my classroom with me and my students. Each of them showed care and commitment to the process and I am grateful for their notes and feedback. Cate's presence was comforting as well in this way, especially when she addressed a concerning behavior one of my students demonstrated toward another student. I was able to take action with this student by speaking to them and writing a referral to the Dean of Students, because the behavior seemed like a micro aggression toward a student of color. Our KO provided us with the idea of doing a sequence order of a story for our lesson study and suggested the group roles as well. I had a week to prepare students with group roles and at first I wasn't sure if group roles were appropriate for second graders. I reached out to my mentor and was encouraged to provide more supports and try again. After creating purposefully paired groups and assigning the roles, rather than giving students choice, we moved forward and the students were more successful. I look forward to continuing group roles as part of my practice as an educator, and I look forward to the independence students will have through this routine.