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How Could Cultural-Historical Activity Theory Inspire Lesson Study?

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Theory and Practice of Lesson Study in Mathematics

Part of the book series: Advances in Mathematics Education ((AME))

Abstract

Lesson study, originating from East Asia, has been widely spread and accepted as a vehicle for teacher continuing professional development. With its features of openness (beginning with a question instead of an answer), involvement (driven by teachers rather than experts), dialogicality (reciprocal learning instead of hierarchical interpersonal relationships), and practicality (linking research and practice), lesson study contributes new energy to educational research. Finding an appropriate theoretical perspective to approach lesson study and glean its advantages is challenging. When cultural-historical activity theory is used to contextualize lesson study, numerous insights are gained by both teachers and researchers. This conceptual chapter introduces the use of cultural-historical activity theory as an analytical lens, followed by a brief overview of the commonalities of various modes of lesson study. Some central tenets of cultural-historical activity theory that echo the essential points of lesson study are elaborated. By collecting data for and analyzing a lesson study case involving an elementary mathematics lesson in Beijing, the author shows that cultural-historical activity theory illuminates the significance of lesson study at the ontological, epistemological, methodological, and axiological levels.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Hong Kong Yuen Yuen Foundation (grant no. JY14003). I thank the anonymous reviewers for their invaluable feedback on the revisions of this paper. I would also like to thank Prof. Rongjin Huang from Middle Tennessee State University and Prof. Xiangming Chen from Peking University for their comments which contributed to the improvement of this article.

I would like to thank Anthony Abram for proofreading this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Elementary Education, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China

    Ge Wei

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  1. Ge Wei
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Correspondence to Ge Wei .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN, USA

    Rongjin Huang

  2. College of Education, DePaul University, Chicago, IL, USA

    Akihiko Takahashi

  3. College of Education, University of Lisbon, Lisbon, Portugal

    João Pedro da Ponte

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Wei, G. (2019). How Could Cultural-Historical Activity Theory Inspire Lesson Study?. In: Huang, R., Takahashi, A., da Ponte, J.P. (eds) Theory and Practice of Lesson Study in Mathematics. Advances in Mathematics Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04031-4_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04031-4_3

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-04030-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-04031-4

  • eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)

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