Lesson Study as a Framework for Preservice Teachers’ Early Field-Based Experiences

Abstract

Initial field-based experience for preservice teachers often takes the form of observation of a classroom or tutoring a student. Later experiences may include assisting a teacher in the classroom, culminating in student teaching where the preservice teacher is in complete control of a group of students. Some have questioned the significance of field-based experiences as nothing more than an enculturation into the existing socio-cultural norms of the teaching profession (Zeichner 1981). As suggested in this volume (Murata and Pothen; Fernandez and Zilliox), one way to fold the myriad of preservice teaching activity into a meaningful field-based experience is to give preservice teachers an opportunity to conduct lesson study (Stafford-Plummer 2002).