Primary Teachers’ Reflection and Collaboration Dynamics in a Mathematics Lesson Study

Abstract

With this article we aim to show how primary teachers teaching that participate in a lesson study in mathematics develop their reflections and collaboration. The research is qualitative and interpretive with a case study design. The results show that the involvement in moments of planning and analysis of the students’ work, where teachers reflect on practice and for practice helps them to develop collaborative relationships, moving from storytelling and scanning to joint work. The growing involvement of the group with the purpose of achieving common goals favored the development of teachers’ reflection levels. Initially, the teachers tended to attribute the students’ difficulties to the nature of mathematics or their immaturity. At the end, they identified their student's learning problems, suggested and justified ways to help them to overcome these difficulties and transposed these suggestions for changes to undertake in their own practice.

Keywords:
Lesson Study; Collaboration; Reflection; Professional Development; Zone of Proximal Development