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Continuity and Change: Chinese Lesson Study Redefined in the Context of Key Competencies-Based Reform

Item

Title

Continuity and Change: Chinese Lesson Study Redefined in the Context of Key Competencies-Based Reform

Abstract/Description

Purpose
This special issue reveals how lesson study in China continues to serve as a powerful platform to support change in teaching. The papers included in this issue explore how university faculty members and researchers support teachers to cross boundaries resulting from the introduction of key competencies-based (hexin suyang 核心素养) curriculum reform (KCR).

Design/methodology/approach
The theme of continuity and change is examined against the backdrop of Chinese lesson study's (CLS's) consistent supporting role in enabling curriculum reform. These analyses make use of concepts involved in understanding boundary crossing, such as using boundary objects and their roles, to help make sense of the new theories, tools, and resources as well as relationships engendered in responding to the reform's demand. While recognizing the continuity at play in Chinese LS, the authors use the lens of learning at the boundary of research-practice partnerships (RPPs) (Farrell et al., 2022) to contemplate the future of CLS.

Findings
The papers touch on three major themes: (1) the role of university-school partnerships in meeting the new demands of key competencies reform; (2) resourceful tools, strategies and structures to support boundary crossing for teachers; and (3) roles and relationships for mutual learning in university-school partnerships. Together these three themes, considered across the papers in this issue, point to the need to redefine CLS to engender versatility and hybridity and to enlist mutual learning relationships in future university-school partnerships. Such redefinition positions lesson study to both continue and change.

Research limitations/implications
The papers in this issue are expected to promote mutualist learning in future CLS research-practice partnerships. To do so, research needs to move from focusing on change of a single case teacher to clarifying what experts and teachers each learn from the LS and from each other. Attention also needs to focus on the collaborative discourse and ways such discourse is able to promote mutual learning, emotional support in facing change as well as critical and constructive problem solving.

Practical implications
Practically, to better support boundary crossing, this special issue encourages academics and teachers to identify and work around boundary objects and their enabling features to enhance knowledge and identity of both university and teacher participants for more effective research-practice partnerships.

Originality/value
This special issue offers a pioneering set of studies that contributes to an in-depth understanding of how CLS is supporting the current competencies-based reform in China. It also provides concrete future directions for research and practice to enhance university-school partnerships' response to reform.

Date

Volume

11

Issue

2

Pages

49-59

Resource type

Research/Scholarly Media

Resource status/form

Published Text

Scholarship genre

Commentary/Editorial

Primary national context

Open access/full-text available

Yes

Peer reviewed

Yes

ISSN

2046-8253

Citation

Fang, Y., Paine, L., & Huang, R. (2022). Continuity and Change: Chinese Lesson Study Redefined in the Context of Key Competencies-Based Reform. International Journal for Lesson & Learning Studies, 11(2), 49–59. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJLLS-04-2022-0057

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Title Alternate label Class
Chinese Lesson Study Reconceptualized in Time of Core Competencies-based (hexin suyang 核心素养) Reform [Special Issue] Special Issue/Series

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