Interview data analysis after lesson study practice 1 of TTC2-G3

In this section, first, the MTEs’ views on their professional learning were clarified following by the clarification of the issues based on the MTEs’ perspectives. Data analysis revealed the MTEs’ views in the knowledge, teaching-learning resources, collaboration, instruction, and preconceptions through the first lesson study practice (see Table 34). The knowledge included students’ conceptions as a subcategory while the teaching-learning resources included lesson planning and making teaching materials as the subcategories. The following are the details of each component supported by some evidence from the MTEs’

utterances.

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The knowledge, especially student conceptions, the group perceived that students have difficulty in learning because they learned through memorization without understanding the meaning of the subtraction. In this lesson, students were required to solve the subtraction problem using decomposition in 2 methods. For example, solving 12 - 9 by decomposing it, some students solved this by decomposing 12 into 10 & 2, then subtracted 9 from 10 remained 1, 1 & 2 became 3. However, when the teacher changed the method of decomposition by decomposing 12 into 2 and 10, students then circle 2 and 9 for subtraction pairs instead of 10 and 9. It means that when the number is changing its position, the students still remembered the previous position. The circle students made represented the number sentence of 2-9 in which it was impossible for the grade 1 mathematics. As KHL, the leader of this group pointed out that

It is apparent that students do not learn from their thinking; they learn through memorizing. As can be seen, when students decompose 10 and 5 or 5 and 10, when they circle the subtraction pairs, they still circle 5 and 7, it means 5-7. It means that students remember a position that they used to be practiced because they are taught such a way.

Another student conception was that some students didn’t use 2 methods of decomposition (method 1 is decomposing 15 into 10 and 5; method 2 is decomposing 15 into 5 and 10) to solve subtraction, rather they used counting fingers instead and some used counting drawing sticks. This way of solving subtraction can also get the correct answer, but it is not the MTEs’ objectives to use in this lesson.

The teaching-learning resources were one of the main themes of the MTEs’

professional learning in lesson study practice 1. This included subcategories like lesson planning and making teaching materials. The MTEs perceived that they have learned how to make a lesson plan on one-page, creating task questions, sequencing instruction, making teaching materials, and instructional design to teach the lesson about subtraction. One-page of lesson plan that MTE mentioned contains several parts, such as, name of teacher, name of school, date and time, lesson topic, name of activity, objective of the whole lesson, objective of today’s lesson, main lesson content, student thinking anticipation, order of teaching activity, a list of teaching materials, and details of teaching activity. The details of teaching activity include three parts, such as the activity of reviewing the previous lesson, four steps of Open Approach and warning as the final step.

Additionally, four steps of Open Approach include posing word problems or problem situations, students solving problems themselves, report and discuss the ideas together, and

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conclude students’ ideas together. At the end of the one-page lesson plan, there is a name list of the group. Other than the one-page lesson plan, the MTEs also mentioned their professional learning about creating a mathematics problem. In this lesson, the mathematical problem is

“Thao Itim has 15 oranges, he gives it to his friends 7 oranges, how many are left over?” This problem is adapted from exercise, 15-7. MTEs claimed that if they just simply give 15-7 to students, they will not know how much students understand subtraction. So, the group makes it like a word problem.

While the theme of collaboration, the MTEs collaboratively studied the textbook before proceeding with the lesson design. After that, each of them expressed their ideas regarding that topic before the leader of the group made a decision or strongly recommended utilizing these ideas. They discussed each other on how to promote student thinking. This was very much related to instructional design because they consulted the flow or sequence of activity. And finally, they had consensus ideas of the lesson plan. Through the researcher’s observation, they spent time very much on designing learning tasks, designing and making teaching materials but there was very little or no discussion about anticipating students’ ideas, how to handle if unexpected ideas occur, and how to conclude the lesson.

Although professional learning in this group is deeper than the other two groups, they also had criticism on instruction specifically when the teacher kept repeating what students already understood in the activity, which was wasting time. Sometimes the teacher communicated with students in an unclear way, especially a question asking what students are going to find out in the activity; unorganized blackboard when presenting students’

mathematical ideas and unclear conclusion part because it is not matching with the objective of the lesson. Further than criticism, surprisingly, this group was not only doing teamwork in lesson design but also in teaching in the team especially being actively helping each other in handling teaching materials, approaching each group while students were doing group work to encourage them by asking some questions so that students will reach what the group wants.

And at nearly the end of the lesson, the leader of the group also helped the teacher to conclude the lesson because the teacher herself faced difficulty in summarizing it.