Virtual Lesson Study Series for Science Educators

• What’s new? A series of professional learning communities to support elementary and secondary science teachers with online lesson study implementation.

• How and why is this useful? The team created six professional learning groups to enable teachers across the state to participate in lesson study through virtual grade-level/content area professional learning communities. The virtual organization enabled science teachers with no grade-level counterparts or those lacking district or site support to create an NGSS-aligned learning experience for observation and feedback by other team members. Additionally, five teams were run in the spring of 2020 with two recruited teams that

included mentor and pre-service teachers working together, which supported their communication and joint learning.

• What was a unique aspect of this project development? The team made several adaptations to bring lesson study into a virtual space using digital tools. Zoom allowed participants to record their classroom lesson and then upload the lesson video to their server in order to share it with colleagues. Other team members could then watch the lesson asynchronously online, annotate for evidence, ask questions, and come together to discuss the student work and the lesson strengths and weaknesses.

• Do you want to know more? To find out more about this professional learning series click here, or contact Dr. Virginia Oberholzer Vandergon (virginia.vandergon@csun.edu) at California State University, Northridge or Dr. Anita Kriede (dr.kreide.lmu@gmail.com) at Discovery Learning Partners.