2012 Volume 35 Issue 1-2 Pages 1-10
This paper suggests principals for designing Lesson Study at Education Colleges in Myanmar, that traditionally or socially lack collaborative and collegial relationships among teachers as is common in other developing countries. Interview data was used to identify and clarify elements, factors and processes that develop collaborative and collegial relationship among teachers. Lesson Study functions under a condition with collaborative and collegial relationships among teachers. However, instructors at Education Colleges in Myanmar are comfortable working in isolation and are not familiar with collaborating with others for professional development. This paper identifies factors and processes in designing Lesson Study that are needed to develop collaborative and collegial relationships and is based on teacher participation in Lesson Study at Education Colleges (EC) in Myanmar. The data were collected from interviews of twenty-four EC instructors at six Education Colleges. Quantitative analysis of the interview data generated seven categories related to these factors and processes. The seven categories were grouped into three stages; (1) Transforming the negative image of Lesson Study to a positive one, (2) Reconstructing the concept of Learner Centered Approach (LCA), and (3) Having shared responsibilities in Lesson Study, to explain the factors and processes through which teachers developed collaborative and collegial relationship among teachers. Based on the findings, the authors suggested three principals for designing Lesson Study: (A) setting up rules for mutual interaction to have constructive discussion, (B) assessing various LCA methods and (C) having shared responsibilities for demonstration lessons.
