2011 Volume 20 Pages 122-134
The purpose of this paper is to describe the common path followed by four trainees enrolled in an undergraduate Initial Teacher Education（ITE）course at a National University of Education in Japan and to clarify how they could enhance their reflectivity of lessons through participating in lesson observations and analyzing their reflection papers and essays about their educational views.
The trainees worked under the following conditions during the latter half of the ITE course. 1）They had reflective discussions after regularly（at least twice a week）observing lessons with the author's senior trainees. 2）The trainees also wrote essays a few times per year on the topic, “Your image of the pupils that you want to produce through your own educational practices.” 3）Once a year, the trainees were required to complete the same reflection paper on their lesson observations. 4）In their fourth year, the trainees participated in a theoretical course on “Lesson Study.”
It can be concluded that the four conditions above, implemented under the author's supervision, played vital roles in enabling the trainees to reflect upon their lessons from various view points for the following reasons: 1）Reflective discussions shifted their observation focuses to pupils and how they learned. 2）By considering the same essay topic a couple of times at different stages, the trainees were able to form connections between the classroom events and the contents of their own reflective discussions, and thereby began to establish their own firm philosophy of education as teachers. 3）The trainees began to consider their own alternative approaches to a lesson because they had opportunities throughout the reflective discussions to understand that different attitudes about the same classroom events could exist. 4）During the theoretical course of “Lesson Study”, they were able to understand more easily the importance of educational theory.
