Collaboration for Enhancment of Mathematics Instruction (CEMI) is a new partnership between Indiana University (IU)
and Monroe County Community School Corporation (MCCSC),
involving middle and high school mathematics teachers
of MCCSC, the Department of Mathematics of Indiana University, and the Indiana University School of Education (SOE). In the fall of 2000, 6 high school mathematics
teachers volunteered to participate in the initial activities of CEMI. CEMI seeks to engage teams of middle and high school
Mathematics teachers, university mathematicians, university mathematics educators, and pre-service secondary mathematics teachers in an activity that is inspired by lesson study, a form of professional development that is widely used in Japan.

Catherine Lewis (Lewis, 2000) has studied lesson study in Japan and reports that in Japan, research lesson or study lesson refers to lessons that teachers jointly plan, observe and discuss. The same two words in the reverse order, lesson research or lesson study, refer to the process of instructional improvement of which the research lesson is the core piece. When a Japanese school engages in Lesson Study, teachers form Lesson Study Groups (LSGs). The entire school has a general theme for the Lesson Study and each of these groups develops a lesson that relates to the theme. These study lessons are then taught in regular classrooms. An implemented lesson is observed by many teachers in the school and is followed by a public discussion of the lesson with the planning group. This cycle of meetings and lessons is repeated several times during a year. According to Lewis, research or study lessons typically share five characteristics.

• Research lessons are observed by other teachers.
• Research lessons are planned for a long time, usually collaboratively.
• Research lessons are designed to bring to life in a lesson a particular goal or vision of education.
• Research lessons are recorded.
• Research lessons are discussed.

Lewis notes that U.S. teachers spend most of their efforts to improve instruction choosing or writing curriculum and planning lessons individually. Japanese teachers, on the other hand, spend most of their efforts on planning lessons collaboratively and watching and discussing each other's classroom lessons. Lewis argues that lesson study has a role to play in the U.S. but that we will need to find the most effective ways to adapt it to our cultural settings. Lewis's observations are echoed in Shimahara's discussion of Japanese professional development, based on data from his study of three schools in Tokyo (Shimahara, 1998). He argues that Japanese strategies are shaped by the perspective of teaching as craft and explores how that perspective contributes to the typical patterns of professional development. He also notes that while American teachers are for the most part responsible for their professional development, Japanese teachers are encouraged and even pressured by peers to participate in collaborative, practice-based professional development activities.


The CEMI project is not simply trying to engage U. S. secondary mathematics teachers in Japanese Lesson Studies, but rather to adapt this model of professional development for several purposes. These include providing professional development for all of the participants in the project and creating an extensive community of people with diverse perspectives but the common goal of providing secondary students with quality mathematics education. The evaluation/research component of the project seeks to understand these activities and their impact on the participants and the participants' classroom teaching.




REFERENCES
Lewis, C. (April 2000). Lesson Study: The Core of Japanese Professional Development. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association, New Orleans, LA. (http://www.lessonresearch.net/AERA_2000.html)

Shimahara, N. K. (1998). Japanese model of professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(5), 451-462.

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