Mentors and student-teachers ‘lesson studying’ in initial teacher education

Purpose An adapted version of lesson study was used with mentors and student-teachers in a one-year initial teacher education (ITE) programme for prospective teachers of geography and modern languages. In partnership with eight secondary schools, the effectiveness of the lesson study cycle was evaluated as a vehicle for exploration of approaches to aid student-teacher learning during school placements. Design/methodology/approach Twelve lesson study case studies were completed and analysed. Findings Three principal findings emerged: firstly, most collaborating mentors and student-teachers reported that they engaged in a reflexive process, exploring the complexity of teaching, each learning more about the characteristics of teaching; secondly, in cases where collaboration allowed student-teachers a degree of autonomy, lesson study provided a collaborative scaffold for understanding the complexity of teaching, contributing to professional development along a continuum which we tentatively term ‘pedagogic literacy’; thirdly and less positively, some mentors struggled to shed the shackles of traditional roles, dominating the discourse as advice-givers so that a traditional ‘parallel’ approach to mentoring continued. Originality/value The work expands the experiential base of lesson study efforts in ITE in the United Kingdom and elaborates a view of teacher learning that challenges reductive approaches to the preparation of new teachers. For the first time, it presents student-teacher and mentor perspectives on the use of lesson study in teaching practice in England.