Abstract:

With the rapid digitization of education, information and communication technology are now common in schools and teachers and student teachers need to develop teaching skills utilizing ICT. Student teachers should learn methods of utilizing ICT through practical activities such as lesson study.

However, it is difficult for all student teachers to conduct simulated lessons that include ICT due to the limited range of time available in most teacher education programs and to improve methods utilizing ICT in their lessons while considering learning content and learning situation.

Therefore, there is a need to develop a model of lesson study for student teachers to develop the skills.

In recent years, learning assessment has increasingly become a part of school education, and teachers are required to reflect on their own teaching by assessing the learning outcomes and learning situations of students and then improve their lesson plans. If student teachers can improve their simulated lessons like this, they should be able to consider more effective ways of utilizing ICT by focusing on the connection of the learning contents in a teaching unit.

This paper described a model of lesson study to develop teaching skills utilizing ICT in student teachers. Specifically, we focused on learning assessment and developed a model of lesson study in which student teachers learn how to utilize ICT in their lessons while improving their simulated lessons with other student teachers.

There are three features of our model.
I. Student teachers can improve simulated lessons based on learning assessment.
II. Student teachers can acquire knowledge about how to utilize ICT while discussing how they can improve their simulated lessons with other student teachers.
III. Student teachers can sort out the things they learned and use this knowledge the next time they teach.

Specifically, first, student teachers are divided into “teacher” and “students”. Second, the teacher decides on a teaching unit and designs lesson plans in that unit. Third, the teacher conducts a simulated lesson. Fourth, the students discuss how to improve the method of utilizing ICT in the simulated lesson (corresponding to II). Fifth, the students individually improve the method of utilizing ICT in the teaching unit (Corresponding to I). The teacher then tries to improve based on the lesson improvement plan suggested by the students. Sixth, teacher conduct the next simulated lesson (corresponding to II). These activities are repeated several times. Finally, the teacher and students reflect on things they have learned about methods utilizing ICT (corresponding to III).

We implemented our model in a university course university course attended by 16 students. This evaluation was conducted with the first author as “teacher” and the students as “students”. In this practice session, we repeated the process of class improvement three times.

We evaluated our lesson study using a questionnaire. The results of this evaluation revealed the following advantages of our model.
1. Student teachers were able to develop their understanding of ways to utilize ICT through peer discussion.
2. Student teachers were able to improve their methods of utilizing ICT in lessons while considering the connection of learning contents in a teaching unit.

For future work, we will further analyse the effectiveness of our model and refine it through continuous implementation.

Keywords:

Teaching skills utilizing ICT in student teachers, learning assessment, lesson study, teacher development, improvement of lessons.