Focusing on improved student outcomes, purposeful professional growth, and collaboration, Matagorda ISD Superintendent Susan Phillips and Assistant Principal Kyle Thurman partnered with Region 3 Educational Service Center (ESC) to adopt a new framework for collaborative professional development called Texas Lesson Study.
Texas Lesson Study is inquiry-based, job-embedded professional development that allows teachers to work collaboratively to develop, teach, and assess research-based lessons.
In professional learning communities, teachers collaborate to identify a concept that students have difficulty understanding. Teachers then examine educational research to determine best practices and spend weeks skillfully designing an exemplar lesson.
After the lesson is taught to students, teacher teams reflect, refine, reteach and plan for intervention and enrichment, to ensure mastery by every student.