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There are three types of teacher professional development at GagasCeria Preschool: a.
Pre-service training Pre-service training serve for a new teacher that will joint at GagasCeria Preschool.
GagasCeria accept motivated teacher with various background of education in Bachelor degree. The differences of background subject study has been made GagasCeria to do
much more effort for teachers pre-service program. However strongly motivated a new teacher for entering teaching field, they will always ecounter some difficulties in achieving
all the teachers role Orenstein et al, 2011 without any preparation. In service training consist of several days of lectures, observing classroom, lesson reflecting session, teaching
practice, discussions, and workshop on teachers administration stuff.
b. In-service training
Serve for all teachers and staff at GagasCeria Preschool. In-service training consists of intern and extern training based on teachers need and stage of teachers developmental.
Intern training are conducting by GagasCeria Preschool with expert as a trainer. Extern training is sending teacher to attend seminartraining in other institutions. All training
based on teachers needed.
c. Regular of teachers activities
- Weekly meeting
There are several activities of teachers during a year. In every week teachers gather to discuss and share their experience in their own classroom, the relation with parents, and
other issues at school. Sometimes teacher conducted book review activity or small workshop on early childhood education or teachers issues.
- Classroom news paper
Regularly, teacher publish their own classroom paper that inform about classroom activities or special moment that happened at their classroom. Actually this activities
can help teachers to improve their writing skill.
- Lesson Study
Lesson Study is daily activity that conducts by teachers as learning and research process in order to improve the quality of lesson. Such learning and research process
improve the quality of professional during the planning, observing, and reflecting children activities collaboratively in teachers team.
3. Discussion about Lesson Study
3.1 Lesson Study in Indonesia
Lesson Study is a model of Japanese school-based teacher professional development as collaborative research on classroom activities is thought to make possible the exchange of
experiences between teachers, collaborative planning, participatory learning, the enhancement of professional dialogue among teachers, and
teachers‘ reflection Matoba, 2007. Lesson study has been introduced and spread faster since early 2000s in Indonesia by cooperation
between JICA, Indonesian MONEC and several universities Suratno, 2012. Even so, the Lesson Study for practical research program has been launched by MONEC and introduced to
junior high school level only, then they are spreading to elementary school level in 2013. Today, lesson study is widely used across the continuum from secondary to preschool settings
West-Olatunji et al: 2008.
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3.2 Typical of Lesson Study
The most interesting aspect of Lesson Study is the mechanism it provides for studying and improving the methods teachers use. Lesson Study breaks away from the model of expert
telling teachers what to do. Rather, it assumes that teachers learn to teach by treating teaching as an object of study
– by trying to improve teaching by studying carefully what works and what doesn‘t Stigler and Hiebert, 1999. Through Lesson Study, the classroom becomes the
teachers‘ laboratory for continuous improvement of teaching and learning Wang-Iverson and Yoshida, 2005. Teachers in Lesson Study groups are not only improving their own
knowledge and skills but are also contributing to a knowledge base that may, potentially, inform more permanent improvements over time Stigler and Hiebert, 1999 since Lesson
Study contirbute on build an environment for teachers to be reflective and good observers.
3.3 Lesson Study in GagasCeria Preschool
Since 2009 GagasCeria Preschool has been using Lesson Study as one tool of teachers professional development based real-classroom context, besides the other various pre-service
and in-service teachers training annual program. In reality, Lesson Study was never launched in early childhood education sector. Lesson study in preschool level has not known as well as
in the higher level of education. There is no resource or reference to be accessed about Lesson Study best practice in Indonesian preschool level. Therefore, this issue is not only in
Indonesia but also in international scale. Lesson Study approach is spreading to early childhood education and care in study in the countries that adapt the former approach Akita
Lewis 2008 which is usual Lesson Study for primary. It is become a challenge for GagasCeria preschool as an institution that organized playgroup and kindergarten for children
aged 2-6 years, to introduce Lesson Study as a teacher professional development in order to create a learning community and teachers as researcher.
Therefore, the way early childhood education examine classes is different from the usually lesson study. It does not compare and examine the teaching plan and practice, but
observe what activities and events children experienced in the field, how they were recorded for recollection, and they
―reflect‖ and examine the case to interpret with colleagues Akita, 2011. The successful adoption and implementation of Lesson Study in pre-school setting
require changes in the mindset of both teachers and leaders. Lesson Study is often missunderstood as focusing on creating perfect lessons. This is not about observing and
evaluating the teachers teaching the lessons. The focus is on the students and how the lesson facilitate learning Lewis et al, 2009.
Since preschool teacher is always expected to engaged in an ongoing cycle of observing, guiding learning, and assessing childrens progress Dodge, 2006, Lesson Study
become an appropriate tool to support such teachers roles.
3.4 Benefits of Lesson Study at GagasCeria Preschool
- Teachers quality Effective Lesson Study will have a long-term impact on teachers profesional
development. Teachers can develop their high quality professional such a strong understanding of the subject content knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. Specifically
Lesson Study improve several foundation skills for teacher as follows: a lesson plan: designing a lesson with high level of prediction and anticipations, and arrangement lesson
materials and tools, b to conduct the instructional: give an optimal response to children, observing the children, collecting data from observation, c reflecting the lesson: analyzing
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data, making interpretation, and re-design the lesson to support children development process. Some teachers believe that the most important thing in lesson is lesson plan, but in fact there
might be a risk that the regular lesson plan is followed technically and without reflection by the teacher Runesson Gustafsson: 2012. Finally, Lesson Study develop high quality
teachers and directly put an impact on student learning process.
- Teachers collegiality
By working in groups to improve instruction, teachers are able to develop a shared language for describing and analyzing classroom teaching, and to teach each other about
teaching Stigler and Hiebert, 1999. Wang-Iverson and Yoshida 2005 described about what makes Lesson Study unique,
when compared to traditional professional development: It is teacher-led, long term professional learning.
It is planned collaboratively over a periode of time through intensive study of materials, standards, and students; It was found that lesson preparation was done in a more in-depth
manner. It supports a collaborative focus on student thinking through observation of classroom
practice in real time, sometimes with external experts; the support of the knowledgeable other was critical.
It offers a process that makes a goal e.g., enhancing student motivation for learning for learning concrete through an actual lesson.
It provides fresh perspectives on teaching and learning. It foster shared reflection based on classroom evidence
It concretizes the idea of teacher reflection, as well as what problem solving looks like and what thinking entails
It involves long-term participation of knowledgeable others. -
Schools culture Lesson study is a culturally centered professional development tool that stresses group
rather than individual goals and outcomes West-Olatunji: 2008. Lesson Study provides two important pieces that are often missing from professional development: the direct observation
of students and teachers in the classroom, and teachers coming together to discuss what they have observed. Such reflection and discussion session on teachers team called as collaborative
research process. During the discussion, teachers are learning each other: senior teachers and also the junior teachers. The culture of Lesson Study is all of teachers is on the same level
during the process. The goal of their collaborative work is to improve the lesson rather than examine teacher or classroom activity.
4. Conclusion
