Reflecting on action: Open post-lesson discussions

Abstract or Summary

This chapter describes the use of open post-lesson discussions to facilitate teachers’ implementation of a curriculum reform, which is part of a wider case study investigating teachers’ beliefs and practices about learner autonomy (Wang, 2016). The study was conducted in a Chinese secondary school which explicitly promoted the goal of whole-person development and strived for the fulfilment of this goal through a comprehensive school innovation project, focusing particularly on improving learning efficiency through student autonomy and collaboration. The discussions presented here were collective open discussions about peer-observed open lessons. The lessons were open in the sense that, while peer observation was compulsory for all English department staff members, they were also made accessible to anyone else who may have been interested; and the discussions, while primarily among English teachers, were also open to participation by the school administrators. Both the delivery of open lessons for observation and subsequent collective discussions were requirements for the school innovation project.