LESSON STUDY IN COURSE COMPLETION WORKS IN MATHEMATICS TEACHING IN NORTHEAST BRAZIL
Lesson Study in Northeast Brazil; Professional development; Teacher training; Mathematics.
The professional development training process of Lesson Study has been widely used in mathematics teaching in Brazil, which motivated this research on its academic production in the Northeast region, since our academic and professional training took place in that region. Given this, this study sought to answer the research question: How do the contributions of Lesson Study manifest themselves in initial and continuing teacher training, based on undergraduate course completion papers, dissertations, and theses produced in the Northeast region of Brazil? The objective is, therefore, to analyze the contributions of Lesson Study to the initial and continuing training of mathematics teachers, identified in undergraduate theses, dissertations, and theses produced in the Northeast region of Brazil. To this end, searches were conducted in the Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations, the Thesis and Dissertation Catalog of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel, and Google Scholar, identifying 52 works, of which, after applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, 11 were selected for analysis. The analysis was conducted from the perspective of Bardin's Content Analysis (2016), using the categorization technique. The results of this research show that Lesson Study has contributed to teacher training, both initial and continuing, in the Northeast region of Brazil. The difficulties initially encountered in collaborative planning and reflection on the lessons taught were overcome with the use of Google Meet, which enabled virtual meetings and greater integration among participants. However, in two of the eleven studies analyzed, there are statements of activities that do not constitute challenging problems, since the students approached them superficially, without fully understanding the context, which compromises the training process of Lesson Study, although an effort is observed on the part of future teachers and practicing teachers to take ownership, keeping the student as the central element of the class. This commitment demonstrates personal motivation, guided by the desire to contribute to the construction of quality education. It was also found that participants see collaborative mathematics teaching as a concrete opportunity for social transformation. Their engagement reveals the hope that it is possible to promote the development of a classroom in Northeast Brazil with better living conditions for its population, based on critical students using the mathematics they learn beyond the school walls. Lesson Study in undergraduate final projects, dissertations, and theses produced in the Northeast region of Brazil has thus been configured a formative process of professional development that led future teachers and practicing teachers to reflect on attitudes, practices, and skills, serving as an instrument for mobilizing and strengthening teacher identity in the struggle for a more inclusive public school system with quality mathematics teaching and learning.