Investigating the longitudinal impact of participating in school-based lesson study on mathematics teachers' professional community

Teacher professional communities have recently figured among the most influential factors for supporting teachers in their learning and in enacting educational change in schools. While lesson study has been documented as a means to support the development of such communities, previous studies have not addressed the sustainability of the professional communities which emerge. In this study, we follow-up with six mathematics teachers from two post-primary schools in the Republic of Ireland, who engaged in school-based lesson study in 2012/13, in order to investigate the long-term impact on their teacher professional community. Our findings indicate that the mathematics teachers in both schools had developed a predominantly mature professional community during their participation in lesson study in 2012/13. Moreover, we find that six years on, the community has been sustained in one school and further strengthened in the other. These findings suggest that lesson study may be a viable model to develop and sustain mathematics teachers’ professional communities in the long-term.