The Power of Collaboration: Lesson Inquiry Cycles
- plopezh24
- Feb 4
- 1 min read
Updated: Feb 21
What expertise do teachers need to plan quality lessons for English Learners?
One answer lies in collaboration around key shared elements of knowledge, practice, and reflection. We have developed a powerful model to expand collective teacher expertise through “collaborative lesson inquiry cycles,” fondly known as “CLICs”.
Inspired in part by Japanese Lesson Study, we share the same focus on the features of lesson design that enable English Learners to participate fully and realize their immense promise to participate in mathematics learning. We have worked with colleagues in the Jurupa Unified School District and the East Side Union High School District to design, test, and refine secondary mathematics lessons. Indeed, one of these lessons was published in Mathematics Teacher: Learning and Teaching PreK-12 in February 2025.
A CLIC has three phases which nicely correspond to three different kinds of reflection: anticipatory, interactive, and retrospective, first identified by Max van Manen and later specified to the field of English Learner education by Aída Walqui. In this blogpost miniseries, we will unpack each of the following forms of reflection in the context of CLICs we have facilitated:
Anticipatory: Looking ahead to plan ambitious learning that weaves together conceptual understandings, mathematical practices, and language.
Interactive: Observing in the moment with a keen focus on quality interactions.
Retrospective: Looking back to identify what worked for whom and why, and under what conditions, all to inform future instruction.
Join us as we share practical insights from this theoretically grounded approach!