🎉 Our LIFT Project Turns One!
It’s hard to believe that a whole year has passed since our LIFT project began! While August may feel quiet in universities and schools, it’s the perfect moment to pause, celebrate, and reflect on how far we’ve come as a LIFT community.
A Year Ago: The Beginning
In August 2024, our consortium of universities and teacher educators came together with a shared vision: to strengthen teacher education across Europe through lesson study (LS). Our ambitions were clear:
- Empower pre-service teachers by equipping them with skills and capabilities for their future teaching careers.
- Promote the use of LS in initial teacher education tackling the sporadic and uncoordinated implementation across Europe.
- Unite European higher education institutions that use LS, fostering collaboration and knowledge exchange.
- Establish a common framework for LS in Europe to guide and support consistent implementation.
- Develop a blueprint to make LS more practical and accessible in initial teacher education.
Highlights From Our First Year
The past 12 months have been full of learning and collaboration. Together, we have:
- Held seven project meetings to exchange ideas, review progress, and plan joint activities.
- Immersed ourselves in one week of LS experience in Leeuwarden during the LEAP week.
- Produced a preliminary research report based on findings from the LEAP week.
- Completed the first version of the blueprint.
- Submitted and had two presentations accepted at the WALS and EAPRIL 2025 conferences.
Looking Ahead
It has been a year of listening, learning, and laying the foundation. As we move into year two, we are excited to:
- Continue developing the blueprint.
- Roll out training and pilot delivery of the blueprint.
- Share resources and outcomes with the wider LS community.
A BIG thank you to all our partners, teachers, teacher educators, pre-service teachers and students who have contributed to this journey. Together, we are shaping a stronger, Europe-wide community for lesson study. Here’s to year two!
