Catherine Lewis

Catherine Lewis was inspired to become an educational researcher by her surprising experiences as a high school exchange student in Japan. How did students develop the skills and commitment to solve disciplinary problems that arose on campus?  How did they learn to build each new mathematical concept in the curriculum rather than expect teachers to “deliver” it?  Decades later, she is still working to answer these questions. With colleagues at the Mills College Lesson Study Group, she developed video and print resources that introduced educators around the world to Lesson Study, Japan’s system of teacher-led professional learning (www.lessonresearch.net). Her recent book Teaching Powerful Problem-solving in Math: A Collaborative Approach Through Lesson Study (written with Akihiko Takahashi, Shelley Friedkin, Nora Houseman and Sara Liebert) tells the story of U.S. elementary schools that built School-wide Lesson Study and used it to transform mathematics teaching and learning––tripling students mathematics achievement on SBAC in the first three years. Catherine received a Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology at Stanford and hails from three generations of public school teachers.