The use of Learning Study to enhance theoretically based instruction for students with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder

The aim of this chapter is to analyse and describe how teachers’ use of theoretical conjectures in instruction during a Learning Study (LeaS) process affected high-functioning autism spectrum disorder (HFASD) students’ learning outcomes when following the national curriculum. Participants were students in grades 7 to 9 (n = 11) and their teachers (n = 5). The 11 adolescents (4 females and 7 males) were 13–16 years old (M = 15.18 years) and met the criteria for HFASD. The iterative process of Lesson Study was followed; however, Learning Study is also based on a theory of learning, namely variation theory. Variation theory’s conjectures were introduced to the teachers and used as guiding principles to aid their professional development during the in-service teacher training. The training took place during one semester, and consisted of eight meetings and 10 activities with the students, including interviews, tests, and lessons. In total, two interventions were conducted in a formative and cyclic process in each of two different student groups. The results showed how the students’ knowledge developed differently in two different types of lessons: A (content presented sequentially part by part) and B (content presented with whole and parts integrated), in line with the differences the teacher had designed for using the theoretical framework as a guiding principle. As the aim is to describe how teachers develop lessons to improve student learning, the content was changed in lesson B. The results were measured with a pre- and post-test; the tests for the two lessons had the same design but covered different content. The results for lesson A (in groups 1 and 2) showed that students developed a more extensive way to express their knowledge, by an increase in the number of words in the students’ answers. However the number of words used to answer did not indicate a changed perspective; instead, the students simply developed further the conceptions they already had. In lesson B, the students learned more, if learning is defined as a changed perspective about the content, as seen in their relating more parts of the whole to each other and in that way creating a more developed overall picture of the content. The qualitative results, based on video-recordings of lessons and meetings and analysis of the test results, showed how the teachers developed their understanding of how the theoretical conjectures of variation theory can be used to design lessons and assess students’ learning outcomes.