Authors: Jimmy Ezekiel Kihwele, PhD (Mzumbe University) and Edward Noel Mwamakula (Mzumbe University)
Abstract: Teachers’ education programs inadequately produce highly knowledgeable and competent teachers to support quality education. The situation necessitates plans to ensure the availability of systemic and continuous teacher professional development. This study explored factors influencing the implementation of lesson study in pre-service teacher education for continuous professional development. The data collection involved observation of classroom teaching with 72 students and in- depth interviews that purposively selected ten respondents from the class. Analysis involved content analysis. The findings show that collaboration and teamwork among pre-service teachers influenced the implementation of lesson study in a positive way while time requirement, negative perception and their seclusion behavior affected it negatively. The lesson study approach benefits pre-service teachers in igniting innovative and creative pedagogy compared to block teaching practices. The study recommends that future studies should consider the improvised solutions to existing challenges to enable the systemic implementation of lesson study in pre-service teacher education programs for professional development.