How Teachers' Classroom Cases Express Their Pedagogical Beliefs
Journal of Teacher Education, 42 (4):
281 (1991)Abstract
This study documents an attempt to develop a system of analysis to evaluate teachers' classroom cases based on the hypothesis that the way a teacher defines and orders the standard components of a narrative would reflect the teacher's pedagogical beliefs. Twenty-four inservice and 22 preservice teachers wrote four case narratives. Self- evident differences emerged between preservice and inservice teachers in the structural and content features of cases. More subtle differences appeared in terms of three themes: a feeling for the internal conflicts that a problem provokes in a teacher, the long- term and evolutionary nature of problems, and their ethical undertones. Although writing a response or a solution to a peer's case appeared to constrain teachers from expressing their own pedagogical beliefs, they did reflect and illustrate these beliefs when they wrote their own cases.