WHAT CASE DISCUSSIONS REVEAL ABOUT TEACHER THINKING

Drawing on sociocultural theories, this qualitative study examined tea cher thinking during case discussions in two university content litera cy courses. The participants were 30 students in an undergraduate pres ervice course and 10 practicing teachers in an inservice course at the Masters' level. Data took the form of transcripts of case discussions and debriefing sessions, field notes, focus-group interviews, and ind ividual interviews. Our purpose was to understand the sociocultural an d semiotic tools preservice and inservice teachers used to mediate and construct images and issues of teaching and learning literacy. Both d ifferences and similarities were found between the two groups of teach ers. First, the tools used by the preservice teachers included their e xperience as students, theory and course texts from university classes , and role-playing activities used during case discussions; in contras t, the inservice teachers drew predominantly on their teaching experie nce and consequently became emotionally involved in the cases. Second, both groups viewed teaching as a technical act. However, because the inservice teachers were more aware of the constraints that limited tea chers' actions, their images of teaching were far more complex than th ose of the preservice teachers. Third, both groups were concerned abou t the diversity of students' needs and abilities and viewed knowledge and ability as ''fixed.'' Also interesting is what teachers did not ta lk about-issues of ethnicity, class, or gender were never raised. In a ddition, teachers did not question the school curriculum or their assu mptions about teaching, knowledge, and ability. Thus, although we foun d that case teaching has the potential to help teachers reflect on pra ctice and explore important issues in teaching, we argue that cases an d case discussions must be carefully crafted as tools to highlight and challenge these assumptions. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.