Issues and Challenges of Creating Video Cases to Be Used with Preservice Teachers

Teaching methods often promote fact gathering and memorization rather than the use of those facts to solve complex, realistic problems. Students easily memorize basic facts, steps and procedures, repeating them flawlessly from memory when asked. The problem, however, lies in teaching students how to use these facts and procedures creatively in new, unknown problem-solving situations. While they recite this knowledge when prompted by the teacher, the students find it difficult to decide which piece of knowledge to use and how to use it when solving problems in more complex situations. Case methodology has emerged as a powerful tool for creating a bridge between theory and practice in teacher education. Teaching cases have been a keystone of professional training in schools of business, law and medicine for more than a century. Case method instruction provides models of how to think professionally about problems. As such, case studies bring the complexities of classroom activities into focus and allow students to connect concepts and real life. Case-based instruction has been defined as an active-learning pedagogy designed for problem analysis and problem-solving stressing a variety of viewpoints and potential outcomes. According to Shulman (1992) there are no studies or evidence that confirm the effectiveness of this method. Nevertheless this author found that its constitutive elements account for the potency of the case method. flexibility. The use of case-based teaching and learning can be utilized to help preservice teachers connect knowledge and practice. Case-based teaching and how it is used is discussed in this article. [The activities reported in this manuscript were supported, in part, by a grant from the United States Department of Education (#P336B990064).]