This study investigated what teachers understood from just reading and writing about a case, compared to what they thought when also discussing it. The quality, form, and content of the thinking of 8 student teachers, 8 beginning teachers, and 8 experienced teachers was examined. The work of Piaget and Vygotsky provide the theoretical basis for interpreting how discussion affected teachers ' thinking about cases. Article: During the past few years there has been renewed interest in developing and using cases for teacher education ( Carter, 1989 ; Florio-Ruane & Clark, 1990 ; Kleinfeld, 1988, 1990, 1991, 1992 ; Kowalski, Weaver, & Henson, 1990 ; LaBoskey, 1992 ; Merseth, 1991a, 1991b ; Richert, 1987, 1990, 1992 ; Richardson, 1991 ; L. Shulman, 1992 ; J. Shulman & Colbert, 1988, 1989 ; J. Shulman & Mesa-Bains, 1992 ; Silverman, Welty, & Lyons, 1992 ), and numerous claims about the benefits of the case method for teacher education have been posited. However, the community of scholars interested in case-based teaching has only recently begun to discuss a research agenda ( e. g., Merseth, 1991a ; L. Shulman, 1992 ; Sykes & Bird, 1992 ) for studying case methods. Although the definition and the goals of case methods in teacher education are still evolving, the following definitions will apply here. This paper addresses the question of what teachers with different amounts of experience in teaching learn from just reading and writing about a case of teaching writing in a fourth grade classroom, compared to reading, writing, and discussing it. Both quantitative and qualitative analyses of the discourse of 24 teachers who participated in this study are presented. The quality, form, and content of the thinking of student teachers, beginning teachers, and experienced teachers about a case are discussed. In addition, the narrative quality of cases also suggests that they may be valuable tools for teacher education because they provide and connect both paradigmatic and narrative ways of knowing, which are two kinds of knowledge valued in teaching ( Bruner, 1986, 1992 ; Carter, 1993 ; Doyle, 1990 ). The theoretical rationale for this study stems from such constructivist perspectives as Piaget ( 1932 ), and Vygotsky ( 1978 ). Although important differences exist between the theoretical positions of Piaget and Vygotsky, their theories provide a rationale for why the discussion of a case is an important factor to consider in studying teachers ' thinking. Therefore, studying the direction and the nature of the influences among the participants in the case discussions was of interest in this study. The questions of how the thinking of teachers with different levels of experience is influenced by the use of cases, and how their thinking differs when teachers analyze cases with and without discussing them, led to this research. The few empirical studies that have been reported in the literature on case-based teaching methods have dealt mainly with preservice student populations, and have yielded mixed results with regard to the effectiveness of case methods. In this study, quantitative analyses of teachers ' writing about cases were undertaken in a pretest/posttest research design, and qualitative methods were employed to analyze the discourse from participants ' writing, and from transcriptions of the case discussions. Some educational researchers are interested in developing a case literature that will capture teachers ' craft knowledge, and potentially serve as part of the knowledge base for teacher education. Furthermore, although cases are used in both preservice and inservice settings, there has been little empirical work to date that describes either how teachers with different amounts of experience think about cases or how groups of teachers interact and influence each other during a case discussion. He suggests that cases can be used to teach educators about principles or concepts of a theoretical nature, precedents of practice, morals and ethics, and strategies, dispositions and habits of the mind ( e. g., thinking like a teacher ). Among other things, Shulman also suggests that cases can provide visions or images of the possible, and increase motivation for learning. Fortunately, however, L. Shulman ( 1992 ) also explicated why recent ideas from cognitive psychology can help us understand the potential value of cases and case-based teaching methods, even though the authors know little about how case-based teaching works. For example, the work in cognitive psychology by Spiro and his colleagues ( Spiro, Visooel, Schmiyz, Samarapungavan, & Boerger, 1987 ; Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson, 1989 ) on learning in ill-structured domains, of which teaching is one, suggests that case-based teaching might help prospective teachers cope with the complexity of domains that surround teaching and learning in schools. Furthermore, since teaching cases are by their nature contextualised and situated ( or should be, if they are `` good '' cases ), then case-based learning also takes into account the importance of recent research in cognitive psychology about the `` situated '' nature of knowledge and thinking ( Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989 ; Lave, 1988 ; Resnick, 1987 ). This suggests that discussion of cases is potentially a valuable tool for the development and learning of teachers as well as children. The social interaction during the discussion of a case among a group of teachers has the potential for providing cognitive conflict, hence to trigger change. Because of concerns about confounding, and the potential for the case method to produce novelty effects ( Clark, 1985 ), other research designs and methodologies are needed to study the effectiveness of using cases in teacher education.
