Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
Four approaches to preservice teachers' involvement in the
writing of case stories: a qualitative research project夽
Mary Alice Barksdale-Ladd*, Mary Draper, Jim King, Kathy Oropallo,
Marguerite C. Radencich
University of South Florida, USA
Received 13 October 1999; received in revised form 15 March 2000; accepted 24 May 2000
Abstract
In this paper, professors' framings for student-written cases in six elementary teacher education classes are examined.
Analysis procedures were qualitative. There were similarities and di!erences in course syllabi and materials de"ning case
writing, time spent on cases in class, ways of modeling cases, comments to students on drafts, and professors' reasons for
selecting favorite cases. All professors felt that a good case re#ected a genuine dilemma which contained details, support,
and re#ection. Findings showed that writing roles within the research project had an impact upon ways in which case
writing was directed, and how the professors thought about cases and re#ected upon the experience afterward. Through
their experiences with case writing and through engaging in self-inquiry about case writing, the professors came to
understand their students in di!erent ways, students came to understand professors and teaching in di!erent ways, and
professors developed new insights into their own practices. 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
Keywords: Preservice teachers; Case writing; Collaborative self-study; Teacher educators
1. Introduction
For several years, researchers have looked closely at case methodology within contexts where
teaching cases are developed for students and presented in university courses (Shulman, 1992). From
our perspective, there is a greater opportunity for
夽
Note: Our colleague, Marguerite Cogorno Radencich, died
in October, 1998. She was an integral part of the research team
on this project and we miss her.
* Corresponding author. 3920, Florida Ranch Blvd,
Zephyrhills, FL 33541,USA. Tel.: #1-813-974-0590.
E-mail address: mabl@typhoon.coedu.usf.edu
(M.A. Barksdale-Ladd).
meaningful learning in engaging students in creating their own case stories based on a teaching
dilemma they have experienced, followed by re#ection upon the dilemma from a perspective of their
lives as future teachers. An implicit assumption on
our part is that when personal dilemmas are explored, it will be more likely that students will
become re#ective regarding numerous alternative
solutions or interpretations, as opposed to seeking
individual `righta answers. Such re#ectivity is a
necessary component in case-based teaching
(Harrington, 1995). As a result of the process of
selecting topics for their cases, writing "rst drafts,
getting responses from peers and professors, as
well as engaging in successive revising processes,
0742-051X/01/$ - see front matter 2001 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
PII: S 0 7 4 2 - 0 5 1 X ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 0 4 - X
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M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
students become more re#ective with regard to the
role of problem-solving in the lives of teachers
(Merseth, 1991; Richards, Moore & Gipe, 1996).
Student-developed cases allow for context-speci"c understandings of preservice teachers' frustrations and anxieties, and help students specify the
dimensions of confusing or signi"cant teaching
problems (Richards et al., 1996). As a result, student-written cases can provide rich data bases upon
which to connect course content (Kagan, 1993). In
addition, there is a growing body of evidence that
engagement in case writing a!ects both teacher
beliefs and practices, and may in#uence professional and individual development (Anderson
& Bird, 1995; Barnett, 1991; Harrington, 1995;
Shulman, 1992). That is, as teachers engage in case
writing about teaching dilemmas, they become
more re#ective and look at issues more critically.
This re#ective, critical stance on dilemmas can
lead to changes in teacher beliefs and/or practices
that may have simultaneous e!ects on teacher
development.
While there is much evidence that engaging
preservice teachers in writing teaching cases has
positive and desirable e!ects, there has been little
research on how instructors might e!ectively utilize
case writing in the context of teacher preparation
courses. What are the conditions during preservice
teacher education courses that can best support
students in engaging in case writing experiences
that will lead to the development of a re#ective,
critical stance? In this study, we examine the contexts in which students were asked to develop cases
in six undergraduate elementary teacher education
course sections. We address the research questions,
`What did we, as professors who required that our
students write cases based on their own teaching,
mean by casesa, and, `How were our expectations
for case development communicated to students?a
2. Design
2.1. Context
At the University of South Florida (USF), 80%
of undergraduates in teacher education attend
community colleges and arrive on a university cam-
pus at the beginning of their third year of study for
a Bachelor's degree. The teacher education program at USF consists of a "ve-semester sequence of
courses which students take in cohort groups.
There are three "eld experiences (Level I, two
mornings per week; Level II, two full days per week;
and Level III, "ve full days per week). Because the
study took place in North America, we have referred to the course instructors as `professorsa.
In this intensive 2-year teacher preparation program, students tend to look for quick answers,
demonstrating that they do not yet realize the
ambiguities inherent in the teaching profession and
the number of dilemmas that comprise `teachinga
on a daily basis. Concerned about what we perceived as a non-re#ective, quick-"x approach to
teaching seen in our students, four USF professors
decided to engage their students in writing case
stories about teaching dilemmas.
Margie Radencich and Jim King each used case
story writing in their sections of a course called
`Reading in the Intermediate Gradesa. Both were
teaching a section of the course to cohort groups of
elementary education majors in an on-campus setting. Students in these two sections had previously
completed their Level I internships and were currently taking their Level II internships.
Like Margie and Jim, Mary Alice BarksdaleLadd used case writing within the course `reading
in the intermediate gradesa. She taught three sections of this course during the semester when the
research project was conducted. One section was
an on-campus cohort group that was simultaneously engaged in the Level II internship experience. The other two sections of the course
were made up of special education students, with
one being an on-campus non-cohort group and the
other an o!-campus cohort group. The on-campus
special education students had completed one internship. The o!-campus students were in a special
program designed to provide a bachelor's degree in
special education to individuals serving as paraprofessionals in public schools. These students had
not completed any formal internships, but their
experience as paraprofessionals ranged from 1 to 23
years.
A fourth colleague, Kathy Oropallo, taught
`Teaching Methods in the Elementary Schoola in
M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
a Professional Development School (PDS) in collaboration with USF. Kathy's students were members of a cohort team that took some of their
teacher preparation courses and had "eld experiences at the PDS site. The students were engaged in
the Level I internship while taking this course.
At the onset, we agreed that student cases should
explore authentic teaching dilemmas and should be
written re#ectively using a narrative format. Because the students probably had not been introduced to cases in the past, it would be important that
we each provide models of cases for our students. In
addition to the current paper, we studied the students' actual cases (Radencich et al., 1996) and the
writing processes engaged in by the students
(Oropallo, King, Draper, Radencich, & BarksdaleLadd, 1997).
2.2. Data sources
Data collected included: (a) course syllabi and
other materials provided to students which de"ned
the task of student case writing, (b) model cases,
(c) comments made by instructors to students on
successive drafts of their cases, (d) professors'
retrospective reasons for selecting speci"c cases as
favorites, and (e) professors' re#ections on the casewriting experience, and how they might change the
experience in the future.
2.3. Analysis
In addition to notes on conversations among the
four professors, the data sources for this study were
all in the form of documents written by the professors. Viewing our framings for student-case writing
as a developing phenomenon, we selected a constant comparative approach to the document analysis process (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). Our purpose
in using this approach was to examine and compare our perceptions of the ways in which we
provided information and feedback to students regarding case writing across the time frame in which
case writing was planned, taught, and re#ected
upon. Of particular interest was the impact of understandings of our own purposes in providing
guidance, and our perceptions of what constitutes
high-quality case writing.
419
In our qualitative analyses, we categorized information from the di!erent data sources and
looked for categories for each professor. Analyses
for each of the four professors were conducted in
isolation, thus categories varied among the di!erent individuals. We looked at each professor's (a)
description of how students were directed in the
creation of cases, (b) modeling of case writing for
students, (c) favorite cases and reasons for professor
selections, and (d) re#ections on the case writing
experience. Individual professors' strategies and beliefs, as revealed in the data, were used to form emic
frames. After forming descriptive frames for each
professor, we looked at similarities and di!erences
across the professors.
We examined the student-written case story
drafts and identi"ed categories of types of comments provided to students by each professor. Then
we collapsed similar categories across the four professors. With over 500 segmented comments
divided into 17 categories, we determined that percentages were a meaningful approach to viewing
similarities and di!erences across the four professors.
The fact that the professors were engaged in
conducting research into their own practices had
an impact on the "ndings. In discussing this e!ect,
we refer to the `research projecta. In our discussion
of professor and student case writing, we use the
terms `casesa, `case storiesa, `case writinga, or the
`case writing taska.
3. Results
In discussing the results, we "rst provide information on commonalties across the four professors' procedures, then provide a case study of each
professor. Next, we look at similarities and di!erences across the four professors. Finally, we compare the rationales each professor attributed to
his/her selections of favorite cases.
Before beginning the study, the professors met to
discuss the design for the research project and general plans for including student case writing within
our courses. While we had similar ideas regarding
well-written cases and reasons for engaging students in case writing, we agreed it was essential that
420
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the individual professors use case writing as it made
sense to them, for their students, and in the context
of the course/s in which case writing would occur.
During the semester, each professor (a) wrote a description of how they had introduced and guided
case writing for students, and (b) submitted all
materials shared with students related to case writing. All four professors provided models of cases for
students, although each took an individual approach to the modeling process.
Table 1 displays percentages of the types of comments each professor made to students on successive drafts of their own cases. For the purpose of
discussing these "ndings, only those categories including 10% or more of the comments to students
have been considered, as these categories account
for over 89% of the comments of each professor.
3.1. Margie Radencich: course framing for case
writing
Margie's syllabus did not describe case writing. It
indicated that each student would write a case story
and speci"ed two dates on which "rst and "nal
drafts would be due.
Margie was beginning her second semester as
a professor at USF. As the semester began, Margie
wrote a case story based on an experience with
a class the previous semester which involved students who felt that Margie did not like them and
did not attend to them su$ciently in class. The case
ended with ideas for assuring that this would not
happen again in the future. The case was written as
a continuous re#ective narrative in "ve paragraphs.
In one of the earliest class sessions, Margie presented three brief cases involving dilemmas in
cooperative learning situations (Swa!ord, 1995).
Students met in groups to discuss the cases and
viable solutions. Then, Margie read her case to the
students, simultaneously displaying it as an overhead. In sharing her case, Margie's focus was on the
necessity of re#ecting on practice. Student discussion of Margie's case centered around the
content of what had happened, with one student
stating that the students described in the case
should `grow upa. Margie acknowledged the statement, but pointed out that responsibility rested
upon her, as the instructor. The students made
minimal comments on needed revisions.
When students turned in "rst drafts of their
cases, Margie provided responses in writing. When
returning these cases to the students, Margie discussed the need for students to share their emotions
as they related to the quandaries in their cases,
a focus she brought back to class as a result of
a meeting with Jim, Mary Alice, and Kathy.
Margie shared her case with Jim and Mary Alice.
While Mary Alice had little to say, Jim recommended numerous revisions and rethinkings. Margie
revised the case, focusing her attention more on an
individual student who played an important role
within the case.
Table 1
Categories which accounted for 10% or more of the comments across professors
Category
M.R.
K.O.
J.K.
M.A.B.
Positive comments
Questions about case content
Requests that students share feelings and emotions about their cases
Requests for greater detail
Making comments and sharing additional information about case content
No suggestions; recommendations to seek suggestions from peers
Requests to specify a dilemma or issue and make it the case focus
Comments on mechanics, tense, person, and requests for typing (editing notations on
drafts were not considered)
Suggestions for improving the writing related directly to case content
Requests for separation of parts 1 & 2 in the writing of the case
Recommendations that students include dialogue in their cases
18
14
18
0
12
16
6
3
36
13
1
19
6
6
1
6
8
28
11
17
8
1
8
2
17
13
17
7
4
0
4
3
4
0
0
1
2
3
8
1
1
5
8
6
M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
Later, when student second drafts were soon due,
Margie read her revision to her class, telling about
how she had revised based on Jim's comments and
the comments they had made in class. There was
little student response. Margie explained that students' cases would be shared with one of her colleagues to allow for additional suggestions from
alternative perspectives. The students accepted this
proposition. Margie asked for, but received no further suggestions for revisions. At this same time,
Margie read Jim's and Mary Alice's cases to her
class. At a later point, she read the group a case
story written by Joan Gipe (1996). There was little
response among the students to the cases written by
Jim, Mary Alice, and Joan.
3.2. Margie Radencich: responses to student cases
Margie's comments to students about their cases
were comparable for the categories: (a) positive
comments, (b) questions about case content, (c)
requests for expression of feelings/emotions, (d)
sharing comments or information regarding case
content, and (e) not having suggestions, but recommending that students seek suggestions from their
peers. Suggestions from a sixth category, requests
to specify a dilemma or issue and make it the case
focus, were found occasionally.
3.3. Margie Radencich: reyections on the experience
In re#ecting on the case-writing experience at the
end of the semester, Margie focused on means of
improving her use of student case writing in future
semesters and courses. She felt that she should
provide more varied models of cases in her initial
discussions of the topic, use a checklist to display
what should be in a case, read aloud some cases
written by students during previous courses, and
also share samples of non-examples of good cases.
Margie considered it important that she insist that
students write about personal quandaries in the
future. If students did not have previous experiences that could provide the basis for a case story,
Margie thought that later due dates during the
semester could solve the problem; that is, by a later
point in the semester, the students should be able to
discover a personal dilemma as a result of their
421
work in internships. Margie felt she should pay
closer attention to the recommendations students
made for one another during their peer response
sessions. She also thought it might be helpful
to develop a rubric based on her checklist
which could serve as a basis for comments about
cases.
Margie continued to engage teacher preparation
students in case writing the following semester. She
reported that she was able to provide her students
with models of cases from the current study, and
found that using student-written cases as models
was helpful in allowing students to more quickly
understand the purpose and procedure of case writing. She also indicated that case writing: (a) helped
her more fully understand student quandaries that
were brought up and discussed somewhat super"cially during undergraduate seminars related to
internships, and (b) provided a voice to students
whose quandaries would otherwise have remained
unstated. Margie was frustrated during this research project about not being able to provide
enough class time for using the writing process in
guiding student case writing, a concern that she
held the following semester, as well.
3.4. Kathy Oropallo: course framing for case writing
Kathy's syllabus stated that the student case
story would account for 10% of the "nal grade, but
no further description was provided. In a class
session that occurred several weeks into the semester, Kathy provided students with a handout on
writing teaching cases. On this day, she shared with
the students an unpublished case written by a practicing teacher and asked them to analyze it, providing an analysis worksheet. The case involved
a teacher's frustration with subjectivity in evaluating students. Kathy asked that students listen to the
case from a writer's perspective and pay particular
attention to how the case was written. After reading
the case, the students analyzed and discussed it
with great deal of emotion. Kathy took this as
a sign that it was a good case to use as a model. She
pointed out some key elements in cases: (a) cases
should be about real events, (b) cases should describe the details of the event, and (c) cases should
not be solved.
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When students brought in their "rst drafts,
Kathy took them home and responded to them.
The next class, she returned the cases and had
students conference in groups of three. She directed
the students to read their cases aloud. Listeners
were to attend to authenticity, details, open-endedness, focus, and clarity.
When students turned in their second drafts,
Kathy read `Friend or Foea, a "rst draft of a case
story she had written. A discussion on the content
of the case based upon student comments and questions followed.
3.5. Kathy Oropallo: responses to student cases
For Kathy, by far the most comments made to
students about their cases (over a third) were positive comments about liking student cases or case
topics. It was common for Kathy to ask questions
about case content and make requests for greater
detail. Less frequently, she made comments or
shared information about case content, had no
suggestions and recommended that students seek
help from their peers, and noted mechanical problems or made requests for typing.
3.6. Kathy Oropallo: reyections on the experience
Kathy was disappointed in the degree to which
students revised their cases from one draft to the
next. She found that many students ignored her
feedback, as well as that of their peers; the cases
remained about the same from the beginning to the
end of the case writing experience. Kathy viewed
the topics dealt with in student cases to be rich, and
she felt that with appropriate revision, they could
have been very strong. At the end of the semester,
she saw about half of the cases as being welldeveloped. Still, she was pleased with the kinds of
issues the students felt were important at a very
early point in their teaching careers.
For Kathy, like Margie, time was a very signi"cant factor. Kathy saw that the topics within the
course content required greater concentrations of
time than expected. She used time initially allotted
for modeling case writing strategies and peer response on other curriculum topics. Her students
were at a PDS and many questions regarding their
"eld experience took class time that might otherwise have been spent on working with cases. In
retrospect, Kathy stated that she felt she should
have protected more class time for working with
cases, and reorganized her management of the
teaching cases to allow her to provide more and
faster response to students.
3.7. Jim King: course framing for case writing
Jim and Mary Alice used the same syllabus. It
contained a half-page description of case writing
containing general information on how teaching
cases are written and a list of suggested areas for
choosing topics (like individualism, behavior management, constructivism). Jim asked the students to
read Swa!ord's (1995) cases in class during the "rst
week of class, followed by a discussion in small
groups, then the whole group.
In the second week of the semester, Jim presented
a teaching case he had written. He projected the
case on an overhead as he read it aloud. In the case,
a student was crying about an entry in her dialogue
journal. Entering into the situation, Jim sat down
with the group and learned that the student's boyfriend had ended their engagement. The student
read the journal entry in which she talked about
her pain and humiliation, and suggested that the
young man could be struggling with his sexual
orientation. She went on to say that while she and
the young man were still friends, she wondered
what it meant to her and about her, if he `turns out
to be gaya.
Now the girl became embarrassed, remembering
that Jim was a gay man. He provided what he
considered an appropriate response, discussing the
current good relationships that both he and his
partner maintain with their ex-wives and families,
asking, `How can your warm feelings for your
ex-"ancee be anything but good?a Then he pulled
back from the discussion, afraid that he was promoting the `homosexual lifestylea with his class. He
framed his retreat in terms of how much needed to
be covered in class.
After reading his case, Jim led the class in a limited discussion of the case. Next he pointed out the
aspects of his case which he felt made it a good one
and suggested that the students work at including
M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
these elements in their own cases. He pointed out
that (a) teaching cases are based upon real incidents, (b) teaching cases are very descriptive for
readers, and (c) writers do not solve the embedded
issues within the text of their cases (the same elements highlighted by Kathy).
Some students submitted drafts of cases to Jim,
and he responded to each, both personally, and
with regard to the three elements he had discussed
in class. On a speci"c day, each student brought in
a draft and shared in small groups for the purpose
of peer response. Finally, students submitted preliminary and "nal drafts of their cases at the end of
the semester in their portfolios.
3.8. Jim King: responses to student cases
Over one quarter of Jim's comments to students
about their cases were questions about case content. It was typical for him to request that students
share feelings or emotions, or to request greater
detail. Less frequently, he made positive comments,
made comments or shared information about case
content, requested that students focus on a speci"c
dilemma or issue, and suggested improvements
which were directly related to case content.
3.9. Jim King: reyections on the experience
At the end of the semester, Jim re#ected that the
choice of topic for his own case was too intense and
controversial. First, the fact that he wrote about his
being gay was a problem. Gay is itself a social
taboo because nobody knows how to talk about it.
Secondly, because it was their teacher who was gay,
there was a power di!erential between Jim and his
class that precluded any meaningful discussion about
his case. Third, since the scenario of the case was
about another undergraduate course in which there
were di$culties discussing and dealing with a gay
theme in that class, it may have made it quite unlikely
that this class would have been able to talk about it.
Because the cases were embedded in an ongoing
class, Jim made the decision, he thinks tacitly, that
case work would happen outside of class. By virtue
of the fact that he did not provide time in class*or
that provision of time for cases was after everything
else was done, Jim had signaled that the cases were
423
less important than other course requirements. He
provided two sessions in which the class focused on
cases. The "rst was an introduction, and the second
was a day when students read their cases in a "shbowl setting.
Jim re#ected that his method of structuring the
assignment resulted in his becoming the only audience for the student cases. The students knew that
they were revising the cases because Jim required
revision. He did not arrange for any outsiders to listen
to or read the cases. The implicit message was that
students were to write cases for his approval only.
In guiding students in writing cases, Jim found
that the `writing process approacha in#uenced his
planning and his decisions on how cases should be
written*the form, how cases should be produced
as a stage/draft enterprise, and who was allowed to
be a member of the reading response community
(class members only).
Another aspect of the `writing process modela
was that Jim did not do any explicit teaching of the
cases. Therefore, students would learn about their
revision options and practice revision strategies in
the context in which they worked on their cases
with peers. Jim concluded that this was not a fair
trial of the model of process writing, or speci"cally,
of case writing. First of all, explicit instruction does
occur in writing process approaches. Secondly, the
class was not an ongoing writing community. Without su$cient social context, or history as a functioning writing community, Jim re#ected that it
may have been more productive to provide direct
instruction of the case writing process.
In addition, if only a single case is used as the
model for student cases, the topic of the case presented is quite important. Jim and Mary Alice
isolated the frames of `too harda, `too exotica, and
`too abstracta in a discussion on the in#uence of
choice of topics for sample cases. They agreed that
there is an impact on the students when an inappropriate topic is modeled.
In terms of what Jim `did righta, he said that
when he "nally made room for case discussion in
class, it was to present "nal cases in class. A small
group (about "ve or six) sat in the middle of the
room to present their cases. The remainder of the
class sat or stood in a circle around the small group.
One chair was left open in the inner circle. The
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M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
students in the middle presented or read their cases,
and those on the outside listened and took notes.
Any student on the outside wanting to talk had to
occupy the empty seat to give their comments or
reactions. Notetakers were to listen for themes.
After each group completed their presentations, the
notetakers processed their records. This happened
quickly. Jim thought that because he had structured the environment so tightly and because roles
were so well de"ned, students were very focused
and they really isolated what seemed at the time to
be the major points of the cases. Jim caused a concentrated focus on the cases by making the activity
center stage. He re#ected that there must be a relationship between students' perceptions of the importance of an assigned academic task such as case
writing and the way that he structures a given task.
3.10. Mary Alice Barksdale-Ladd: course framing
for case writing
Using the same syllabus as Jim, Mary Alice introduced the assignment when she went over the
syllabus. Mary Alice shared only one model with
her students and it was her own case. She wrote
about a dilemma for which she had no solution,
thinking it would be good for students to know that
she lived with continuing teaching dilemmas for
which she had no answers. The topic of the case was
constructivism, and it described how Mary Alice
had experienced little success and many problems
using constructivist methods in her courses. When
she completed the "rst draft, she knew the writing
had many problems, but wanted to share a true "rst
draft.
In class, Mary Alice displayed the case on an
overhead and read it aloud to the students. The big
problem with the case, according to the student
groups, was that it went `on and on with unnecessary informationa. Within her three di!erent classes,
all responded to the case topic with enthusiasm and
lively discussion, yet each group responded di!erently. After the discussion of Mary Alice's case, the
students met in small groups. Each student read
her/his case aloud and used a peer recorder to note
comments made about the case, following the
model Mary Alice had used. The papers were given
to Mary Alice at the end of class, and she responded
to the drafts and returned them to students in the
next session.
After returning student "rst drafts with comments, Mary Alice attended a meeting about the
research project with Kathy, Margie, and Jim. She
learned that her colleagues were making comments
on student drafts that requested personal feeling,
more detail and dialogue, and narrative style.
While she knew that she'd made some comments of
this nature, she felt that she hadn't done enough.
Thus, when revising her own case, Mary Alice focused on improving the narrative framing by
centering the story on one semester, including more
detail and emotion. In response to her students, she
made editing corrections and removed information
they had identi"ed as not needed.
When sharing this second draft with the three
student groups, Mary Alice read aloud, explaining
the revisions and why she had chosen to make
them. The student groups agreed that the second
draft was very much improved. After the discussion
of Mary Alice's second draft, the students engaged
in peer response to their second drafts and turned
their papers in. Mary Alice responded to student
second drafts, and "nal drafts were submitted at the
end of the semester.
3.11. Mary Alice Barksdale-Ladd: responses
to student cases
Mary Alice's feedback to students about their
cases included approximately equal numbers of
positive comments, questions about case content,
and requests for greater sharing of feelings and
emotions. To a lesser degree, she made comments
in the following categories: (a) requests for greater
detail, (b) requests to specify a dilemma or issue and
make it the focus, (c) suggestions for improving the
writing related directly to course content, (d) recommendations to include dialogue, and (e) requests
for separations between parts one and two within
the cases.
3.12. Mary Alice Barksdale-Ladd: reyections
on the experience
Mary Alice was pleased throughout the semester with the seriousness with which her students
M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
approached the case story writing assignment. For
a handful, it was `just another writing assignmenta,
but she felt good about how few seemed to have this
attitude. She felt that, because she presented a serious case of her own in multiple drafts, many of the
students took their own cases seriously, as well.
Mary Alice was initially displeased with the "rst
drafts her students wrote. She found the topics to
be rather commonplace and boring. As the semester proceeded and Mary Alice came to know her
students better, she discovered that her initial response had been inappropriate. The students wrote
about dilemmas that seriously concerned them, and
these were appropriate dilemmas for preservice
teachers. It was necessary to align expectations for
student case writing with students' developmental
levels, and the case writing experience taught Mary
Alice a great deal about her students' current levels
of thought and re#ection about teaching.
More signi"cant was the discovery across the
semester that writing a case story and sharing it
with students took Mary Alice through a true selfinquiry process about her own teaching. As she
explored her own case in writing, read it to students, listened to student responses, revised the
case, shared it again, and revised again, she found
herself tearing apart her own assumptions, beliefs,
and philosophies and reexamining them. The students forced Mary Alice to look at her dilemma
through their eyes and to bring it to a level that
would allow them to see how it might be meaningful in their futures. It was here that Mary Alice
suddenly saw her dilemma with complete clarity.
At this point, she was able to identify what had
always been the problem at the heart of her dilemma, and it was something she'd never truly seen
before.
This self-inquiry adventure led to another realization. Mary Alice saw that she had modeled for her
students that she, as a professor, was inquiring into
her own practice, and that it was a di$cult, sometimes painful process. There was an unexpected
advantage in sharing multiple drafts of personal
case stories: it was a method of simultaneously
modeling self-inquiry into one's own teaching.
Mary Alice's re#ections on the case story writing
experience involved concerns for audiences for student case stories. She had asked students to work
425
hard at identifying a dilemma for a case story, then
to write about it, share it with peers, revise, share
again, and revise again. Like Jim, Mary Alice was
concerned that she had asked students to do all of
this writing work in order to create a product that
only she would read. Mary Alice felt that she
should seek ways of "nding a larger audience for
her students, and has made some e!orts toward this
in subsequent courses.
A "nal concern was that the case writing experience was not integrated within the context of the
course. All of the course activities clearly related to
the content of Reading in the Intermediate Grades,
and to one another*except for the case. The student cases did not necessarily relate to reading,
with most being more generically about becoming
a teacher, or being a college student in an education
program. While Mary Alice did not have di$culty
"nding time for working with cases, each time there
was a `teaching case activitya on the syllabus, she
experienced some dissonance about her inability to
relate the cases to other topics being considered in
the course. Mary Alice felt the need, in the future, to
make the case writing experience more a part of the
course content and not a separate entity.
3.13. Diwerences and similarities in course
framing for case writing
Kathy provided students with the most written
information on case writing, specifying a "ve-step
method for the actual case writing. Jim and Mary
Alice provided limited printed information on what
a case should be like, and possible topic areas for
cases. Margie did not provide information in writing. During the semester-long course, Mary Alice
spent about 4 h of class time on case writing, Jim
about 2 h, and Margie and Kathy each spent about
75 min.
Margie presented many models of cases to her
students*her own, Jeanne Swa!ord's (1996), Joan
Gipe's (1996), Jim's, and Mary Alice's. In presenting
and discussing these cases, Margie focused primarily upon the importance of identifying a teaching
quandary and engaging in re#ection. Jim shared his
case and the Swa!ord cases, with his discussion
centering upon three elements of case writing*a
real incident, the use of detail, and the lack of
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M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
a solution. Kathy's focus was on these same three
elements. She shared one case that had been written
by a teacher at another university and a draft of
a case she had written herself. Mary Alice presented
only her own case story as a model of case writing.
Her early focus was upon the value of using the
writing process in drafting and revising, and writing
about teaching dilemmas for which no solutions
may be evident. Later, she centered her discussions
around ways of making signi"cant revisions, narrowing narrative framings to single events, and
including detail and emotion. All four professors
hoped for signi"cant revision in student cases, and
all were disappointed.
3.14. Diwerences and similarities in responses
to student cases
There was considerable variability in types of
written responses to student case drafts and revisions across the four professors. We attribute this
to di!erent goals and to di!erent levels of expertise
with teaching cases. All four professors provided
signi"cant numbers of: (a) positive comments about
the cases, and (b) questions about case content.
Jim's focus was upon case content, with 44% of his
comments being in categories directly related to
content. Margie was more divided than Jim, but
similar in that 30% of her comments were in case
content categories. Thirty-six percent of Kathy's
comments were positive statements about student
cases, so these types of comments were obviously
very important to her. Mary Alice's comments were
more divided than for any other professor, and no
distinct focus emerged through examination of major categories of her comments.
In terms of how professor comments framed the
case-writing experience for students, there were
both similarities and di!erences. All four very
frequently asked questions about case content,
indicating that all felt that in-depth discussion of
case content was important and that asking questions of students was an e!ective method of encouraging this. Margie, Jim, and Mary Alice
commonly asked students for greater sharing of
feelings and emotions, indicating that this was an
important component of a good case from their
perspectives. Kathy and Jim asked many times for
greater detail, showing that they perceived detail as
essential.
3.15. Reyections on the experience across
the four professors
After the semester ended, Margie, Kathy, Jim,
and Mary Alice spent 23 h in meetings in which
they engaged in analysis of student cases for one
component of the research project. Clearly, each
professor's re#ections on student case writing was
a!ected by our discussions during these meetings
and in individual settings. Also, the "ndings from
our analyses of students' cases and writing processes impacted our ways of thinking about case
writing. Finally, experiences in subsequent courses
a!ected our perceptions.
As a method of comparing our re#ections, we
analyzed our re#ective writings to identify the major satisfactions and dissatisfactions.
Margie:
Satisfactions:
E How cases allowed her to understand student
quandaries.
E How cases provided a place for student voice
about teaching dilemmas.
Dissatisfactions/concerns:
E The ways in which she had provided models for
case writing.
E The way she had identi"ed due dates for case
writing.
E The methods she and the students had used in
giving feedback on cases.
Kathy:
Satisfactions:
E The issues which were brought out in student
cases.
Dissatisfactions/Concerns:
E The number and quality of student revisions
across drafts.
E How she had used time during the semester,
allowing the need for content coverage to result
in less time for case writing.
M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
427
Jim:
Satisfactions:
3.16. Professors' reasons for selecting
specixc cases as favorites
E The "shbowl approach to case sharing and the
identi"cation of major points, issues and themes
in cases.
As a means of understanding how we each
thought about case writing, we determined that
professors should select their favorite cases written
by their own students and write about why these
particular cases were considered favorites. Then we
read the favorite cases that had been selected by
our peers and wrote about how we felt about these
cases, and whether or not we would also have
selected them as favorites.
We found that professor reasons for selecting
favorite cases were similar on several, but not all,
dimensions. All professors clearly felt that a good
case re#ected a genuine dilemma which contained
details, support, and re#ection. In addition, a good
case story was written in such a way as to allow the
reader to feel the dilemma*to empathize with the
writer and be able to walk in her or his shoes. In
addition to the criteria which were common across
all four professors, Margie selected favorite cases
based upon the ability to `show more than tella and
on the use of dialogue, emotion, and careful word
choice. Kathy chose favorite cases based on the
emotions they elicited in her. Also, she considered
the utility of cases, or whether or not she felt that
they could be used later in her teaching methods
courses. Jim's comments on identi"ed favorite cases
showed that he analyzed the progression of the
dilemma as it unfolded. In justifying his selections,
he noted themes and considered whether the cases
dealt with themes in such a way as to make the
cases useful in other undergraduate methods
courses, or case utility. Mary Alice picked cases
with which she could identify, that caused her to
become emotionally involved*that compellingly
drew her into the dilemma. Mary Alice noted that
sometimes her selections of cases as favorites were
clouded by her knowledge about and understandings of the students who wrote them.
There was little consensus on favorite cases. For
instance, Jim selected "ve cases from among those
written by his students as favorites, but among
these, there was only one that Kathy, Margie, and
Mary Alice also selected as a favorite.
A topic that emerged in conversations about
favorites among the researchers was that professors
Dissatisfactions/Concerns:
E How his choice of a controversial topic resulted
in limited discussion of his case.
E By making case writing an out of class experience, he sent a message that it was not important.
E Need for an audience beyond the professor.
E By being dedicated to using the `writing process
approacha, he may have limited the learning
experience.
E Having no direct instruction in writing.
Mary Alice:
Satisfactions:
E Seriousness with which her students approached
the case writing task.
E Apparent e!ects of modeling upon students.
E Case topics were developmentally appropriate
for the students who wrote them, providing
a place for them to deal with a personal dilemma.
E The discovery that using cases created a perfect
opportunity to model her own self-inquiry practices for students.
Dissatisfactions/concerns:
E How professor as "nal audience a!ected writing
and revising.
E The need for increased integration of case writing experiences with the experience of the course
as a whole.
While this outline includes few similarities and
numerous di!erences in our re#ections on the experience, one implicit similarity was foundational
to all the re#ections. All four professors discussed
ways in which they would change the case writing
experience in the future*re#ecting that they found
student case writing to be valuable enough that
they wanted to try it again and to improve upon the
methodology the next time.
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M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
read cases written by students from classes other
than their own somewhat di!erently, and more
critically, than cases written by their own students.
For instance, Mary Alice said of one of Jim's
favorite cases, `I wouldn't pick this as a favorite.
I hardly even "nd this case believable.a Harsher
criticism was more common when considering
cases written by unknown students. This was similar to Margie's experience in having Jim respond
to her students' cases in writing. Margie and her
students perceived his comments were much more
critical than hers, and the researchers agreed that
Jim's comments on Margie's students' cases were
more critical than his comments about his own
students' cases.
The professors did not use the same criterion
when selecting favorite cases written by their own
students as used when examining favorite cases
selected by other professors. For example, when
considering the cases written by her own students,
Kathy was very concerned with details and support
which engendered her own sympathy, created feelings, used honesty with approaching the dilemma,
and included the writers' feelings. With other professors' favorite student cases, her focus changed to
whether or not the cases could e!ectively be used in
her future methods courses.
4. Discussion
Our research question was, what do we, as professors who require that our students write cases
based on their own teaching, mean by `casesa, and
how are our expectations for case development
communicated to students? Results of the study
show that all four professors shared very similar
de"nitions of cases. Cases are to be word-processed
documents of 2}6 pages, double spaced, in which
preservice teachers describe personal teaching dilemmas. Cases should be original, they should describe an authentic student problem or dilemma,
and they should describe it well*drawing the
reader into the case with emotion and detail. The
writing of teaching cases should be very re#ective
and thoughtful. Cases should be revised and improved upon over time, and they should be edited
for proper grammar and spelling.
Our expectations for case writing were delivered
to students in many ways, both explicit and implicit. Our explicit messages have been discussed in
depth already*we provided written and oral guidance, modeled by sharing our own and other cases
in class, created opportunities for peer revision, and
gave feedback in writing.
Some of our implicit expectations may not have
delivered the messages we wanted students to get.
Class time carries an implicit message. Mary Alice
spent the most class time on cases. Still, she spent
only four of 64 possible class hours (6%) speci"cally
on case writing. By spending very little time on case
writing, professors were telling students that case
writing was not very important in comparison with
other activities and assignments. Further, the
methods used to structure class experiences and
lead case writing discussions in class may have
impacted student perceptions of its value.
Some professors had di$culty "nding time for
case writing, and used time originally scheduled for
case activities to complete other content related
activities. If we thought case writing was so potentially bene"cial as a method of encouraging re#ection, giving students voice, and meeting student
needs relative to their personal teaching dilemmas,
why did we "nd so little time for it, and why did we
allow content concerns to supersede case activities?
A stated reason was that student-written cases did
not tend to relate well to the content of our courses,
and when we made choices about engaging in case
activities or covering the content, we decided to
cover the content. In analyzing our collective experience, we likened ourselves to elementary and
secondary teachers who use concerns about content coverage as a rationale for being less concerned with meeting student needs. Thus, in
essence, we modeled for them exactly how we
would not like them to teach when they leave us
and get their own classrooms.
Also, the topics of and formats used in our own
cases carried implicit messages for students. A case
shared in class that was `too harda, `too exotica, or
`too abstracta may have inhibited student case
writing rather than providing a good model. When
students were presented with "nished cases as
examples, with no modeling of the ways of thinking
that go into initial case development and successive
M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
revisions, students stood little chance of knowing
how to engage in the type of re#ecting, drafting and
revising we expected. Further, we may have had
unrealistic expectations when we hoped for substantial student revisions, but did not establish an
ongoing writing community to support this type of
work across the semester.
We all utilized a system of having students engage in peer response and editing groups for the
purpose of assisting in case revisions. But we spent
very little time teaching our students how to be
good revisors and responders. Kathy and Jim responded to student drafts themselves "rst, then had
peer response sessions. Margie and Mary Alice
followed peer response sessions with their own reactions to student drafts. How were students supposed to take peer response seriously with this
power di!erential?
The implicit purpose of case revising was problematic also. When we planned our methods and
created the design for the research project, we discussed the importance of teaching our students the
writing process. Yet, apparently we forgot the essential role of audience within the writing process.
After the semester had ended and we were engaged
in data analysis for the research project, we became
fully aware that the true purpose of peer and professor responses and successive revisions was to
make the cases as perfect as possible for the professors to read. This omission in our planning made it
unlikely that the case writing experience would be
highly motivating for or informing to our students.
With regard to providing meaningful audiences
and guiding students in writing for their audiences,
again, we modeled for our students exactly how we
would not want them to teach writing.
An explicit purpose was for students to become
more re#ective about teaching dilemmas. Yet, we
established parameters in which case writing became one more exercise to be completed for one
more education course. A teaching case became
a genre of writing in which a real teaching dilemma
was to be explored (within a draft and two revisions) using a narrative style with emotion and
detail in two to six pages, double spaced. In class
and in our written responses (Table 1), we became
focused on getting our students to write and to use
the genre*rather than focusing on increasing
429
levels of re#ection. Thus, there was an implicit
message that student use of the proper genre was
more important than being re#ective. We do not
know the degree to which case writing was a meaningful tool for re#ection, nor can we gauge the
degree to which it was nothing more than `playing
the college gamea for our students. There is a need
for research of this kind in the future.
When we were involved in analysis of the "nal
drafts of student cases, we began to wonder about
student levels of safety in taking risks. The intention was to set up an environment for case writing
that was relatively low risk for students. Cases were
fairly unimportant within "nal grading criteria for
all four professors. But at the end of the semester,
we wondered if our low point values allocated for
the cases actually had the e!ect of creating a low
risk situation. Students who wanted A's knew they
needed to satisfy the professors' criteria for good
cases as stated in the syllabus, in class, and/or in
professor-provided materials on case writing. The
low allocated point values for cases may have actually had the e!ect of informing students that case
writing was not very important in the big scheme of
things*while not lowering the writing risks at all.
Another factor that appeared to have an in#uence on the case writing experience was the research project itself. Early in the semester when
these four professors began simultaneously working on case writing in their classes, it was determined that the four professors would divide
authorship responsibilities on a number of manuscripts that would be based upon di!erent aspects
of the research project, with Mary Alice, Margie, and
Kathy taking "rst authorship on di!erent papers.
Later, during the data analysis process, we came to
understand that our earlier identi"ed writing roles
had powerful in#uences upon the ways in which we
directed case writing experiences in class, and how
we re#ected upon the experience afterward. We each
knew that we needed to make sure we collected data
that would ful"ll the requirements for the three
papers we intended to write, but Margie, Kathy, and
Mary Alice each held a particular focus on the
paper for which they held primary responsibility.
Mary Alice, who was writing this paper, worked
hard from the beginning at being `the model
professora in guiding her student case writing
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M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
assignment. She developed a solid plan for working
with cases in her classes, then proceeded to follow
the plan to the letter. When analysis work began in
the summer, Mary Alice was very surprised to learn
that the other professors had not spent as much
time on case writing in class as she had, and that
they hadn't done some of the things she thought
they were going to do. She felt almost betrayed by
her colleagues.
Knowing that they would be writing about student topics and student writing, Margie and Kathy
had slightly di!erent perceptions of what they were
supposed to be doing. For Margie's paper, it was
important that students chose good topics and
carefully wrote about them, covering the content of
their dilemmas completely and writing about them
re#ectively and with detail. Thus, Margie worked
hard to assure that students chose good topics and
dealt with them well in their case stories. Because
Kathy was to write a paper on how students' papers
were revised in successive drafts, her greatest instructional concern was for progress of student writing
from draft to draft. Once students selected issues for
their cases, she wanted to assure that they engaged in
signi"cant and substantive revising of their drafts.
Jim, who would be participating in writing all
three papers, needed to do some good teaching and
re#ect substantively upon it for Mary Alice, to
make sure his students dealt well with meaningful
topics for Margie, and to insure that students engaged in successive revisions of their cases for
Kathy. He maintained a more multidimensional
view on the case writing experience.
5. Conclusions
So, what were we really doing? Were we most
committed to assuring that we had good data so
that we could write good research papers for presentation and publication? Or were we really committed to learning about case writing in preservice
teacher education? Both. While we agree that the
research agenda had an impact upon our work and
our thinking, it was not at the forefront for any of
us. Still, it is important to acknowledge that the
research project had an impact on the case writing
experience for students.
Beyond implicit messages to students and the
impact of the research on the case writing experience, we identi"ed a quite worrisome feature of our
case writing experience. This worry involved professor reactions to student dilemmas. Some of our
students wrote about atrocious classroom situations in which they were currently completing
internships. For instance, in numerous cases, chronically negative, critical, unprofessional teaching
behaviors were being modeled daily for our students as interns. The children in these classrooms
were apparently receiving much less than optimal
treatment and teaching. There were also cases that
involved unprofessional teacher behaviors regarding special education placements, and child abuse
allegations. What did we do for these students in
response to the cases? Nothing, really. We gave
them suggestions for revisions and asked them
questions about the content of their cases. If they
were well written, we responded with comments
like `Well done!a and `Powerful case!a As we read
the cases, and afterward, we wondered about our
responsibility when presented with these preservice
teaching dilemmas. We could not go out and provide solutions for all of these students. Perhaps we
provided a `servicea to the students by providing
a forum for voicing and exploring dilemmas. Yet
painful teaching dilemmas touched us and left us
feeling guilty about not reacting in substantive
ways. We solidly believe that if we are going to take
time to assign case writing experiences to our students in the future, we are going to have to be
willing to take time to deal with our students'
dilemmas in more substantive ways.
After consideration of these problems and worries within the case writing experience, it is natural
to ask, `Did we consider student case writing valuable?a Our answer is a "rm `Yes!' Through our
experiences with case writing, we came to understand our students in di!erent ways and they came
to understand us in di!erent ways. Our students
were all faced with the fact that we encounter dilemmas in our own teaching for which we don't
have solutions. We showed them the importance of
re#ecting upon our dilemmas and considering multiple approaches to solving them. Interactions with
our students and their cases demonstrate that this
was valuable; their interpretations of dealing with
M.A. Barksdale-Ladd et al. / Teaching and Teacher Education 17 (2001) 417}431
teaching dilemmas and considering multiple solutions were more sophisticated than in courses
where case writing was not used. We ended the
semester with students who were more re#ective
about teaching and more knowledgeable regarding
the dilemmas inherent in the teaching profession.
We recommend research into students' perceptions
of what is learned through case writing.
This study demonstrates how a methodology
used in a teacher preparation program can vary
widely across di!erent instructors' utilization of it.
It is easy to see how variations in use of a technique
or methodology can have tremendously di!ering
impacts upon student learning*and similarly differing e!ects on the teachers that are graduated
from a program. Using a recommended approach
in teacher education and using it well are clearly
two di!erent things. In attempting to employ
a strategy meant to create re#ection in our students
and to cause them to develop understandings of the
complexity of teaching as a profession, we managed
to also model for them a number of teaching approaches we would not select for them to use in
their own classrooms. Perhaps there is a need for
methods of evaluation of ourselves as teacher educators that go far beyond what would appear to be
the norm in the United States*National Council
on Accreditation for Teacher Education (NCATE)
evaluation, annual review of faculty in the area of
teaching, analysis of student evaluations of their
professors at the end of the semester, and the like. We
would recommend that schools of teacher education
begin to look at more authentic methods of analyzing
what we do within our teacher education programs.
Methods of self-inquiry into teaching practices in
teacher education similar to those in which we
engaged in writing this paper may provide a solid
starting place. Many of the problems we encountered with case writing*the implicit messages we
inadvertently sent to students, the modeling of poor
practices, and the worries with which we were left at
the end of the semester*might never have surfaced
so explicitly had we not engaged in this systematic
self-inquiry practice. We all made teaching changes
and became di!erent teachers in numerous ways as
a result of our collaborative self-inquiry process.
Change does not come easily, and self-inquiry into
our own practices can face us with painful realities.
431
We feel that discovering and facing our own painful
realities was more bearable than it might have been
under other circumstances due to the supportive
learning environment we had created among ourselves as researchers and colleagues. By going
through this process, we all found ways to change for
the better. Further, our self-inquiry processes were
shared with and/or modeled for our students. If we
don't engage in self-inquiry and resulting change
processes ourselves, it is not possible to model these
processes for our students and support them in
developing meaningful understandings of why and
how they might go about changing as teachers.
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