Cases as a Tool to Surface and Develop Pre-Service Teachers’ Ideas About Culturally Grounded Pedagogy

• In Event: Emotion, Belief, and Relational Elements of Teaching and Teacher Preparation

Abstract

Given the increasingly diverse population of youth in U.S. schools, it is critical that we work to better prepare pre-service teachers to enact equitable, culturally grounded instruction. In this research, we explore how teacher-developed cases, or rich narratives of complex situations encountered in schools, can help build elementary pre-service teachers’ understanding of how to enact such instruction in mathematics and science. We analyzed pre-service teachers’ written responses to prompts from six cases that were implemented in math and science methods courses. We describe how two features of culturally grounded pedagogy emerged in responses. This research illustrates the power of cases to provide insight into pre-service teachers’ thinking and support their understanding of culturally grounded pedagogy in math and science.

Authors

• Tracy Dobie, University of Utah

• Liza Romina Escobar, University of Utah

• Bailey N. Ondricek, University of Utah

• Lynne Zummo, University of Utah

• Lauren Barth-Cohen, University of Utah

• Connor Warner, University of Utah

• Angela Warnock, University of Utah