Exploring the impact of problem-focused case writing pedagogy on novice teachers’ beliefs and practices concerning effective instructional intervention for young children and families

Аннотация

The purpose of this multiple-case qualitative study was to explore the impact of problem-focused case writing, a reflective inquiry approach, on novice teachers’ beliefs and practices in an effort to better understand its effectiveness for preservice teacher education. Specifically, the study focused on novice teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding development, learning, and effective instructional intervention for young children and their families. The context of the study was two master’s-level seminar classes accompanying the final internships of infant and early childhood special education students. The case writing pedagogy involved the students in making authentic connections to real problems of practice by developing their own stories, situated within the context of their internship settings, into self-authored cases. Students were actively engaged in an iterative writing process as well as dyadic, small-group and large-group discussion to facilitate perspective taking.