2: What Would You Do Next if This Were Your Class? Using Cases to Engage Preservice Teachers in Their New Role

This chapter outlines a mathematics teacher educator’s use of a narrative case in a preservice elementary methods course. Following a description of the instructional context, goals, sequencing, and pedagogical reasoning underlying the implementation of the case, this chapter focuses on preservice teachers’ opportunities to learn from this particular case as it was implemented. Although there is clear evidence that the case enabled these preservice teachers to grapple with many important topics in mathematics education, they were not able to accomplish everything their instructor had hoped. This leads the author to raise important questions about what can be accomplished using cases and what counts as a successful case discussion.