The Case Method And The Development Of Teaching Case

The disjunction between theory and practice in education is one of the main reasons that teacher education is criticized violently. The case method can perform an intermediary function in the conjunction between theory and practice in education. So, the case method can be regarded as one of the promising ones of teacher education.Having examining the history of case method in the legal education, business education, medicine education and teacher education, we can draw an important conclusion that the development of teaching case is the presupposition of the successful implementation of the case method in teacher education. And the author believes that the development of teaching case is an important way by which teachers reflect their own practice and its implicit belief, reconstruct their knowledge, learn from their own experience, when the teacher in practice become the main force in the development of teaching case. As far as this is concerned, the development of teaching case can do good to the growth of the teacher and is a part of the case method in teacher education. So teacher's development of teaching case should be the main way of its development. The author constructs a model of the cooperative development of teaching case.The development of teaching case needs a professional situation. The teacher educators must view seriously its development as a study, and provide teachers with the full cooperation and sufficient support in its development. The teaching case developed must match with the special goals of teacher education. The author expects to develop a kind of case, which, as a clinical surrogates, can perform a conjunctive function between theory and practice in education. On the basis of examining the nature of teaching case, the author suggests some features of this kind of case, including, descriptiveness, experience, reality, richness and openness, and a basic procedure of development in which teacher educators cooperate and develop teaching case with teachers in practice. These features and procedure are only viewed as the guide of the author's own developmental practice. Generalization of these features and procedure is out of the author's hope.The author practiced the cooperative model of the development of teaching case with his students in teacher education. Owing to the lack of effective stimulation to these students, this developmental practice doesn't gain anticipated results and is not a successful study. But the author still expects that this study is a case of the development of teaching case, and we can still get some helpful from it.