The Effect of Case-Based Instruction on Teacher Candidates’ Culturally Responsive Knowledge

The rapid growth of culturally and linguistically diverse populations in K-12 schools has increased the need for preparing culturally responsive teachers. Yet, many pre-service teachers feel unprepared to work with diverse students. With the urgent need to connect educational theory to classroom practice, teacher preparation programs have turned to case-based instruction and worked examples to relay important content. In an explanatory sequential mixed-methods study, 95 pre-service teachers came into a lab to engage in a 4-week instructional sequence that examined two factors, namely, 1) case-based instruction (classroom cases vs. textbook) and 2) worked examples (expert worked examples vs. student exploration), on pre-service teachers' understanding of culturally responsive pedagogy. Results of a multilevel growth model show that pre-service teachers who learned from the case-based instruction performed higher than those in the textbook condition. Participants' rate of change was dependent upon viewing classroom cases but not an expert-worked example. Qualitative findings indicate that preparing culturally responsive teachers through case-based instruction could offer a more in-depth, rich, realistic, and inclusive experience associated with understanding multiple perspectives.