The case, a short narrative written by an anonymous teacher not in the group, describes a classroom experience that had an unexpected outcome or ran into difficulty. The author of the case uses dialogue and student work to describe how the instruction was planned and what actually happened. Teachers in the discussion group read the case before coming to the meeting. Before beginning the discussion, they work on a mathematics problem related to the case for a few minutes. The purpose of working on the problem is to think about what might be confusing or difficult from a student s point of view.
Participants then pair up and identify issues framed as questions.
These issues are used to focus the discussion, which continues for about an hour. A facilitator, usually a teacher from the group who has attended a facilitation seminar, helps ensure that issues are carefully examined. The Mathematics Case Methods Project has a casebook and facilitator s guide to assist participants, and provides seminars on learning to facilitate case discussions. For more information, please contact the Project. This project is part of WestEd's Teacher Professional Development Program .