Case-based pedagogy for prospective teachers to learn how to teach elementary mathematics in Korea

Cases have been used in mathematics teacher education with increasing prominence. Yet, there is little research that confirms cases as pedagogical tools to improve prospective teacher expertise, specifically in Asian contexts. This article illustrates how a specific case-based pedagogy was developed and implemented in Korea to increase prospective elementary teacher expertise in terms of paying attention to the mathematics-specific features of a lesson. The results showed that the participant teachers’ analytic foci moved from general to substantive features of a mathematics lesson. This tendency was evident when they reflected on their own teaching and was confirmed by their self-assessment. Given this, issues and suggestions in teacher education programs to promote teacher expertise in terms of mathematics-specific analysis ability are discussed.