Most early childhood teacher educator are well aware that classroom management i

s one of the
major topics that concern prospective and practicing teachers and school adminis
trators.
good classroom management is believed to be "an essential first step toward beco
ming a good teacher" (Ayers 2001.p.10)
ayers argued that this perspective about classroom managemen is one of the perva
sive "myths"
about teaching shared among professionals and the public through the populer med
ia and literature as well as a subject
of commonsense discourses about teaching educators face in this context is how t
o help prospective and practicing
teachers expand their views of teaching in general and classroom management in p
articular
the interest in classroom managemen generally focuses on "the smooth flow of lea
rning activities as well as dailny
routines" (Grand and Gillette 2006. p.99) this concern about efficient classroom
instruction and schedules often leads
teachers to seeing classroom management as a set of techiques for disciplining a
n individual child's misbehavior that might interrupt
teachers' planned acivities and schedule 9Doyle 1986). ayers (2001) defined this
limited view of classroom management as a myth
because of two assumpyions inherent in this discourse: Classroom management shou
ld precede teaching and it is "separated
from the whole of teaching" (p.11)/ This myth makes teachers believe that teachi
ng is about manipulating and controlling
children rather than "a moral crat and an intellectual enterprise" (p.11). As a
result of losing sight of the larger
"the goal of teaching, Ayers argued. "there are a lot of quiet, passive classro
oms
where not much learning is taking place, and ohers where children's hearts, soul
s and minds are being silently destroyed in the name of good management" p.11
in addition, the focus on a sett of techiques for disciplining childrens" behavi
or treats those techniques as
panaceas and prevent teachers from understanding how teaching is a "contextual,
local, and situted" act demanding "subtle judgments and agonixing decisions" (sh
ulman 1992, p.28)
the techiques-oriented discourse on and approach to classroom managemenet oversi
mplifies the issues regarding classroom managemenet as a well structures problem
that has a correct
and an incorrect way to handle it regardless of the contexts/\
some of the classroom situations might be relatively straightforward(i,e, after
children finish free play time. they need to clean up for the next activity). su
ch situations could be
well-defined problems to which clear goals and general rules can be applied for
problem solving. however, experienced teachers would agree that many issues rel
ated to managing the classroom
involve uncertainties about problem definitions (i.e.. what happened and how did
it happen her) conflicting perspectives among different stakholders i.e.. a chi
ld says one thing while his or her peer
says another thing about what happend between them). and the need for multiple s
olutions and multiple criteria for solution evaluation (i.e .. let's try this, i
f this doesn't work, let's sit down
to think about what is a better way of working togetjer). these are the general
features of ill-structured problems (jonaseen 1997, 2000;Shin et al. 2003; Voss

and Post 1988;Wood 1983)

In fact, the varios dilemmas (e.g. whetjer a social promotion should be allowed
for a child who has been retained one yer and wants to work might be the most di
fficult ill-structured problems (jonassen 2000)
Unlike well-sturctured problems, the way that ill-structured problems are dealt
with is greatly influenced by problem solvers personal opinios or beliefs about
problem situations (Meacham and Emont 1989). Althougjt to date not many empirica
l studiess
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In this article, we repot a study investigating how web-based case instruction,
as one such technology-enhanced instructional practice, can be used to help pros
pective teachers (a) vicariously ecperience real-life dilemmas that practicing t
eachers face when managing
their classroms. (B) realize how teaching requires a thougthful understanding of
contexts: (c) develop the rationale for their decision making by considering mu
ltiplle stakeholders and different perpectives: (d) explore diverse ways of prob
lem solving by actively applying
ideas and theories learned in theis teacher education courses to dilemma situati
ons, the ultimate goal of this research project was to help preservice teachers
expand their views of teaching in general and classroom management in particulat
.
methods
partitipants
we designed a web-baser case instrutin tool and implemented for 3 weeks in a req
uired undergraduate teacher education course taught by Kyungwa in spring 2005. t
he class was comprised of 30 Juniors enrolled in the early childhood education p
rogram at a
large state-funded U.S university. all 30 student were female in their early 20a
. all were white except one filipino-american, among the 30 student, we received
consent letters form 23 studens who allowed us to use their pre and postessays a
nd case respondes as our research data and complateed and additionla survey
askinng their opinios about the web based case instruction at he end of the seme
ster. at the sam time, we also had three volunteer students who participated in
a focus group interview to share their experiene and thoughts about this instruc
tionla method