This study identified instructional strategies that family and consumer science teacher candidates found useful, noting why the strategies aided their learning. A 2-hour lesson on classroom management using small group theory was selected based on its ties to constructivist pedagogy. Before teaching the lesson, the instructor described her instructional goals in an audiotaped interview. She taught the lesson 2 weeks into the semester. Data about the instructional environment were collected using a video camera and field notes. Analysis of these data identified major instructional patterns, which were used to construct a narrative description. The frequency of various strategies was estimated by tallying those present in the narrative description. Following the lesson, student teachers completed a questionnaire about the most important concepts they had learned, features of the instruction that helped them learn each concept, and why those aspects of instruction helped them learn the concepts. Two days later, four student teachers completed stimulated recall sessions, watching the videotaped lesson and stopping it in places where the instruction best aided their learning. Overall, participants learned best from cases about which they had prior knowledge. They found experiential learning very important and considered discussion moderately helpful. (Contains 38 references and 4 tables.) (SM)