Writing and Working with Cases – Foundations of Teaching
Pearls
Cases are descriptions of real works scenarios you can use to help students learn how to approach problems in the way a clinician would.
- The first step in writing a case is to write learning objectives describing what you want learners to know or be able to do after working through the case
- You can create cases for different learning approaches: problem based learning (students lead the learning activities), case based learning (instructors guide the learning activities), or team based learning (the emphasis is on collaborative learning)
- Cases should be diffucult enough to hold students’ interest and motivate them to learn – but not so difficult as to be frustrating
- Personal experience or that of a colleague can be very helpful to make the case realistic and to attach some humanness to the case
- Plan how you’ll work through the case with your students