Cases offer students opportunities to grapple with issues, problems, an dilemmas in ways that are challenging. As a result, students have chance to foster their critical thinking.
"Most students are inductive reasoners, which means
that they learn better from examples"
~Dunne, D. and Brooks, K. (2004) Teaching with Cases~
In order to help students to not become frustrated, they first need to gain more approach within mind. I will present for example, newspaper or magazine articles as a structured introduction of the case. I will use whether closed or open cases depend on students' sufficient knowledge. My strategy is to use closed case study first to test students' understanding of well-defined fact and principles. After that, I will bring the open case study which has many possible solutions or actions that could be recommended for further deeper learning. In the end, I will deliberately narrow the discussion and summarise to bring satisfying conclusion.
Teacher may have to spend considerable time developing a case study. If the teacher fails to prepare case which is tantamount to students' ability, for instance many information in case are incomplete and misleading. Students will easily become frustrated because they feel they lack of background knowledge for resolving the cases. On the other hand, detailed analysis of cases by chance may bring students to devote too much time to one aspect only. Since some cases are very realistic and complex with no right answer, the teacher must also prepare satisfying conclusion.
April 21, 2014 at 12:15 AM
Hi Sir, I am Than from Burma, Mya's close friend. My English skill is not very good and I would like to ask you to put me in same group with Mya. I enjoy being involve in sharing and discussion, but I have trouble to express my idea in English. I am afraid that in discussion I will slow down everyone else.