case study in english teaching

Using Case Studies to Teach

Why Use Cases?

Many students are more inductive than deductive reasoners, which means that they learn better from examples than from logical development starting with basic principles. The use of case studies can therefore be a very effective classroom technique.

Case studies are have long been used in business schools, law schools, medical schools and the social sciences, but they can be used in any discipline when instructors want students to explore how what they have learned applies to real world situations. Cases come in many formats, from a simple “What would you do in this situation?” question to a detailed description of a situation with accompanying data to analyze. Whether to use a simple scenario-type case or a complex detailed one depends on your course objectives.

Most case assignments require students to answer an open-ended question or develop a solution to an open-ended problem with multiple potential solutions. Requirements can range from a one-paragraph answer to a fully developed group action plan, proposal or decision.

Common Case Elements

Most “full-blown” cases have these common elements:

• A decision-maker who is grappling with some question or problem that needs to be solved.
• A description of the problem’s context (a law, an industry, a family).
• Supporting data, which can range from data tables to links to URLs, quoted statements or testimony, supporting documents, images, video, or audio.

Case assignments can be done individually or in teams so that the students can brainstorm solutions and share the work load.

The following discussion of this topic incorporates material presented by Robb Dixon of the School of Management and Rob Schadt of the School of Public Health at CEIT workshops. Professor Dixon also provided some written comments that the discussion incorporates.

Advantages to the use of case studies in class

A major advantage of teaching with case studies is that the students are actively engaged in figuring out the principles by abstracting from the examples. This develops their skills in:

• Problem solving
• Analytical tools, quantitative and/or qualitative, depending on the case
• Decision making in complex situations
• Coping with ambiguities

Guidelines for using case studies in class

In the most straightforward application, the presentation of the case study establishes a framework for analysis. It is helpful if the statement of the case provides enough information for the students to figure out solutions and then to identify how to apply those solutions in other similar situations. Instructors may choose to use several cases so that students can identify both the similarities and differences among the cases.

Depending on the course objectives, the instructor may encourage students to follow a systematic approach to their analysis.  For example:

• What is the issue?
• What is the goal of the analysis?
• What is the context of the problem?
• What key facts should be considered?
• What alternatives are available to the decision-maker?
• What would you recommend — and why?

An innovative approach to case analysis might be to have students  role-play the part of the people involved in the case. This not only actively engages students, but forces them to really understand the perspectives of the case characters. Videos or even field trips showing the venue in which the case is situated can help students to visualize the situation that they need to analyze.

Accompanying Readings

Case studies can be especially effective if they are paired with a reading assignment that introduces or explains a concept or analytical method that applies to the case. The amount of emphasis placed on the use of the reading during the case discussion depends on the complexity of the concept or method. If it is straightforward, the focus of the discussion can be placed on the use of the analytical results. If the method is more complex, the instructor may need to walk students through its application and the interpretation of the results.

Leading the Case Discussion and Evaluating Performance

Decision cases are more interesting than descriptive ones. In order to start the discussion in class, the instructor can start with an easy, noncontroversial question that all the students should be able to answer readily. However, some of the best case discussions start by forcing the students to take a stand. Some instructors will ask a student to do a formal “open” of the case, outlining his or her entire analysis.  Others may choose to guide discussion with questions that move students from problem identification to solutions.  A skilled instructor steers questions and discussion to keep the class on track and moving at a reasonable pace.

In order to motivate the students to complete the assignment before class as well as to stimulate attentiveness during the class, the instructor should grade the participation—quantity and especially quality—during the discussion of the case. This might be a simple check, check-plus, check-minus or zero. The instructor should involve as many students as possible. In order to engage all the students, the instructor can divide them into groups, give each group several minutes to discuss how to answer a question related to the case, and then ask a randomly selected person in each group to present the group’s answer and reasoning. Random selection can be accomplished through rolling of dice, shuffled index cards, each with one student’s name, a spinning wheel, etc.

Tips on the Penn State U. website: https://sites.psu.edu/pedagogicalpractices/case-studies/

If you are interested in using this technique in a science course, there is a good website on use of case studies in the sciences at the National Science Teaching Association.

Making Learning Relevant With Case Studies

The open-ended problems presented in case studies give students work that feels connected to their lives.

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To prepare students for jobs that haven’t been created yet, we need to teach them how to be great problem solvers so that they’ll be ready for anything. One way to do this is by teaching content and skills using real-world case studies, a learning model that’s focused on reflection during the problem-solving process. It’s similar to project-based learning, but PBL is more focused on students creating a product.

Case studies have been used for years by businesses, law and medical schools, physicians on rounds, and artists critiquing work. Like other forms of problem-based learning, case studies can be accessible for every age group, both in one subject and in interdisciplinary work.

You can get started with case studies by tackling relatable questions like these with your students:

• How can we limit food waste in the cafeteria?
• How can we get our school to recycle and compost waste? (Or, if you want to be more complex, how can our school reduce its carbon footprint?)
• How can we improve school attendance?
• How can we reduce the number of people who get sick at school during cold and flu season?

Addressing questions like these leads students to identify topics they need to learn more about. In researching the first question, for example, students may see that they need to research food chains and nutrition. Students often ask, reasonably, why they need to learn something, or when they’ll use their knowledge in the future. Learning is most successful for students when the content and skills they’re studying are relevant, and case studies offer one way to create that sense of relevance.

Teaching With Case Studies

Ultimately, a case study is simply an interesting problem with many correct answers. What does case study work look like in classrooms? Teachers generally start by having students read the case or watch a video that summarizes the case. Students then work in small groups or individually to solve the case study. Teachers set milestones defining what students should accomplish to help them manage their time.

During the case study learning process, student assessment of learning should be focused on reflection. Arthur L. Costa and Bena Kallick’s Learning and Leading With Habits of Mind gives several examples of what this reflection can look like in a classroom: 

Journaling: At the end of each work period, have students write an entry summarizing what they worked on, what worked well, what didn’t, and why. Sentence starters and clear rubrics or guidelines will help students be successful. At the end of a case study project, as Costa and Kallick write, it’s helpful to have students “select significant learnings, envision how they could apply these learnings to future situations, and commit to an action plan to consciously modify their behaviors.”

Interviews: While working on a case study, students can interview each other about their progress and learning. Teachers can interview students individually or in small groups to assess their learning process and their progress.

Student discussion: Discussions can be unstructured—students can talk about what they worked on that day in a think-pair-share or as a full class—or structured, using Socratic seminars or fishbowl discussions. If your class is tackling a case study in small groups, create a second set of small groups with a representative from each of the case study groups so that the groups can share their learning.

4 Tips for Setting Up a Case Study

1. Identify a problem to investigate: This should be something accessible and relevant to students’ lives. The problem should also be challenging and complex enough to yield multiple solutions with many layers.

2. Give context: Think of this step as a movie preview or book summary. Hook the learners to help them understand just enough about the problem to want to learn more.

3. Have a clear rubric: Giving structure to your definition of quality group work and products will lead to stronger end products. You may be able to have your learners help build these definitions.

4. Provide structures for presenting solutions: The amount of scaffolding you build in depends on your students’ skill level and development. A case study product can be something like several pieces of evidence of students collaborating to solve the case study, and ultimately presenting their solution with a detailed slide deck or an essay—you can scaffold this by providing specified headings for the sections of the essay.

Problem-Based Teaching Resources

There are many high-quality, peer-reviewed resources that are open source and easily accessible online.

• The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science at the University at Buffalo built an online collection of more than 800 cases that cover topics ranging from biochemistry to economics. There are resources for middle and high school students.
• Models of Excellence , a project maintained by EL Education and the Harvard Graduate School of Education, has examples of great problem- and project-based tasks—and corresponding exemplary student work—for grades pre-K to 12.
• The Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning at Purdue University is an open-source journal that publishes examples of problem-based learning in K–12 and post-secondary classrooms.
• The Tech Edvocate has a list of websites and tools related to problem-based learning.

In their book Problems as Possibilities , Linda Torp and Sara Sage write that at the elementary school level, students particularly appreciate how they feel that they are taken seriously when solving case studies. At the middle school level, “researchers stress the importance of relating middle school curriculum to issues of student concern and interest.” And high schoolers, they write, find the case study method “beneficial in preparing them for their future.”

Center for Teaching

Case studies.

Print Version

Case studies are stories that are used as a teaching tool to show the application of a theory or concept to real situations. Dependent on the goal they are meant to fulfill, cases can be fact-driven and deductive where there is a correct answer, or they can be context driven where multiple solutions are possible. Various disciplines have employed case studies, including humanities, social sciences, sciences, engineering, law, business, and medicine. Good cases generally have the following features: they tell a good story, are recent, include dialogue, create empathy with the main characters, are relevant to the reader, serve a teaching function, require a dilemma to be solved, and have generality.

Instructors can create their own cases or can find cases that already exist. The following are some things to keep in mind when creating a case:

• What do you want students to learn from the discussion of the case?
• What do they already know that applies to the case?
• What are the issues that may be raised in discussion?
• How will the case and discussion be introduced?
• What preparation is expected of students? (Do they need to read the case ahead of time? Do research? Write anything?)
• What directions do you need to provide students regarding what they are supposed to do and accomplish?
• Do you need to divide students into groups or will they discuss as the whole class?
• Are you going to use role-playing or facilitators or record keepers? If so, how?
• What are the opening questions?
• How much time is needed for students to discuss the case?
• What concepts are to be applied/extracted during the discussion?
• How will you evaluate students?

To find other cases that already exist, try the following websites:

• The National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science , University of Buffalo. SUNY-Buffalo maintains this set of links to other case studies on the web in disciplines ranging from engineering and ethics to sociology and business
• A Journal of Teaching Cases in Public Administration and Public Policy , University of Washington

For more information:

• World Association for Case Method Research and Application

Book Review :  Teaching and the Case Method , 3rd ed., vols. 1 and 2, by Louis Barnes, C. Roland (Chris) Christensen, and Abby Hansen. Harvard Business School Press, 1994; 333 pp. (vol 1), 412 pp. (vol 2).

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Teaching English

Teachers' zone, using case studies in the esl classroom, by lynne hand.

The terminology surrounding "case studies" tends to be confusing, running the gamut from simply "case," to "case history," "case analysis," "case problem," and the familiar "case study".

As you know I am always on the look out for original materials for use in my classes. I find that my students appreciate real world experiences in the classroom and case studies provide them with real life situations for discussion and evaluation. They are particularly useful for business English classes. Jolliffe writes, "through class discussions of the situations and people in the cases, students will hone their insights, perceptions, thought processes and interpersonal skills. . ." .

According to Silverman the following two factors are as important in Case Study Teaching as they are in any other forms of teaching, perhaps even more so, because an instructor has less control with case discussion than other forms of teaching.

• What do you want students to learn from the discussion of the case?
• What do they know already that applies to the case?
• What are the issues (central and peripheral) that may be raised in discussion?
• Can the case "carry" the discussion (Is it appropriate to your objectives)?
• how the case and discussion will be introduced
• preparation expected of students (written, submitted, papers?)
• the opening question(s)
• how much time is needed for the issues to be discussed
• concepts to be applied and/or extracted in discussion
• concluding the discussion
• evaluating the discussion (students', your own)
• evaluating the participants (grades for participation?)

Running a case study

To get started – select a short case study that covers the skills you want your students to practise. Read it several times and consider how it fits with your student-learning objectives for the class (you need to think about why you are teaching this case at this time).

Arrange the classroom so that students can talk face-to-face.

Prepare a set of questions for students to write out as homework before running the case in class.

For class, prepare another set of questions to move students through the stages of case analysis.

Who are the people in the case? Where is the case study situated? Why has the situation (problem) occured? What possibilities for action are there? How should the people in the case study proceed?

At the end conduct a teacher-led summary and conclusion discussion, assessing what your students have achieved.

Silverman, Welty, An Introduction to Cases, Pace University Center for Case Studies (1997)

Jolliffe, Lee B. Industry's Team Approach to Classroom Projects , Journalism Educator , Summer 1991

Do you have an article, handout or a teaching idea/tip that you would like to share? Fill out the form. It's good to share.

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• Teaching with Cases

At professional schools (like Harvard’s Law, Business, Education, or Medical Schools), courses often adopt the so-called "case method" of teaching , in which students are confronted with real-world problems or scenarios involving multiple stakeholders and competing priorities. Most of the cases which faculty use with their students are written by professionals who have expertise in researching and writing in that genre, and for good reason—writing a truly masterful case, one which can engage students in hours of debate and deliberation, takes a lot of time and effort. It can be effective, nevertheless, for you to try implementing some aspects of the case-teaching approach in your class. Among the benefits which accrue to using case studies are the following:

• the fact that it gives your students the opportunity to "practice" a real-world application;
• the fact that it compels them (and you!) to reconstruct all of the divergent and convergent perspectives which different parties might bring to the scenario;
• the fact that it motivates your students to anticipate a wide range of possible responses which a reader might have; and
• the fact that it invites your students to indulge in metacognition as they revisit the process by which they became more knowledgeable about the scenario.

Features of an Effective Teaching Case

While no two case studies will be exactly alike, here are some of those principles:

• The case should illustrate what happens when a concept from the course could be, or has been, applied in the real world. Depending on the course, a “concept” might mean any one among a range of things, including an abstract principle, a theory, a tension, an issue, a method, an approach, or simply a way of thinking characteristic of an academic field. Whichever you choose, you should make sure to “ground” the case in a realistic setting early in the narrative, so that participants understand their role in the scenario.
• The case materials should include enough factual content and context to allow students to explore multiple perspectives. In order for participants to feel that they are encountering a real-world application of the course material, and that they have some freedom and agency in terms of how they interpret it, they need to be able to see the issue or problem from more than one perspective. Moreover, those perspectives need to seem genuine, and to be sketched in enough detail to seem complex. (In fact, it’s not a bad idea to include some “extraneous” information about the stakeholders involved in the case, so that students have to filter out things that seem relevant or irrelevant to them.) Otherwise, participants may fall back on picking obvious “winners” and “losers” rather than seeking creative, negotiated solutions that satisfy multiple stakeholders.
• The case materials should confront participants with a range of realistic constraints, hard choices, and authentic outcomes. If the case presumes that participants will all become omniscient, enjoy limitless resources, and succeed, they won’t learn as much about themselves as team-members and decision-makers as if they are forced to confront limitations, to make tough decisions about priorities, and to be prepared for unexpected results. These constraints and outcomes can be things which have been documented in real life, but they can also be things which the participants themselves surface in their deliberations.

• The activity should include space to reflect upon the decision-making process and the lessons of the case. Writing a case offers an opportunity to engage in multiple layers of reflection. For you, as the case writer, it is an occasion to anticipate how you (if you were the instructor) might create scenarios that are aligned with, and likely to meet the learning objectives of, a given unit of your course. For the participants whom you imagine using your case down the road, the case ideally should help them (1) to understand their own hidden assumptions, priorities, values, and biases better; and (2) to close the gap between their classroom learning and its potential real-world applications.

For more information...

Kim, Sara et al. 2006. "A Conceptual Framework for Developing Teaching Cases: A Review and Synthesis of the Literature across Disciplines." Medical Education 40: 867–876.

Herreid, Clyde Freeman. 2011. "Case Study Teaching." New Directions for Teaching and Learning 128: 31–40.

Nohria, Nitin. 2021. "What the Case Study Method Really Teaches." Harvard Business Review .

Swiercz, Paul Michael. "SWIF Learning: A Guide to Student Written-Instructor Facilitated Case Writing."

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Case Method Teaching and Learning

What is the case method? How can the case method be used to engage learners? What are some strategies for getting started? This guide helps instructors answer these questions by providing an overview of the case method while highlighting learner-centered and digitally-enhanced approaches to teaching with the case method. The guide also offers tips to instructors as they get started with the case method and additional references and resources.

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What is case method teaching.

• Case Method at Columbia

Why use the Case Method?

Case method teaching approaches, how do i get started.

• Additional Resources

The CTL is here to help!

For support with implementing a case method approach in your course, email [email protected] to schedule your 1-1 consultation .

Cite this resource: Columbia Center for Teaching and Learning (2019). Case Method Teaching and Learning. Columbia University. Retrieved from [today’s date] from https://ctl.columbia.edu/resources-and-technology/resources/case-method/  

Case method 1 teaching is an active form of instruction that focuses on a case and involves students learning by doing 2 3 . Cases are real or invented stories 4  that include “an educational message” or recount events, problems, dilemmas, theoretical or conceptual issue that requires analysis and/or decision-making.

Case-based teaching simulates real world situations and asks students to actively grapple with complex problems 5 6 This method of instruction is used across disciplines to promote learning, and is common in law, business, medicine, among other fields. See Table 1 below for a few types of cases and the learning they promote.

Table 1: Types of cases and the learning they promote.

For a more complete list, see Case Types & Teaching Methods: A Classification Scheme from the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.

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Case Method Teaching and Learning at Columbia

The case method is actively used in classrooms across Columbia, at the Morningside campus in the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), the School of Business, Arts and Sciences, among others, and at Columbia University Irving Medical campus.

Faculty Spotlight:

Professor Mary Ann Price on Using Case Study Method to Place Pre-Med Students in Real-Life Scenarios

Read more  

Professor De Pinho on Using the Case Method in the Mailman Core

Case method teaching has been found to improve student learning, to increase students’ perception of learning gains, and to meet learning objectives 8 9 . Faculty have noted the instructional benefits of cases including greater student engagement in their learning 10 , deeper student understanding of concepts, stronger critical thinking skills, and an ability to make connections across content areas and view an issue from multiple perspectives 11 . 

Through case-based learning, students are the ones asking questions about the case, doing the problem-solving, interacting with and learning from their peers, “unpacking” the case, analyzing the case, and summarizing the case. They learn how to work with limited information and ambiguity, think in professional or disciplinary ways, and ask themselves “what would I do if I were in this specific situation?”

The case method bridges theory to practice, and promotes the development of skills including: communication, active listening, critical thinking, decision-making, and metacognitive skills 12 , as students apply course content knowledge, reflect on what they know and their approach to analyzing, and make sense of a case. 

Though the case method has historical roots as an instructor-centered approach that uses the Socratic dialogue and cold-calling, it is possible to take a more learner-centered approach in which students take on roles and tasks traditionally left to the instructor. 

Cases are often used as “vehicles for classroom discussion” 13 . Students should be encouraged to take ownership of their learning from a case. Discussion-based approaches engage students in thinking and communicating about a case. Instructors can set up a case activity in which students are the ones doing the work of “asking questions, summarizing content, generating hypotheses, proposing theories, or offering critical analyses” 14 . 

The role of the instructor is to share a case or ask students to share or create a case to use in class, set expectations, provide instructions, and assign students roles in the discussion. Student roles in a case discussion can include: 

• discussion “starters” get the conversation started with a question or posing the questions that their peers came up with; 
• facilitators listen actively, validate the contributions of peers, ask follow-up questions, draw connections, refocus the conversation as needed; 
• recorders take-notes of the main points of the discussion, record on the board, upload to CourseWorks, or type and project on the screen; and 
• discussion “wrappers” lead a summary of the main points of the discussion. 

Prior to the case discussion, instructors can model case analysis and the types of questions students should ask, co-create discussion guidelines with students, and ask for students to submit discussion questions. During the discussion, the instructor can keep time, intervene as necessary (however the students should be doing the talking), and pause the discussion for a debrief and to ask students to reflect on what and how they learned from the case activity. 

Note: case discussions can be enhanced using technology. Live discussions can occur via video-conferencing (e.g., using Zoom ) or asynchronous discussions can occur using the Discussions tool in CourseWorks (Canvas) .

Table 2 includes a few interactive case method approaches. Regardless of the approach selected, it is important to create a learning environment in which students feel comfortable participating in a case activity and learning from one another. See below for tips on supporting student in how to learn from a case in the “getting started” section and how to create a supportive learning environment in the Guide for Inclusive Teaching at Columbia . 

Table 2. Strategies for Engaging Students in Case-Based Learning

Approaches to case teaching should be informed by course learning objectives, and can be adapted for small, large, hybrid, and online classes. Instructional technology can be used in various ways to deliver, facilitate, and assess the case method. For instance, an online module can be created in CourseWorks (Canvas) to structure the delivery of the case, allow students to work at their own pace, engage all learners, even those reluctant to speak up in class, and assess understanding of a case and student learning. Modules can include text, embedded media (e.g., using Panopto or Mediathread ) curated by the instructor, online discussion, and assessments. Students can be asked to read a case and/or watch a short video, respond to quiz questions and receive immediate feedback, post questions to a discussion, and share resources. 

For more information about options for incorporating educational technology to your course, please contact your Learning Designer .

To ensure that students are learning from the case approach, ask them to pause and reflect on what and how they learned from the case. Time to reflect  builds your students’ metacognition, and when these reflections are collected they provides you with insights about the effectiveness of your approach in promoting student learning.

Well designed case-based learning experiences: 1) motivate student involvement, 2) have students doing the work, 3) help students develop knowledge and skills, and 4) have students learning from each other.  

Designing a case-based learning experience should center around the learning objectives for a course. The following points focus on intentional design. 

Identify learning objectives, determine scope, and anticipate challenges. 

• Why use the case method in your course? How will it promote student learning differently than other approaches? 
• What are the learning objectives that need to be met by the case method? What knowledge should students apply and skills should they practice? 
• What is the scope of the case? (a brief activity in a single class session to a semester-long case-based course; if new to case method, start small with a single case). 
• What challenges do you anticipate (e.g., student preparation and prior experiences with case learning, discomfort with discussion, peer-to-peer learning, managing discussion) and how will you plan for these in your design? 
• If you are asking students to use transferable skills for the case method (e.g., teamwork, digital literacy) make them explicit. 

Determine how you will know if the learning objectives were met and develop a plan for evaluating the effectiveness of the case method to inform future case teaching. 

• What assessments and criteria will you use to evaluate student work or participation in case discussion? 
• How will you evaluate the effectiveness of the case method? What feedback will you collect from students? 
• How might you leverage technology for assessment purposes? For example, could you quiz students about the case online before class, accept assignment submissions online, use audience response systems (e.g., PollEverywhere) for formative assessment during class? 

Select an existing case, create your own, or encourage students to bring course-relevant cases, and prepare for its delivery

• Where will the case method fit into the course learning sequence? 
• Is the case at the appropriate level of complexity? Is it inclusive, culturally relevant, and relatable to students? 
• What materials and preparation will be needed to present the case to students? (e.g., readings, audiovisual materials, set up a module in CourseWorks). 

Plan for the case discussion and an active role for students

• What will your role be in facilitating case-based learning? How will you model case analysis for your students? (e.g., present a short case and demo your approach and the process of case learning) (Davis, 2009). 
• What discussion guidelines will you use that include your students’ input? 
• How will you encourage students to ask and answer questions, summarize their work, take notes, and debrief the case? 
• If students will be working in groups, how will groups form? What size will the groups be? What instructions will they be given? How will you ensure that everyone participates? What will they need to submit? Can technology be leveraged for any of these areas? 
• Have you considered students of varied cognitive and physical abilities and how they might participate in the activities/discussions, including those that involve technology? 

Student preparation and expectations

• How will you communicate about the case method approach to your students? When will you articulate the purpose of case-based learning and expectations of student engagement? What information about case-based learning and expectations will be included in the syllabus?
• What preparation and/or assignment(s) will students complete in order to learn from the case? (e.g., read the case prior to class, watch a case video prior to class, post to a CourseWorks discussion, submit a brief memo, complete a short writing assignment to check students’ understanding of a case, take on a specific role, prepare to present a critique during in-class discussion).

Andersen, E. and Schiano, B. (2014). Teaching with Cases: A Practical Guide . Harvard Business Press. 

Bonney, K. M. (2015). Case Study Teaching Method Improves Student Performance and Perceptions of Learning Gains†. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education , 16 (1), 21–28. https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v16i1.846

Davis, B.G. (2009). Chapter 24: Case Studies. In Tools for Teaching. Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. 

Garvin, D.A. (2003). Making the Case: Professional Education for the world of practice. Harvard Magazine. September-October 2003, Volume 106, Number 1, 56-107.

Golich, V.L. (2000). The ABCs of Case Teaching. International Studies Perspectives. 1, 11-29. 

Golich, V.L.; Boyer, M; Franko, P.; and Lamy, S. (2000). The ABCs of Case Teaching. Pew Case Studies in International Affairs. Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. 

Heath, J. (2015). Teaching & Writing Cases: A Practical Guide. The Case Center, UK. 

Herreid, C.F. (2011). Case Study Teaching. New Directions for Teaching and Learning. No. 128, Winder 2011, 31 – 40. 

Herreid, C.F. (2007). Start with a Story: The Case Study Method of Teaching College Science . National Science Teachers Association. Available as an ebook through Columbia Libraries. 

Herreid, C.F. (2006). “Clicker” Cases: Introducing Case Study Teaching Into Large Classrooms. Journal of College Science Teaching. Oct 2006, 36(2). https://search.proquest.com/docview/200323718?pq-origsite=gscholar  

Krain, M. (2016). Putting the Learning in Case Learning? The Effects of Case-Based Approaches on Student Knowledge, Attitudes, and Engagement. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching. 27(2), 131-153. 

Lundberg, K.O. (Ed.). (2011). Our Digital Future: Boardrooms and Newsrooms. Knight Case Studies Initiative. 

Popil, I. (2011). Promotion of critical thinking by using case studies as teaching method. Nurse Education Today, 31(2), 204–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2010.06.002

Schiano, B. and Andersen, E. (2017). Teaching with Cases Online . Harvard Business Publishing. 

Thistlethwaite, JE; Davies, D.; Ekeocha, S.; Kidd, J.M.; MacDougall, C.; Matthews, P.; Purkis, J.; Clay D. (2012). The effectiveness of case-based learning in health professional education: A BEME systematic review . Medical Teacher. 2012; 34(6): e421-44. 

Yadav, A.; Lundeberg, M.; DeSchryver, M.; Dirkin, K.; Schiller, N.A.; Maier, K. and Herreid, C.F. (2007). Teaching Science with Case Studies: A National Survey of Faculty Perceptions of the Benefits and Challenges of Using Cases. Journal of College Science Teaching; Sept/Oct 2007; 37(1). 

Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. Second Edition. Jossey-Bass.

Additional resources 

Teaching with Cases , Harvard Kennedy School of Government. 

Features “what is a teaching case?” video that defines a teaching case, and provides documents to help students prepare for case learning, Common case teaching challenges and solutions, tips for teaching with cases. 

Promoting excellence and innovation in case method teaching: Teaching by the Case Method , Christensen Center for Teaching & Learning. Harvard Business School. 

National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science . University of Buffalo. 

A collection of peer-reviewed STEM cases to teach scientific concepts and content, promote process skills and critical thinking. The Center welcomes case submissions. Case classification scheme of case types and teaching methods:

• Different types of cases: analysis case, dilemma/decision case, directed case, interrupted case, clicker case, a flipped case, a laboratory case. 
• Different types of teaching methods: problem-based learning, discussion, debate, intimate debate, public hearing, trial, jigsaw, role-play. 

Columbia Resources

Resources available to support your use of case method: The University hosts a number of case collections including: the Case Consortium (a collection of free cases in the fields of journalism, public policy, public health, and other disciplines that include teaching and learning resources; SIPA’s Picker Case Collection (audiovisual case studies on public sector innovation, filmed around the world and involving SIPA student teams in producing the cases); and Columbia Business School CaseWorks , which develops teaching cases and materials for use in Columbia Business School classrooms.

Center for Teaching and Learning

The Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL) offers a variety of programs and services for instructors at Columbia. The CTL can provide customized support as you plan to use the case method approach through implementation. Schedule a one-on-one consultation. 

Office of the Provost

The Hybrid Learning Course Redesign grant program from the Office of the Provost provides support for faculty who are developing innovative and technology-enhanced pedagogy and learning strategies in the classroom. In addition to funding, faculty awardees receive support from CTL staff as they redesign, deliver, and evaluate their hybrid courses.

The Start Small! Mini-Grant provides support to faculty who are interested in experimenting with one new pedagogical strategy or tool. Faculty awardees receive funds and CTL support for a one-semester period.

Explore our teaching resources.

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• Overview of all CTL Resources and Technology
• The origins of this method can be traced to Harvard University where in 1870 the Law School began using cases to teach students how to think like lawyers using real court decisions. This was followed by the Business School in 1920 (Garvin, 2003). These professional schools recognized that lecture mode of instruction was insufficient to teach critical professional skills, and that active learning would better prepare learners for their professional lives. ↩
• Golich, V.L. (2000). The ABCs of Case Teaching. International Studies Perspectives. 1, 11-29. ↩
• Herreid, C.F. (2007). Start with a Story: The Case Study Method of Teaching College Science . National Science Teachers Association. Available as an ebook through Columbia Libraries. ↩
• Davis, B.G. (2009). Chapter 24: Case Studies. In Tools for Teaching. Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. ↩
• Andersen, E. and Schiano, B. (2014). Teaching with Cases: A Practical Guide . Harvard Business Press. ↩
• Lundberg, K.O. (Ed.). (2011). Our Digital Future: Boardrooms and Newsrooms. Knight Case Studies Initiative. ↩
• Heath, J. (2015). Teaching & Writing Cases: A Practical Guide. The Case Center, UK. ↩
• Bonney, K. M. (2015). Case Study Teaching Method Improves Student Performance and Perceptions of Learning Gains†. Journal of Microbiology & Biology Education , 16 (1), 21–28. https://doi.org/10.1128/jmbe.v16i1.846 ↩
• Krain, M. (2016). Putting the Learning in Case Learning? The Effects of Case-Based Approaches on Student Knowledge, Attitudes, and Engagement. Journal on Excellence in College Teaching. 27(2), 131-153. ↩
• Thistlethwaite, JE; Davies, D.; Ekeocha, S.; Kidd, J.M.; MacDougall, C.; Matthews, P.; Purkis, J.; Clay D. (2012). The effectiveness of case-based learning in health professional education: A BEME systematic review . Medical Teacher. 2012; 34(6): e421-44. ↩
• Yadav, A.; Lundeberg, M.; DeSchryver, M.; Dirkin, K.; Schiller, N.A.; Maier, K. and Herreid, C.F. (2007). Teaching Science with Case Studies: A National Survey of Faculty Perceptions of the Benefits and Challenges of Using Cases. Journal of College Science Teaching; Sept/Oct 2007; 37(1). ↩
• Popil, I. (2011). Promotion of critical thinking by using case studies as teaching method. Nurse Education Today, 31(2), 204–207. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2010.06.002 ↩
• Weimer, M. (2013). Learner-Centered Teaching: Five Key Changes to Practice. Second Edition. Jossey-Bass. ↩
• Herreid, C.F. (2006). “Clicker” Cases: Introducing Case Study Teaching Into Large Classrooms. Journal of College Science Teaching. Oct 2006, 36(2). https://search.proquest.com/docview/200323718?pq-origsite=gscholar ↩

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Teaching by the Case Method

• Preparing to Teach
• Leading in the Classroom
• Providing Assessment & Feedback
• Sample Class

Case Method in Practice

Chris Christensen described case method teaching as "the art of managing uncertainty"—a process in which the instructor serves as "planner, host, moderator, devil's advocate, fellow-student, and judge," all in search of solutions to real-world problems and challenges.

Unlike lectures, case method classes unfold without a detailed script. Successful instructors simultaneously manage content and process, and they must prepare rigorously for both. Case method teachers learn to balance planning and spontaneity. In practice, they pursue opportunities and "teachable moments" that emerge throughout the discussion, and deftly guide students toward discovery and learning on multiple levels. The principles and techniques are developed, Christensen says, "through collaboration and cooperation with friends and colleagues, and through self-observation and reflection."

This section of the Christensen Center website explores the Case Method in Practice along the following dimensions:

• Providing Assessment and Feedback

Each subsection provides perspectives and guidance through a written overview, supplemented by video commentary from experienced case method instructors. Where relevant, links are included to downloadable documents produced by the Christensen Center or Harvard Business School Publishing. References for further reading are provided as well.

An additional subsection, entitled Resources, appears at the end. It combines references from throughout the Case Method in Practice section with additional information on published materials and websites that may be of interest to prospective, new, and experienced case method instructors.

Note: We would like to thank Harvard Business School Publishing for permission to incorporate the video clips that appear in the Case Method in Practice section of our website. The clips are drawn from video excerpts included in Participant-Centered Learning and the Case Method: A DVD Case Teaching Tool (HBSP, 2003).

Christensen Center Tip Sheets

• Characteristics of Effective Case Method Teaching
• Elements of Effective Class Preparation
• Guidelines for Effective Observation of Case Instructors
• In-Class Assessment of Discussion-Based Teaching
• Questions for Class Discussions
• Teaching Quantitative Material
• Strategies and Tactics for Sensitive Topics

Curriculum Innovation

The case method has evolved so students may act as decision-makers in new engaging formats:

Game Simulations

Multimedia cases, ideo: human-centered service design.

TEACHING ENGLISH WITH THE CASE METHOD -A TENTATIVE APPROACH

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Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health Case-Based Teaching & Learning Initiative

Teaching cases & active learning resources for public health education, writing a "teaching" case study: 10 easy steps.

Using our case library

Access to cases.

Many of our cases are available for sale through Harvard Business Publishing in the  Harvard T.H. Chan case collection . Others are free to download through this website .

Cases in this collection may be used free of charge by Harvard Chan course instructors in their teaching. Contact  Allison Bodznick , Harvard Chan Case Library administrator, for access.

Access to teaching notes

Teaching notes are available as supporting material to many of the cases in the Harvard Chan Case Library. Teaching notes provide an overview of the case and suggested discussion questions, as well as a roadmap for using the case in the classroom.

Access to teaching notes is limited to course instructors only.

• Teaching notes for cases available through  Harvard Business Publishing may be downloaded after registering for an Educator account .
• To request teaching notes for cases that are available for free through this website, look for the "Teaching note  available for faculty/instructors " link accompanying the abstract for the case you are interested in; you'll be asked to complete a brief survey verifying your affiliation as an instructor.

Using the Harvard Business Publishing site

Faculty and instructors with university affiliations can register for Educator access on the Harvard Business Publishing website,  where many of our cases are available . An Educator account provides access to teaching notes, full-text review copies of cases, articles, simulations, course planning tools, and discounted pricing for your students.

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• DOI: 10.21009/stairs.5.1.7
• Corpus ID: 271991452

Vocational High School Teachers’ Perception of Project-based Learning Method in English Language Teaching: A Case Study

• Melvira Tanila , Sri Sulastini , Imas Wahyu Agustina
• Published in Starting AI Researchers… 16 August 2024

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Mergers and acquisitions

In this lesson, students learn and practise some advanced Business English vocabulary. They also watch a video and talk about mergers and acquisitions. 

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With this lesson, students talk about business, watch a video about competition and learn some useful Business English vocabulary. 

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In this ESL lesson on e-commerce students get a chance to talk about starting a business, watch a video about people who did, discuss e-commerce and its advantages and learn some vocabulary related to the topic. 

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In this lesson about projects, students watch a video ad, talk about their experience with projects and discuss different project management problems. 

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In this lesson, students watch a video about dealing with insecure bosses and learn some vocabulary while talking about leadership. They also discuss two case studies. 

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In this Business English speaking class, students watch a video about the future of bricks-and-mortar retail shopping and discuss shopping trends.

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In this lesson, students discover pros and cons of the linear and circular economy and learn some new vocabulary and collocations related to the topic. They also work on a case study and come up with strategies to transform a company following a linear model into a more circular one.

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There’s no business without challenges

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Building a stronger school community through Restorative Practice: a case study

What’s good for the student is good for the teachers. Restorative Practice (RP) is an educational approach that focuses on the importance of relationships. Many schools that use this approach apply it to students only, however research shows it is most beneficial when the whole school community is involved.

Monash Adjunct Associate Professor Kristin Elaine Reimer shares why RP is more impactful for students and teachers and even parents when they all play a part.

What is Restorative Practice?

Restorative Practice (RP) is an approach to education that starts with the premise that our relationships – to one another, ourselves, the planet, and ideas – are central. RP helps us handle the complexities of relationships in schools as we constantly build, evolve, and repair our connections.

In many schools, RP is seen as an integral part of the culture. For example, Fairholme College describes RP as “just the way that we do things,” emphasising that relationships are at the heart of all educational activities.

RP can be used proactively to ensure that every voice in the classroom is heard, allowing students to learn about one another’s lives, dreams and struggles. RP can also serve as a responsive role when conflict or harm arises, as a way to repair relationships and address the root causes of issues. This approach contrasts sharply with traditional disciplinary responses.

How to use restorative justice in your classroom and school - TeachSpace

At the heart of restorative justice is the idea that everyone is inherently worthy and that our connection to one another is what matters most. So how can teachers and schools create a restorative culture where both individuals and the school community can thrive?

Despite its benefits, RP is often applied primarily to student interactions – addressing student conflict, improving student relationships, and managing student behaviour. However, RP is most impactful when embraced as a whole school approach as Kristin Elaine Reimer shares in this article.

What’s in it for all school staff?

If RP is valuable for students, wouldn’t it also be valuable for the adults in school communities?

Just like students, adults in schools also: have a wide assortment of relationships; sometimes act in ways that are life-affirming and sometimes in ways that are destructive; and engage in both minor and major conflicts.

Research shows that the ‘kids do a better job of it than we do’ when it comes to RP. The teachers in one study expressed a need to work on their personal relational and restorative capacities for their own health and so as to not appear hypocritical to their students.

The benefits of Restorative Practice for the whole school community

When RP is practiced in a whole school approach, the evidence shows that the impact is widespread. Studies have found that the school climate improves as does student and staff perceptions of their wellness.

When all members of a school community are asked to share their ideas and feel that they are seen and valued, they can engage constructively and the school community as a whole is more robust.

When all members of a school community know that there are processes in place to deal with conflict and harm in a real way, they are more likely to address issues and seek to find solutions and ways forward.

CASE STUDY: Restorative Practice in action at Balaklava High School

RP can look very different from school to school. In 2024, I visited Balaklava High School in South Australia.

Balaklava HS began its restorative journey in 2019. Sonia Pringle, principal from 2019-2023, recalls the daily fights and weekly visits from police officers in 2019. She says that students and staff did not feel safe.

After attending a workshop on RP, Sonia asked for help, recognising that something different needed to be done to address the school culture at the time. Over the next few years, Balaklava HS began to train all their staff, their students and families on restorative principles and practices. The culture did not change overnight, but by 2022 suspensions, expulsions and incidents of violence had reduced dramatically; students and staff were noticeably more relaxed; and student enrolments were increasing alongside the public perception of the school.

An important initial focus was on the staff rather than the students. The leadership team at Balaklava worked intentionally to support teachers in building connections with one another, running circles in staff meetings. They noted how empowering it was for staff to develop their own restorative capacity to support themselves and students. Some of the restorative concepts also helped teachers to understand their own emotions and responses – as well as those of their students and families.

Lucy Thiel, Assistant Principal and Head of Middle School (2015-2024) reflected “It’s changed me as a person and I believe that’s happened for a lot of staff here. So although it’s had a great impact on this town and this community, personally, I’ve seen a lot of growth within myself.”

Sustainability of Restorative Practice at Balaklava High School

An approach such as RP can only have a widespread impact if there is an intentional and thoughtful implementation plan. At Balaklava, the leadership team recognised the need to focus not only on one part of their school community but on everyone.

• The team arranged for training sessions for all staff, built staff relationships and engaged restorative practices in staff meetings and adult interactions.
• Students transitioning into Balaklava were trained in restorative principles; all students encountered ‘circle time’ and other RP approaches in their classrooms and if conflict or harm arose.
• Families and community groups were invited to RP information nights as well as individually introduced to restorative ways of handling conflict.
• Yearly training continues at Balaklava for new staff, students and families, and as a way to refresh practices and policies.

RP is at its most powerful when viewed as an approach that should impact all of us – in how we relate to one another, ourselves, and the world. If it’s good enough for students, it’s good for us all.

This project was supported by the NED Foundation and Monash University's Advancing Women's Research Success Grant.

References / Resources

Aquino, E., Wadhwa, A., & Manchester, H. B. (2021 ). The Little Book of Youth Engagement in Restorative Justice: Intergenerational Partnerships for Just and Equitable Schools . Simon and Schuster.

Brown, M. A. (2018). Creating restorative schools: Setting schools up to succeed . Living Justice Press.

Evans, K.R. & Vaandering, D. (2022). The little book of restorative justice in education: Fostering responsibility, healing, and hope in schools: Revised and updated . Good Books.

Gregory, A. & Evans, K.R. (2020). The starts and stumbles of Restorative Justice Education: Where do we go from here? National Education Policy Center.

Reimer, K. (2019). “The kids do a better job of it than we do”: A Canadian case study of teachers addressing the hypocritical application of restorative justice in their school. The Australian Educational Researcher, 46 (1), 59-73.

Reimer, K.E. & Parker-Shandal, C. (2023). Restorative justice in education. In G. Noblit (Ed .). Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education . Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.1828

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Further reading

Seeing through the haze - school resources for teachers and students about vaping, bringing movement and emotion regulation into australian classrooms, let's talk teaching podcast, building better behaviour through effective classroom management, school belonging – students tell us what they need.

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Unlocking Teacher Agency for Professional Learning Through Connection-Building: Evidence from a Professional Development Program on China’s Standards of English Language Ability

• Regular Article
• Open access
• Published: 24 September 2024

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• Jie Zhang 1 &
• Yue Peng   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-2935-688X 2  

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This study explores how teachers construct and enact agency in professional learning from an activity theory perspective. Through a qualitative case study of three language teachers’ experiences within a professional development (PD) program focusing on China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE), this research identifies agency construction as a triadic connection-building process among teachers (subjects), the CSE learning target (tool) and teachers’ professional development goals (objects). The findings suggest that PD programs can be designed to assist teachers in building these connections by understanding their broader professional needs, guiding them to identify specific learning objectives relevant to their professional practices and supporting their application of the CSE to achieve these objectives. This study contributes to the literature on teacher professional learning by offering a nuanced understanding of teacher agency construction and proposing an agency-oriented approach to PD program design and implementation in facilitating teachers’ engagement with new tools like the CSE to support sustainable professional growth.

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Introduction

Teachers’ professional learning is pivotal for facilitating career advancement and ensuring quality education. Central to these objectives is the enhancement of teacher agency, which involves teachers’ active engagement in making choices and taking actions for professional learning and long-term professional development (Tao & Gao, 2017 ; Wang et al., 2021 ; Xu & Fan, 2021 ). Studies generally agree that properly designed and well-delivered professional development (PD) programs can be a critical avenue for bolstering teacher agency (Ahmad & Shah, 2022 ; Chaaban et al., 2023 ; Noonan, 2016 ). While existing studies have suggested features of PD programs to positively influence teacher agency (Brodie, 2021 ; Lai et al., 2016 ), the exploration of the mechanisms behind how and why these features contribute to agency construction remains limited. This research gap calls for a shift in focus from the programs themselves to the teachers, particularly on the processes of how they navigate PD programs to construct and exercise agency for professional learning.

To address this gap, this paper presents a qualitative case study that investigates teacher agency in the context of a PD program focused on China’s Standards of English Language Ability (CSE). Given the challenges teachers face in integrating the CSE into their professional practices, this study designed and implemented a PD program and investigated how teachers built agency with the assistance of the program.

Literature Review

Teacher agency for professional learning.

Teacher agency describes teachers’ active roles in making choices and taking actions in their professional lives (Wang et al., 2021 ). Priestley et al., ( 2015 ) summarized three major conceptualizations of agency in the current literature: agency as a variable, agency as a capacity and agency as a phenomenon/doing. In this study, we chose to understand teacher agency as a phenomenon/doing that can be ‘achieved and not as merely…a capacity or possession of the individual’ (Priestley et al., 2012 , p. 197). This adopted conceptualization acknowledges that agency can be constructed within a sociocultural context and thus allows us to better support teachers in this process.

Previous studies have shown that teacher agency has a powerful influence on many aspects of teaching, such as pedagogical practices (Peng & Pyper, 2021 ; Xu & Fan, 2021 ), assessment practices (Buchanan, 2015 ) and identity construction (Tao & Gao, 2017 ). In addition to its positive role in the aforementioned contexts, teacher agency for enhancing professional learning has recently gained more scholarly attention. Brodie ( 2021 ) investigated how teacher agency afforded and constrained teachers’ decisions to participate in professional learning communities, suggesting that the features of these learning communities have a direct bearing on the type of agency that teachers exercised. Lai et al. ( 2016 ), reported that teacher agency shapes teachers’ professional learning in cross-cultural teaching contexts, particularly when learning from peers from other cultures and exerting influence on peers.

Noonan ( 2016 ) proposed three dimensions of agency in the context of PD programs: agency over , agency during and agency emerging from. Agency over describes teachers opting into a learning experience or choosing one over another; agency during captures teachers’ active participation in PD; and a gency emerging from denotes teachers approaching their work in a new way based on what they learned after PD. Studies have generally suggested that for PD programs to exert a positive impact on teacher agency for professional learning, certain design features are important, such as responding to learning needs, ensuring active participation and allowing for application (Ahmad & Shah, 2022 ; Noonan, 2016 ).

While previous studies have largely acknowledged the impact of PD programs on teacher agency for professional learning, few studies have focused on the processes or mechanism of how teachers construct and exercise agency for learning in and beyond PD programs, particularly in relation to their specific professional contexts. Gaining insights into this process can guide teacher educators to better support teachers in achieving sustainable PD changes.

Understanding Teacher Agency from an Activity Theory Perspective

This study adopts activity theory (Engeström, 1987 ; Leont’ev, 1981 ; Vygotsky, 1987 ) to explicate teacher agency and investigates its construction process within PD programs. Although the term ‘agency’ does not directly appear in Vygoskian theories, agentic actions aiming at social transformation are essential to them (Hopwood, 2022 ; Stetsenko, 2020 ). From an activity theory perspective, agency is emergent and situated, highlighting the important role of social and material interaction (Roth et al., 2004 ). Hence, agency can be achieved or constructed by individuals by interacting with the environment, such as through taking part in PD programs. Such a view is well in line with understanding teacher agency as a phenomenon or doing (Priestley et al., 2012 ). Therefore, we chose to adopt activity theory for its potential to explicate the process of teachers constructing agency through their dynamic interactions with PD programs and the broader educational context.

Vygotsky ( 1987 ) posited a basic triangular representation of human activity (see Fig.  1 ), which consists of human beings (i.e. subjects ) working towards certain goals (i.e. objects ), through making use of tools . Two kinds of tools were specified, including psychological tools (e.g. language and ideas) and material tools (e.g. equipment and facilities). Thus, understanding the interaction between individuals and the environment from an activity theory perspective involves examining the mediation of human agency through tools and intended goals in the triangular representation of human activity (Verhoeven et al., 2021 ; Vygotsky, 1987 ).

Vygotsky’s basic triangular representation of human activity

A certain social-cultural activity under close examination does not exist in isolation but in a web of other activities, referred to as neighbouring activities. Examining an activity as a central focus usually involves understanding its neighbouring activities (Engeström, 1987 ; Peng, 2024 ). Thus, in order to better understand the PD program itself as a central activity in this study, it is important to identify its neighbouring activities, such as teachers’ daily practice and teachers’ professional advancement.

Another advantage of activity theory is identifying systemic contradictions, either among different elements within an activity or between a central activity and its neighbouring activities. Xu and Fan’s ( 2021 ) study examined teacher agency from the angle of systemic tension. Examining English language teachers’ endeavours to implement task-based language teaching in a Chinese university, the researchers suggested that agency emerged as teachers attempted to resolve the identified systemic contradictions in their specific instructional activities. While we acknowledge the important role of systemic tensions in activating teacher agency as illustrated by Xu and Fan ( 2021 ), we believe that the processes teachers employ to resolve systemic tension situated in their specific conditions are worth further scrutinization.

Teachers’ Professional Learning of Language Proficiency Scales

Language proficiency scales (LPS) are frameworks that provide behavioural scaling to describe what the attainment of a given level of language proficiency implies in practice (Alderson, 1991 ). They are often developed and implemented as education guidelines to align the learning, teaching and assessment of languages. Unlike the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), which has been widely adopted as an international benchmark, the CSE is tailored to suit the specific needs of the local Chinese context (Liu & Peng, 2017 ). The CSE was released in 2018 by China’s National Education Examinations Authority and National Language Commission. The development of the CSE was prompted by the lack of consistency in English language curricula across educational stages and disparities in proficiency levels among various language assessments (Liu & Peng, 2017 ). Since its launch, the intention of the CSE has been to guide and possibly regulate English language teaching and assessment practices in China (He & Chen, 2017 ). However, due to China’s decentralized education management structure, where different government departments oversee education at various stages, the CSE has not yet been officially integrated to align English teaching curricula and test outcomes or used to make significant admission and employment decisions. Without a top-down policy directive, the implementation of the CSE largely relies on teachers.

Studies have frequently documented problems using LPS, especially as teachers are found to have inadequate knowledge about LPS. For example, North ( 2014 ) observed that teachers tend to hold oversimplified views, often confusing CEFR with the European Language Portfolio and focusing solely on its six levels. Studies also point to challenges in teachers’ efforts to bridge international frameworks with local contexts. For example, a study by Yusra et al. ( 2022 ) revealed that teachers in Indonesian vocational high schools used local knowledge and expertise to select competencies from both global and national documents as their curriculum goals and exercised agency to accommodate local needs.

Given the challenges teachers have encountered, front-line teachers need substantial support through professional development opportunities to make LPS a more accessible and empowering tool in their daily professional practices, (Díez-Bedmar & Byram, 2019 ; Moonen et al., 2013 ; North, 2008 ). However, so far, few studies have examined teachers’ LPS learning experience within the specific context of a PD program.

In response to the identified gaps, this study investigated how teachers constructed teacher agency in learning and using the CSE through a PD program from the perspective of activity theory (Vygotsky, 1987 ). The following two research questions guided this study:

RQ1: What agentic actions of teachers can be identified in learning and using the CSE before, during and after taking part in the PD program? RQ2: Situated in the PD program, how do teachers construct agency for learning and using the CSE?

3. Research Methods

3.1 research context and participants.

The PD program in this study was tailored for the College English Department of a subsidiary college affiliated with a major university in East China. It was small in scale, with nine voluntary participants. The first author, who has extensive expertise in CSE development and validation, was responsible for this program. Given the goal of transiting the subsidiary college into an independent university, the teaching staff face significant pressure to meet elevated professional standards. Under such a context, the first author served as a guest professor to provide professional consultation to the teaching staff, and thus she had ongoing contact with the teachers. Three out of the nine participating teachers were identified as key informants. These teachers’ experiences were regarded as successful and insightful based on the following criteria: (1) showing active participation during the program, as observed in video recordings; (2) putting ongoing effort and seeking further guidance in learning and applying the CSE according to the observations of the instructor; and (3) making substantive progress in proposed projects as demonstrated from the collected artefacts. Their demographic information is presented in Table  1 .

Program Design

Before the program commenced, a preliminary survey was conducted with the entire teaching staff of the department. The survey results revealed that almost all teachers had limited knowledge about the CSE, and there was notable confusion between the CSE and other guidelines.

The online program consisted of eight two-hour sessions held each week throughout the summer break. The first six sessions were delivered in the form of lectures and included mini discussion sessions before, during and after each lecture session. The topics revolved around the following themes: (1) theoretical foundations and composition of CSE scales and descriptors, (2) development and validation of the CSE, and (3) application of and research on the CSE. The last two sessions were seminars in which the participants proposed action plans for adopting the CSE in their teaching and research, and the instructor provided feedback and suggestions. After the formal training sessions, the program extended for another two months during which the participants could make appointments with the instructor for one-on-one consultations if they desired. The consultation sessions were intended to provide further individualized guidance for the teachers to make use of the CSE in their practice.

The program design optimized prior CSE training lectures and followed guidelines proposed in previous studies in two ways. First, it tailored the content to the participants’ prior knowledge and their professional development needs (Ahmad & Shah, 2022 ). Secondly, it provided multiple opportunities for in-depth discussions, presentations, feedback and reflections in addition to the lecture sessions (Desimone, 2009 ), which ensured rich opportunities for active participation and created space for teachers to apply, amplify and multiply the knowledge that emerged from their PD (Noonan, 2016 ).

Data Collection

Informed consent was obtained to record all the sessions, and a preliminary round of data collection was conducted during the program from all nine participating teachers. They were also guided to write two reflections on how they understood the CSE and what they learned in the program at the middle and towards the end of the program.

The research team contacted all nine participants when the extended consultation sessions were over to enquire about the progress of their proposed projects. At this point, we conducted a preliminary overview of the information obtained from the multiple data sources mentioned above. We identified three teachers whose experiences were regarded as successful and insightful based on the three aforementioned criteria.

After obtaining these three teachers’ consent, semi-structured interviews were conducted via online conferencing platforms. The audio-recorded interviews ranged from 51 to 69 min in length. In the interviews, we invited the participants to share their attempts to use the CSE, the questions and challenges they encountered, what actions they took to deal with those challenges and their plans for the future. In addition, artefacts such as lesson plans, teaching materials and research proposals were collected if mentioned by the participants. All data were collected in Chinese, the participants’ native language.

Data Analysis

The analysis went through three major stages. The first stage was thematic coding (Terry et al., 2017 ) wherein five themes were generated to capture these teachers’ experiences in learning and using the CSE: (1) professional challenges, (2) prior knowledge and beliefs, (3) enhanced understanding, (4) conceptual and practical difficulties and (5) efforts taken to overcome the difficulties. We then composed a narrative revolving around the five themes for each teacher (Barkhuizen et al., 2013 ). The second step was a deductive analysis of each teacher’s narrative following Noonan’s ( 2016 ) framework to identify teachers’ agentic actions during, over and from the PD program. In the third step, we incorporated activity theory to examine how the three teachers constructed agency, first within each individual and then in the aggregate.

Efforts were taken to enhance the reliability of the study. Firstly, we worked on rapport building (McMillan & Schumacher, 2006 ) as the first author had close contact with the department and a solid understanding of the status of these teachers’ professional advancement. Secondly, data from the three key informants were triangulated from multiple sources and at different points in time. Lastly, the two researchers initially worked separately to analyse the data; in cases where any divergences emerged, a discussion was held to reach a consensus.

In this section, we present the narratives of the three teachers based on the thematic analysis of each case. This is followed by the Discussion section, where we apply a theoretical lens and aggregate the three cases to respond to the research questions.

Mary: Developing a New Course

Mary serves as the department chairperson, overseeing daily teaching and curriculum development. Amidst a new wave of institutional reform aimed at diversifying the course offerings, Mary decided to develop an English for specific purposes course on English for tourism, highlighting the local city’s natural and cultural assets. In response to the institution’s elevated academic evaluation standards, she sought a course development grant from the provincial administration and believed that successfully completing this project could boost her career. At the time of the PD program, Mary was in the initial phases of this project.

In the follow-up interview, Mary recalled the concerns she had about the CSE before the program. She believed that ‘such guidelines as the CSE may only have minimal impact on everyday classroom teaching since the university teaching is not officially aligned to it’. However, as the program unfolded, Mary started to see the potential for the CSE to provide detailed and systematic references for her course development. In one discussion session, Mary mentioned her recently granted project and acknowledged the immediate challenge. She admitted that her usual approach to course design was to emulate existing practices and reference similar textbooks, a method she recognized as lacking a ‘scientific and systematic perspective’.

She also wrote in her mid-term reflection, ‘Now I see the CSE as an analytical framework for defining the developmental trajectory of learners’ language proficiency’. According to Mary, the support that the CSE could provide included defining learning objectives, selecting level-appropriate teaching materials and designing teaching and assessment tasks to align with learning objectives.

Later in the seminar, Mary proposed composing unit learning objectives based on CSE descriptors. She believed that these objectives were much more substantive than those she would have created without the guidance of the CSE. For example,

After learning this unit, students can extract the main idea of the story when reading historical stories in simple language; can analyse both positive and negative characters when reading character stories; and can identify major events in the lives of the characters when reading abbreviated biographies. (Based on Table 26: Understanding Narratives, Level 3, CSE)

Mary also commented in the final reflection report,

This program helps me find my own way in optimizing the course development process. I think the seminar is particularly useful to me. It urges me to think about the challenges in my own project and provides an opportunity to discuss them with the instructor and peers.

After completing the program, Mary shared what she had learned about the CSE with her colleagues working on developing the same course. She also attended three one-on-one consulting sessions to seek further advice from the instructor. During the follow-up interview, she showcased a sample unit in her course materials, highlighting the teaching objectives, teaching materials and tasks that were designed based on CSE descriptors. However, she also confessed that challenges remained, stating, ‘The CSE is mainly developed for language use in general and academic domains. Our course targets English for tourism purposes and we need to adapt the original descriptors to fit the contexts in different units’. To address this, she articulated her pressing need for further learning.

Zoe: Improving Performance in Teaching Competitions

Zoe is a dedicated and enthusiastic teacher who is well-regarded by her students. However, she acknowledged her disinterest in research and academic publishing. Alternatively, to meet the professional advancement requirements, Zoe has actively engaged in teaching competitions. These teaching competitions generally consist of two elements, the submission of written lesson plans and the execution of live teaching demonstrations. While Zoe has achieved several awards at the university level, only winners from provincial-level competitions and above are recognized for academic promotions. Consequently, Zoe has set her sights on securing a victory in a provincial teaching competition. She confessed in her interview that before the program she thought the CSE was too theoretical and remote to function as a national framework and was therefore impractical for use as a to guide teaching.

After being introduced to the CSE, Zoe stated, ‘Now proficiency is no longer an abstract definition and concept for me, but rather tangible behavioural activities’, Bearing in mind the teaching competitions that she is familiar with, Zoe acknowledged room for self-improvement in her mid-term reflection report:

I observed a common issue in both my lesson plans and those of other contestants. I always felt that the needs analysis and learning objectives were written in a very general and vague way, failing to effectively guide the subsequent teaching design.

In preparation for the seminars, Zoe began to explore how the CSE could be applied to address this identified issue of being ‘general and vague’. In her presentation, Zoe presented a lesson plan for the upcoming provincial-level competition that was informed by the CSE:

When understanding texts with complex language and deep content, students can basically identify their themes, summarize the main content of the article, identify cultural differences in different business contexts and roughly describe their views and positions on business cultural differences. (Based on Table 28: CSE Level 8, Table 1 : CSE Level 5)

Zoe found that the revised learning objectives were more substantial, observable and measurable. This improvement boosted her confidence because, as she stated in the final reflection report, ‘I designed my lesson plans based on the national scale, not intuitively… I have theoretical underpinnings behind the design’. Consequently, Zoe recognized the value of the CSE and placed great importance on continuing to learn about it.

Her next challenge was to design demonstration teaching activities well aligned with the proposed teaching objectives. She found the descriptors not directly applicable to her own teaching design. In the lecture session on CSE scales and descriptors, she raised very specific questions on how the descriptors could be adapted and re-organized to inform classroom teaching. Her commitment to the CSE was also evident in her efforts to seek individual guidance from the instructor even after the program. Two months later, Zoe secured first place in a provincial competition, and she acknowledged in the interview the important role of having theoretical frameworks in her teaching design. She expressed willingness to take part in more professional learning programs to ‘enhance her competitiveness’ in teaching.

Peggy: Designing a Research Project

Peggy is a full-time university lecturer who is also undertaking part-time doctoral studies. She was among the first of her colleagues to tackle the elevated professional requirement by seeking advanced academic qualifications, believing that academic training benefits one’s long-term professional development. She was not initially registered in the program but joined a couple of days after it had started because she thought the CSE was mainly intended for teaching and might have limited use in her research project. She later recalled in the interview, ‘I heard from my colleagues who attended the first session that the application of the CSE can go well beyond teaching, and I wondered whether it could possibly be adopted in my research’.

Peggy was in the process of writing up her doctoral research proposal, which aimed to investigate how meta-cognitive strategy instructions enhanced learners’ English language proficiency. When asked during one of the discussion sessions to share a personal challenge in professional practices, Peggy mentioned her difficulties with the research proposal. For the research design, Peggy needed a specific benchmark to assess and classify learners’ language proficiency. She had originally proposed using a classroom quiz and the test results from a final exam, but her supervisor doubted the reliability and validity of such instruments. From the program, Peggy learned about using language proficiency scales as a common standard to compare and interpret test scores from different tests. She found that the CSE could well serve her purpose of measuring and classifying learners’ language proficiency in her research design. Thus, she was excited to claim in her mid-term reflection report, ‘Now I can rely on the CSE. Having read the descriptors, I am clear that the students who are suitable for my research purpose fall within CSE levels 4–5’.

Still, the question of how to identify students whose English language proficiency met these criteria remained. With a clear objective in mind, Peggy actively sought the instructor’s guidance on applying the CSE to meet her specific research needs. She participated in discussion sessions, posing specific questions about how well-established proficiency tests could be linked to CSE levels and how CSE descriptors could be selected and adapted to evaluate students’ growth.

By the end of the program, Peggy had become highly confident that the CSE would enhance the validity and reliability of her research design, as she stated in her final reflection report. She made one consultation appointment to discuss the possibility of adapting CSE descriptors to make a self-assessment questionnaire to supplement the post-test results in her study. This demonstrated her motivation and ability to expand the use of the CSE in her professional undertakings. At the time of the post-PD interview, Peggy had successfully defended her research proposal for her doctoral dissertation.

In this section, we first revisit the two research questions by applying theoretical interpretations of the findings. Next, we engage in a discussion on the theoretical and practical contributions of this study.

Revisiting RQ1: Enhanced Teacher Agency for Professional Learning

For RQ1, on identifying teachers’ agentic actions, the data suggested a high level of teacher agency among the three teachers, encompassing all three types of teacher agency as outlined by Noonan ( 2016 ). Firstly, all three teachers voluntarily opted to participate in this program, suggesting their agency over seizing opportunities to learn new knowledge and skills. This was especially evident in the case of Peggy, who approached the instructor to enrol after the program had started, upon hearing about it from colleagues. Additionally, agency during was observed as teachers directed discussions toward topics relevant to their own work and asked for additional materials to extend learning beyond the lectures. For instance, Mary presented her idea about substantiating the teaching objectives of her newly developed course during a built-in discussion session, along with her uncertainties. Finally, agency from PD programs was evident in the cases of Zoe and Mary. For example, Mary took the initiative to introduce the CSE to her colleagues and suggested making use of it in their teaching project.

Revisiting RQ2: Agency Construction Through Triadic Connection Building

For RQ2, about explicating how teachers construct agency, the study suggests that teachers constructing agency in PD programs occurs as they go about overcoming tensions through the facilitation of the program to build a triadic connection between themselves as subjects, the target CSE as a new tool and professional goals as objects.

Firstly, teachers established a connection between tools and objects as they were guided by the program to relate their professional goals to the CSE, which can be seen as the teachers’ motivation towards the tool. For example, Mary’s agency originated from leveraging the CSE as a tool to enhance the quality of her course development project, which in turn addressed the challenge of achieving career advancement. This can be understood as an attempt to resolve the tension between teachers and the object of career advancement when facing elevated professional requirements in a neighbouring activity (tension 1). Moreover, leveraging the CSE as a tool requires building upon essential knowledge and positive attitudes. Zoe talked about how she found the CSE too theoretical and remote because she barely understood its content and purpose; however, she felt less intimidated and considered using it after becoming more knowledgeable about it through the program. This common situation indicates tension between teachers and the tool of the CSE (tension 2). As teachers gained more knowledge about and developed positive attitudes towards the CSE, a sense of ownership was built, denoting the established connection between subject and object. Finally, another tension existed between the CSE as a tool and teachers’ objects (tension 3) due to their initial lack of experience in leveraging the CSE to reach their specific goals. Through the discussions, seminars and consultation sessions, the teachers were guided to see concrete ways of applying the CSE in their projects. As a result, they built a connection between the CSE and goals, although challenges remained. For example, through the instructor’s feedback and individual guidance, Peggy finally figured out how the CSE could be used as a benchmark to facilitate classifying and measuring learners’ language proficiency in her research project.

In sum, a constructed teacher agency—in the form of enhanced motivation, established ownership and supported application—is embodied through the established connections made during the PD program. Figure  2 provides a summary of the triadic connection building situated in the broader professional development activity, with lightning-shaped arrows indicating the three systemic tensions identified.

Agency construction in a professional development activity

Implications

The study adds to the existing knowledge by advancing our understanding of the nature of teacher agency. Building upon Prestley et al.’s ( 2012 ) conceptualization of agency as a phenomenon/doing, this study further demonstrates that teacher agency, especially regarding learning a new professional tool, can be understood as teachers making efforts to establish important connections between themselves, the targeted tool and goals in their professional practice. Such a conceptualization of teacher agency represents a balanced and dynamic understanding of subject and object (Eteläpelto et al., 2013 ); not only do we need to understand what teachers are trying to achieve and their interaction with the outside world but also who the teachers are and what they bring into their professional learning. Secondly, in addition to making use of activity theory analysis to uncover the systemic tensions connected to teacher agency (Xu & Fan, 2021 ), this study used activity theory to examine the key elements in teachers’ professional learning and, more importantly, to understand how interactions and connections among the key elements give rise to teacher agency.

The abovementioned connection-building perspective also yields practical insights into the kinds of support needed by teachers to unlock agency. We suggest teacher educators go beyond the traditional focus on knowledge transmission (Berry et al., 2019 ; King, 2016 ) and adopt an agency-oriented approach in designing PD programs. Understanding agency construction as the three-way connection-building process can guide teacher educators to carefully consider what tensions teachers are confronted with, what support teachers need and what challenges they have in building connections.

By examining the experiences of three language teachers situated participating in a PD program on the CSE, this study advances our understanding of teacher agency as a phenomenon/doing by further identifying it as teachers making efforts to build a triadic connection between themselves, the learning target of the CSE and their professional objectives, including resolving the systemic tensions among these elements. With this more nuanced understanding, we propose an agency-oriented approach for teacher educators to better support teachers in their professional learning, ultimately leading to more sustainable and impactful professional growth.

One limitation worth noting is that this study only reported three key informants who were identified as successfully constructing their agency in the PD program; thus, further validation of the research findings is needed. Furthermore, the study primarily investigated the short-term changes in teacher agency. Future research is needed to explore the long-term impact of PD programs on teacher agency and professional development.

Data availability

The qualitative data that support the findings of this study, including interview transcripts, reflection reports, and video recordings, are not publicly available due to privacy and ethical restrictions. Participants did not consent to having their full transcripts and videos shared publicly. However, anonymized excerpts from the data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request and with appropriate ethical approval.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by a grant from the National Education Examinations Authority of China (Funding reference number: NEEA-CA RGS202205). We would like to thank all participants in this research project for their help and support in this project.

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Zhang, J., Peng, Y. Unlocking Teacher Agency for Professional Learning Through Connection-Building: Evidence from a Professional Development Program on China’s Standards of English Language Ability. Asia-Pacific Edu Res (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-024-00914-6

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s40299-024-00914-6

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