case study examples in education

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.

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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).

Teaching Guides

Quick Links

• Services for Departments and Schools
• Examples of Online Instructional Modules

• Case Studies

Teaching Guide

• Using the Open Case Studies Website
• Using the UBC Wiki
• Open Educational Resources
• Case Implementation
• Get Involved
• Process Documentation

Case studies offer a student-centered approach to learning that asks students to identify, explore, and provide solutions to real-world problems by focusing on case-specific examples (Wiek, Xiong, Brundiers, van der Leeuw, 2014, p 434). This approach simulates real life practice in sustainability education in that it illuminates the ongoing complexity of the problems being addressed. Publishing these case studies openly, means they can be re-used in a variety of contexts by others across campus and beyond. Since the cases never “end”; at any time students from all over UBC campus can engage with their content, highlighting their potential as powerful educational tools that can foster inter-disciplinary research of authentic problems. Students contributing to the case studies are making an authentic contribution to a deepening understanding of the complex challenges facing us in terms of environmental ethics and sustainability.

The case studies are housed on the UBC Wiki, and that content is then fed into the Open Case Studies website. The UBC Wiki as a platform for open, collaborative course work enables students to create, respond to and/or edit case studies, using the built in features (such as talk pages, document history and contributor track backs) to make editing transparent. The wiki also also helps students develop important transferable skills such as selection and curation of multimedia (while attending to copyright and re-use specifications), citation and referencing, summarizing research, etc. These activities help build critical thinking, creativity, collaboration, and digital literacy.

This guide is intended to help you get started with your case study project by offering:

• Information on how to use the UBC Wiki
• Research that supports case studies as effective tools for active learning
• Instructional strategies for teaching effectively with case studies
• Sample case study assignments used by UBC instructors

The UBC Wiki is a set of webpages accessible to anyone with a CWL account and has many unique features in addition to collaborative writing including the ability to revive previous drafts, and notifications setting that can support instructors in monitoring individual student contributions, or support students to better manage their collaborative efforts on their own. Using a wiki successfully in a course, however, requires proper facilitation and support from instructors and TAs.

The following links are helpful in getting started:

General Information:

• Navigating the Wiki: http://wiki.ubc.ca/Help:Navigation
• Wiki Help Table of Contents: http://wiki.ubc.ca/Help:Contents
• Frequently Asked Questions: http://wiki.ubc.ca/Help:Contents#Frequently_Asked_Questions

Self-Guided Wiki Tutorials:

• Getting Started With UBC Wiki - short video and links to common formatting needs.
• Beginner: http://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:MediaWiki_Basics/Learning_Activities/Beginner
• Intermediate: http://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:MediaWiki_Basics/Learning_Activities/Intermediate
• Advanced: http://wiki.ubc.ca/Documentation:MediaWiki_Basics/Learning_Activities/Advanced

The idea that learning is "active" is influenced by social constructivism , which emphasizes collaboration in the active co-construction of meaning among learners. Simply put, learning happens when people collaborate and interact with authentic learning tasks and situations. These ideas are becoming increasingly prevalent in the scholarly literature on teaching and learning (see for instance, Wilson 1996) and have important implications for pedagogy, especially in the university where traditional lectures remain the dominant instructional strategy. When students are asked to respond to authentic problems and questions, they assume responsibility for the trajectory of their learning, rather than it being decided upon by the instructor. This practice, also referred to as “student-centered learning” allows the students to become “active” participants in the construction of their understandings.

One of the easiest ways to develop higher order cognitive capacities (critical thinking, problem solving, creativity etc.) is through pedagogies that support inquiry based learning, thereby allowing students the opportunity to “develop [as] inquirers and to use curiosity, the urge to explore and understand...to become researchers and lifelong learners” (Justice, Rice, Roy, Hudspith & Jenkins,2009, p. 843). Because case studies are often collaborative, they provide unique inquiry based learning opportunities that will foster active engagement in student learning, while also teaching transferable skills (teamwork, collaboration, technology literacy). That the cases never “end” and that they can be considered by students and faculty from all over the UBC community, highlights their potential as powerful educational tools that can foster inter-disciplinary research of authentic problems.

Using case studies successfully in a course requires purposefully scaffolded support from the instructor and TA's. Instructors must properly introduce assignments, as well as facilitate and monitor the progress of students while they work on assignments. This will help ensure that students understand the purpose and value of the work they are doing and will also allow instructors and TA's to provide appropriate support and guidance.

The following instructional strategies will help you teach effectively using case studies:

1. Getting Started:

• Outline Your "Big Picture" Goals and Expectations : Communicate to students what you are hoping they will learn (Or have them tell you why they think you would ask them to work with case studies!). It is also important to discuss the quality of work you expect and offer specific examples of what that looks like. If you have any, look at exemplars of past student work, or simply evaluate existing case studies to generate a list of defining characteristics. Doing this will provide students with valuable tangible and visual examples of what you expect.
• Define "Case Study" : Don't assume that students understand what case-studies are, especially at the undergraduate level. Take the time to talk about what a case study is and why they are powerful teaching/learning tools. This can be facilitated during a tutorial with small group discussion. See Case Study Resources.
• Pick Case Studies Purposefully : If you are planning on having students evaluate case studies, make sure to read them in advance and have a clear understanding of why you chose it. This will help facilitate discussion and field student questions.
• Set the Context for the Evaluating or Creating the Case Study : Whether you are having students write the case studies themselves, or you are having them examine an existing case, it is important to set the parameters for how you want students to approach the problem. For instance, you may have them evaluate the case from the perspective of an industry professional, a community group or member, or even from their own perspective of university students. Whatever you choose, make sure you communicate this clearly.
• Set the Parameters for Evaluating or Creating the Case Study : Clearly outline all the information you want students to find out, and how you want it reported. You may want students to focus on some areas and disregard others, or you may want them to consider all the facts equally. Whatever you choose, make sure you communicate this clearly.

2. Use, Revise, and/or Create

• Use the case studies as they are : One way to use the case studies in courses is to have students read and discuss them as they are. They can be read on the open case studies website, downloaded from the wiki and embedded into another website, or downloaded in PDF or Microsoft Word format (see this guide for how to embed or download the case studies)
• If you are only making minor edits such as fixing a broken link or a typo, please go ahead. You could add a note about this to the "discussion" page to explain (see the tab at the top of each wiki page).
• You could add a section at the bottom of the case study with a perspective on it from your discipline. Some of the case studies already have sections at the bottom that are titled "What would a ___ do?" You can add a new one of those to give a different disciplinary perspective.
• If you want to make more substantial changes, it would be best if you copied and pasted the wiki content into a new page so as to preserve the original. The original version may be used in other courses by the instructor/students who created it, so making significant changes could be a problem! And those changes might be reverted by the original instructor and students (wiki pages keep all past versions, and those changes can easily be reverted). If you would like to substantially revise a case study, please contact Christina Hendricks, who can help you get started and then get the new version into the collection: [email protected]
• Create new case studies : We are always looking for new case studies for the collection! If you think you would like to write one, or involve your students in writing one, please contact Christina Hendricks: [email protected]

3. Guiding Case Study Discussions:

• Ask open-ended questions : Open-ended questions cannot be answered using "yes" or "no". Be careful when wording discussion questions, allowing them to be as open as possible.
• Listen Actively : Actively listen to students by paraphrasing what they have said to you and saying it back (e.g. "What I heard is....Is this what you meant?"). This will help you pay close attention to what they say and clarify any possible miscommunication.
• Role Play : Ask students to take on the perspective of different interested parties in considering the case study.
• Compare and Contrast : Ask students to compare and contrast cases in similar areas from the open case study collection. Discuss whether there are similar problems or possible solutions for the cases.

4. Staying on Track:

• Develop a Protocol for Collaboration : Have students outline how they will collaborate at the start of the assignment to ensure that the work is shared evenly and that each student has a purposeful role.
• Set Benchmark Assignments : Make sure students stay on track by requiring smaller assignments or assessments along the way. This can be as simple as coming to tutorial with a portion of the case-study written for peer critique and analysis.
• Give Students Adequate Time : Allow students enough time to read and consider case-studies thoughtfully. The more time you can provide, the less overwhelmed students will feel. This will encourage them to go deeper with their case study and their learning.
• Forestry : In this assignment, students in a graduate course wrote their own case studies. This link provides information on the assignment, a handout given to the students, and a grading rubric: Short-Term Assignment: What is Illegal Logging? - Teacher Guide
• Political Science : Students in a third-year political science class responded to a case study written by the instructor. They worked in groups to create action plans for climate change problems. This link provides information on the assignment as well as a handout given to the students: Class Activity: Action Plans for Climate Change - Teacher Guide
• Education : Teacher candidates in the Faculty of Education respond to case studies written by students. They discuss a case study and respond to questions with the goal of identifying the issues raised, perspectives involved and possible ways forward. The goal is to support decision making related to online presence and social media engagement. Digital Tattoo Case Studies for Student Teachers Facilitators' Guide