Case Teaching & Analytical Tools

High School Case Teaching Initiative

Case teaching engages the heart of an issue. As practiced in law, medical, and business schools, the case is a real life challenge - and students are responsible for applying knowledge from their field to decide, solve, or somehow address a problem.

The purpose of this Initiative is to open a dialog between teachers, administrators, and professors to review the civic mission of schools and to test how case teaching can be implemented in high school history-social science required core courses.

While university and professional school courses may assign lengthy readings, the high school program needs short cases. We are very grateful to National Public Radio and to Marketplace from American Public Media for permission to re-post their transcripts on our Activities Datatbase as case-customized transcripts. Their broadcasts are a goldmine source for concise and compelling cases.

A feature piece of the case teaching method is the case discussion where students are responsible for having read the case and know they will be called upon to contribute to an analytical discussion. Students are expected to listen to the comments of others in order to build upon a point or to argue against an expressed opinion. They are expected to cite specifics or evidence presented in the case. Most importantly, the teacher will have selected the case based on its illustration of complexity of major issues in the course. The case thus affords an opportunity for students to apply concepts or theories, use analytical tools, test assumptions, see relationships, and make connections - the practice of critical thinking to construct deep understanding.

The goal of project dialog is to identify guiding questions, frameworks, and tools that promote skilled civic engagement in a global age. Topics are integrated in the context of governance in an era of increasing globalization and more complex impacts of technology. The case teaching method, as a problem-solving approach to content, requires the teacher to have a clear road map of course objectives with respect to relevance, significance, precedence, relationships, or multiple perspectives. When students are done with their World History semester that included coverage of WWI, WWII, and the cold war, what should they know about causes of war and security questions facing the world today? After senior semesters of Government and Economics, what should high school graduates be able to discuss regarding challenges to the American political-economy in their lifetime?

The case teaching method, as piloted in this Initiative, is an adaptation of the Pew Faculty Fellowship in International Affairs sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts in the early 1990s at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. Our lead instructor, Professor Steven Lamy, was one of the three instructors for the Pew Faculty Fellow program and brought the case teaching method to the USC School of International Relations. A few of the pilot cases in this project are adapted with permission from Georgetown University's Institute for the Study of Diplomacy which now houses the Pew case collection. CALIS has permission to adapt more cases - and teachers are welcome to request a case they wish to adapt as part of this project.

A case is not always what we think of as a 'case study.' The case is an actual historical event, but the case reading may be an article from the newspaper or a primary source document, and is not always an expository account. The best case is an excellent reading - accessible and engaging. Teachers prepare students in advance of the case with a framework by which to approach the issue and concepts. Students prepare for a case discussion by "studying the case reading" - applying the framework as a guide to identify controversies, causes, choices, assertions, or assumptions.

Cases - as good stories - help students see the challenges or trade-offs that faced the players involved in an historic or current event. There are two types of cases:
"A retrospective or narrative case presents a comprehensive history of a problem - complete with multiple actors, contending interests, and the real outcome; students identify alternative options and analyze why this outcome resulted, when other - possibly "better" solutions - existed. A decision-forcing case stops short of revealing the outcome, thus forcing students to identify and assess the range of possible options for action. Typically, these cases have an "Epilogue," which tells "the rest of the story"" again, students analyze why this was what happened."*

There are a variety of materials ready to jumpstart the process of classroom implementation, but as highlighted in the name - and the key to case teaching - is the teacher. Who would have guessed? Since we learn best by doing, teachers in this Initiative are asked to dive in. It is a developmental process. As we continue in Phase 2, there are many more resources and lessons that have been created and implemented, but a vast set of topics remain as well as the tasks of better sequencing, overall integration and interdependence of issues, appropriateve assessments, and the best guiding questions for students in today's high school social science program.

While teachers will end up with "lesson plans" of how to use sample project cases to help students analyze an issue, the goal of the project is not simply to develop a collection of case teaching lesson plans. More important is the dialog - to develop questions, frameworks, and tools that address the core curriculum - and the modeling of a wide variety of case readings and ability to build and guide a rich case discussion around these vital questions and employing these analytical tools. It is the case teaching method we wish to develop at the high school level where teachers are equipped to engage students in analytical reading, speaking, listening, and writing - whatever the event, topic, or enduring social question.