“Педагогические  науки”/5.Современные методы преподавания.

Utarov K.A., Tuleshova M.T.

South Kazakhstan State University named after M.Auezov, Shymkent, Kazakhstan

THE WAYS OF TEACHING BY THE CASE METHOD

Case study teaching queries the social instructor. I do that all the time. In closer examination, the instructor describes how he injects current events, taken from newspaper accounts, into his classroom discourse, which he calls case.

A good case is the vehicle by which a chunk of reality is brought into the classroom to be worked over by the class and the instructor. A good case keeps the class discussion grounded upon some of the stubborn facts that must be faced in real-life situations. It is the anchor on academic flights of speculation. It is the record of complex situations that must be literally pulled apart and put together again for the expression of attitudes or ways of thinking brought into the classroom.

There are hundreds of cases that already exist for use in different disciplines and professional schools and upon which teachers may draw for their classroom work. In education, four recent texts add to the existing case repertoire. Teachers have also been know to write their own case narratives that are more appropriate to singular issues related to other own case courses.

Not every narrative is a case, and cases themselves have distinct characteristics. Teachers who have studied and written their own cases identify these attributes of cases:

- a case use narrative writing techniques;

- a case is based on a meaning knowledge base:

- a case is interesting to read:

- a case emphasizes showing rather than telling:

- a case invites the reader to become immersed in the experience:

- a case is built on single events that are generalizable;

- a case contains the big ideas or the important concepts that are to be taught as part of the curriculum:

- a case ends with a kicker – that is, instead of ending with a resolution, or leading students to the correct answer, the ending raises a question or dilemma that creates considerable cognitive dissonance.

The purpose of study question is not to lead students to know certain bits and pieces of information, or certain answers. They are, instead, intended to allow for examination of ideas, which, in turn, leads to increased understanding. The teacher who writes study questions knows the difference between framing questions that call for students merely to know, and those that call for students to use what they know to further their understanding.

Good study questions may not be too abstract, lest lead to shallow or unproductive responses. They may not be ambiguous, lest they be misunderstood by the students, resulting in discussion of unrelated issues. Teacher who have written study questions have identified what they see as their characteristics:

- they are open-ended, rooted in the higher order mental operations:

- they must be answered in many words:

- they have particular relevance to the students:

- they are sequenced according to pattern that allows for moving from analysis to generation of new ideas, to action:

- they are clearly focused on the big ideas:

- they call for examination of broad, cognitive issues – those issues that warrant thoughtful examination in the area of inquiry – as well as personal and affective dimensions of issues being studied.

Another feature of case –method teaching is seen in opportunities for students to discuss, in small study groups, their responses to the study that the case raises. These small group sessions may be arranged by out-of-class assignments. Or, small group sessions may take place within the class. There are benefits and limitations to each format: in the balance, it does not seem to matter whether the small group sessions take place inside the class or out, but only that students do, in fact, have such opportunities to discuss the cases with each other prior to the whole-class discussion. Teachers who have adequate in-class time to allow small group discussions within class sessions will benefit from observing how the study groups function, and how individual students function within groups.

Teachers who have never used case-method teaching sometimes point to the possibility that small group sessions will result in exchange of ignorance’s, that students will never evolve from their more primitive and naïve views of issues to more sophisticated understandings. While such primitivism in students’ thinking may be observed in their very first discussions, the strong emphasis on critical analysis and reasoning from the data that is demanded in the whole-class session eventually accounts for students’ progression to more thoughtful, intelligent discourse. For the small group discussions to be elevated to thoughtful inquiry, students must have increased experiences in building habits of thinking. This is served through the whole-class discussions.

Learning to debrief a case is not done in a day. Such skills are not learned from reading about them, or from listening to lectures, however good. For teachers to learn the skills of debriefing, they must first perceive differences between questions and responses that call for examination of issues, and those that call for answers. They must come to value the former as more important. This is only the beginning. What follows is the commitment and the inclination to do this kind of teaching in their classrooms – to try it – and to be consistently alert to improving one’s own skills, until they are elevated to art. While professional development sessions can introduce teachers to these interactive skills, the continued fine-tuning of the process must take place in a lifetime of actual classroom practice.

In sharpening one’s debriefing skills, it may be helpful to reflect on the following discussion –teaching guidelines:

1. Questions that ask students to think more generatively about issues of substance are drawn from the higher-order mental operations. These include asking for comparisons to be made, for observations, for classifications, for hypotheses, for interpreting data, for evaluating and identifying criteria for those evaluations, for imagining, for choosing actions, for applying principles to new situations.

2. The clearly-stated question makes in easier for the students to understand what is being asked of them.

3. A question that has a clear focus enables students to respond more productively.

4. The question that invites, rather that intimidates, makes it safe for students to give their best thoughts.

5. Productive questions make a demand on students to think about important issues, rather than come up with specific pieces of information.

6. Questions that are respectful of students’ feelings and opinions create a climate of trust in which they feel safe in offering their own ideas.

7. Questions that require students to show how they reason from the data allow them to use what they know in order to understand important concepts.

If the case drives the need to know, debriefings escalates that need. The students are motivated, they want to know how this could have happened. They want to find the data. Because answers have not been given, because ambiguities have been elevated, tension is increased and the need to know is urgent. Motivation is high to read more, to find out more, to discover more. Students are primed for further reading. This is one means by which knowledge building occurs. Information is not dispensed by some ordered schedule, but is now singularly relevant to students’ needs. Acquisition of content is thus insured.

Another feature of case-method teaching is seen in opportunities for students to discuss, in small study, their responses to the study questions that the case raises.

Will case method teaching make a difference in the education of teacher? Will such methodology do for the preparation of teachers what it has done in the education of business school graduated and doctors? What are the promises of case-method teaching, and what are some of the obstacles that lie in wait for the intrepid teacher-educator/case teacher?

But life on the path of learning to teach with cases is not exactly a rose garden. Teachers will, of course, have to learn the skills of debriefing a case – about as easy as learning to play a Bach fugue. Teachers will have to learn to give up classroom control – a frightening and intimidating thought for those professors for whom control is everything in teaching. Teachers will have to take a good, long, hard look at what they do, and give up any illusions that what they might have labeled as teaching with case is in fact the real thing. Cases will have to be found, or even written, that are appropriate to the needs of particular course. Teachers will have to be patient in waiting for the study groups to evolve in their discussions from primitive and naive thinking, to more sophisticated ways of dealing with the issues. Teachers will, in effect, have to undergo a ‘paradigm shift’ in their conceptions of what teaching actually is. Such changes are not easily mode, but all are accessible for those teachers who wish to embark on such a teaching pathway.

Will case-method teaching take root in teacher education? What is the prognosis for professors of education making shifts of such magnitude in what they do? Without a crystal ball, it is impossible to say for sure. If wonders never cease, perhaps it raises hope for the future of teacher education.

Literature

1. G. V. Rogova.Methods of teaching English Moscow “Proschveshenya” 1983.

2. Gillian Brown. Listening to spoken English.

3. Geoffrey Broughton. Teaching English as a foreign language.

4. F. Chaplen, Communication Practise in spoken English, Oxford University Press, 1975.

5. Understanding writing. J.Kinney., D.Jones,. J.Scally

6. Teaching reading skills in foreign language. Ch.Nutall

7. Changes Times in Teacher education. M.F.Wideen,. P.P.Grimmett.