1 case studies - Materials Science • Higher Education ...

1 teaching Materials Using case StudiesClaire Davis & Elizabeth WilcockPublished by:The UK Centre for Materials EducationCopyright 2003 Series Edited by:Caroline Baillieand Leone BurtonIllustrations by:Z*qhygoemDesigned by:Unity CommunicationsPrinted by:Ashley PrintersSetting priorities andallocating tasks in the Chocolate case Study Other Booklets Inthe Series:Attracting Materials Students Cheryl AndersonDeveloping Professional Skills John WilcoxMaterials for Engineers Mike BramhallMaterials Chemistry Stephen SkinnerEnvironmental Materials Cris ArnoldAssessing Materials Students Lewis EltonTutoring Materials Adam Mannisand Shanaka KatuwawalaTeaching Materials Lab Classes Caroline BaillieTeaching Materials Using case studies Claire Davis and Elizabeth WilcockLearning Materials at a Distance Mark EndeanLearning Materials in a Problem BasedCourse James Busfield and Ton PeijsEvaluating a Materials Course Ivan MooreTeaching Materials Using case Studies1 INTRODUCTIONMany of our community, lecturers in the disciplines of andrelating to Materials Science and engineering , haveexpressed interest in simple-to-use guides to support theworkshops we run on learning and teaching .

2 As part of our Thematic Groups scheme, we have established 12 themesfor this special focussed support, each of which is led by a Thematic Group Leader . During the first two years of thescheme, workshops have been held on these themes andthis has enabled the leaders to further explore relevantissues with lecturers and feed the results into this series ofbooklets. Learning and teaching is a continuous cycle represented inthe diagram below:We can start at any point around the cycle. If we are in thebusiness of teaching it certainly helps if there is someone toteach! Not such a funny joke in the current climate withreducing numbers of students in technical one of our main concerns is how can we approachschools and work with school students to attract them intoMaterials areas. Attracting Materials Students by CherylAnderson explores how we can work with schools and thewider community to ensure a diverse and inclusive group ofable students on our courses.

3 Once we have a class to teach,what would we like to teach them? The first reaction tosuch a question is to make a list of topics or , this is only a beginning, and a very limited only are there are many skills and attitudes that wewould like them to develop, but learning is more complexthan simply the what. It also involves the how. DevelopingProfessional Skills by John Wilcox explores the approach toempowering students to track their own skills developmentas they progress. Materials for Engineers by MikeBramhall, Materials Chemistry by Stephen Skinner and Environmental Materials by Cris Arnold, focus on what wemight like to include in a specialised curriculum, fortargeted students. The knowledge, skills and attitudes orlearning objectives identified for each course must beassessed if we are going to give credit to students forlearning what we want them to learn.

4 Assessing MaterialsStudents by Lewis Elton gives support to the developmentof assessments and assignments that do in fact give marksfor those things we want to acknowledge, rather than thoseaspects that are simply easy to assess! Believe it or not it is only at this stage that we can reallyconsider how we should teach the students to learn thesethings. We all know about lectures but will we use inaddition or instead: tutorials ( Tutoring Materials by AdamMannis and Shanaka Katuwawala), labs ( TeachingMaterials Lab Classes by Caroline Baillie), case studies ( teaching Materials Using case studies by Claire Davisand Elizabeth Wilcock), problem based learning ( LearningMaterials in a Problem Based Course by James Busfield andTon Peijs) or even learning at a distance ( LearningMaterials at a Distance by Mark Endean)?The final stage before we start all over again is to see if wehave done what we intended to do.

5 We may have alreadyfound out whether, and how effectively, the students learntwhat we wanted them to ( if the assessment matched thelearning objectives and if our teaching methods suited thestudents learning approaches). If this has not proved to beas ideal a scenario as we would have wished we will needfurther input to analyse what has happened. Were thecourse objectives inappropriate? Am I sure that theassessment did not force my students into taking a surfaceapproach? Did the students take on surface approaches tolearning because of my teaching ? Ivan Moore s Evaluatinga Materials Course will give you the tools of the trade toconduct your own thorough evaluation and enable you todevelop an improved course for next year s cohort. Whichbrings us back to the beginning of the cycle. Are weattracting students with appropriate abilities for thiscourse? And on it goes.

6 In writing these booklets, and running the workshops wehave had a lot of fun and we hope that you catch the flavourof this in using them. Stay in touch and give us feedbackabout your ideas in implementing any of the suggestions. As a community we can learn most from each Baillie and Leone BurtonEditors teaching Materials Using case Studies2 WHY THIS BOOKLET? teaching and learning styles are, by their very nature,changing and in recent years there has been a noticeablemove from lecture-based activities towards more student-centred activities. case studies are an increasingly popularform of teaching and have an important role in developingskills and knowledge in students. This booklet explores theuse of the case -based approach to support engineeringeducation and, more specifically, their role in MaterialsScience related Higher Education courses. This will includelooking at the traditional Materials Science andEngineering courses as well as the more multidisciplinarycourses ( Biomedical Materials Science , Sports andMaterials Science etc.)

7 This booklet highlights the good practice we haveidentified, and also discusses our experiences (both goodand bad) of the adoption and implementation of this typeof learning activity. We hope that by explaining ourrationale for the adoption of case studies , and by discussingtheir development and structure, you will be encouraged toconsider your own teaching methods and whether thisapproach, or aspects of it, is appropriate to you. At the endof the booklet are 5 examples of case studies that illustratesome of the different topics discussed ADOPTEDIn this booklet, we consider the topic of case studies in itsentirety. We begin by outlining our reasons forincorporating case studies into the teaching syllabus andthen look at different aspects of case studies , includingsubject choice and content development, running andstructuring of case studies , and assessment methods. Goodpractice, and examples of ideas that have been tried andfound wanting, are discussed.

8 Gaining feedback on our casestudies from both students and staff has been an importantaspect of our research and this is also IS A case STUDY?It is now documented that students can learn moreeffectively when actively involved in the learning process(Bonwell and Eison, 1991; Sivan et al, 2001). The casestudy approach is one way in which such active learningstrategies can be implemented in our institutions. There are anumber of definitions for the term case study. For example,Fry et al (1999) describe case studies as complex exampleswhich give an insight into the context of a problem as wellas illustrating the main point. We define our case studies asstudent centred activities based on topics that demonstrate3 teaching MaterialsUsing case StudiesClaire Davis & Elizabeth Wilcocktheoretical concepts in an applied setting. This definition ofa case study covers the variety of different teachingstructures we use, ranging from short individual case studiesto longer group-based activities.

9 Examples of different stylesof case studies are given at the end of this is at this point that it is important to make a distinctionbetween this type of learning and problem-based structure and format of our case studies can be likenedto project-based learning as described by Savin-Baden(2003). Savin-Baden highlights the differences betweenproblem-based learning and project-based learning andthese can be summarised as follows:Table 1: Differences and similarities between project-based learning(similar in structure to case study learning) and problem practice there is overlap between the two teachingmodes and we should not worry too much about cleardistinctions. Many of the discussion points in this bookletwill be relevant to both case studies and problem-basedlearning USE case studies INTEACHING?The discipline of Materials Science and engineering is idealfor using case study teaching because of the wealth ofpractical, real life examples that can be used to contextualisethe theoretical concepts.

10 Educational research has showncase studies to be useful pedagogical tools. Grant (1997)outlines the benefits of using case studies as an interactivelearning strategy, shifting the emphasis from teacher-centredto more student-centred activities. Raju and Sanker (1999)demonstrate the importance of using case studies inengineering Education to expose students to real-worldissues with which they may be faced. case studies have alsobeen linked with increased student motivation and interestin a subject (Mustoe and Croft, 1999). In our experience ofusing case studies , we have found that they can be used to:Allow the application of theoretical concepts to be demonstrated, thus bridging the gap between theoryand active learning. Provide an opportunity for the development of key skills such as communication, group working and problem the students enjoyment of the topic andhence their desire to courses already have some case study teaching inthem and we have introduced a greater extent of case -basedapproach in all of our courses for the above reasons.