Lesson Plan for Case Based Learning - What does it Look Like?
Context: a "Case Studies" class in a Respiratory Therapy program where this example is taking place in a formal classroom.
Example Case: A school age asthmatic arrives in the emergency department
Using Merrill's 4 phased model of instruction (Reigeluth) , a sample lesson plan will be outlined.
- Activation: activating prior knowledge
- Demonstration: showing the group how its done
- Application: applying new knowledge
- Integration: incorporating new knowledge in to every day life
Click here to see the handout that would be given to the participants.
1. Activation
2. Demonstration
3. Application
4. Integration
- how to take a medical history
- how to monitor and asses vital signs
- how to do a physical assessment of patient
- how to use oxygen therapy appropriately
- knowledge of asthma pathophysiology
- knowledge of pharmacology related to asthma
- knowledge of asthma treatment option
- knowledge of peak flow device use
- knowledge of arterial blood gas interpretation
2. Demonstration
- have students from previous years or collegues come in at the beginning of the semester and perform a demonstration of what a good case discussion looks like in front of the class
- one demonstration at the beginning of the semester will be sufficient to show the level of participation from each member will be required
3. Application
- performing case; whether it be as a role play, actually doing the required skills or discussing it together as a group
- Taking the medical history from the parents
- doing the physical assessent
- deciding which tests would be beneficial to order at this point
- deciding which treatments would be beneficial at this point and beyond
- being able to communicate effectively with the family and other members of the health care team
4. Integration
- can take the form of debriefing and/or journalling
- discussing what the actual situation was
- discussing what went well from each perspective role
- discussing what each perspective role could have done better
- discussing what knowledge, skills and judgments were required during the case
- discussing what was learned from the case
Rationale
- This strategy suits the learning goals of quick thinking, critical analysis and applying prerequisite knowledge all together in one class.
- The possible constraints for the use of this strategy have been thought through; there has been enough time allotted for the case study to be discussed and the class size is small enough (less than 30) to be effective for participation as well as enough faculty members for the number of students
- The instructional environment will be best suited for this strategy if the classroom is arranged in a way that the participants can be facing each other; in a circle or horseshoe shape.
- In order to have the participants prepared to engage in the case study they will had to have participated in a number of prerequisite classes in order to understand the material discussed
- Because the content is not new and won't require a lot of information to be conveyed at once, this strategy will be ideal to pull together the participants' knowledge base and link material together
- Nature of the learner will affect whether they become participatory or not in the case. Outgoing students may be more apt to speaking aloud and participating in front of the other learners where as the quiet students may not feel as comfortable to do so.
- The power is to be distributed between all of the participants. Each case discussed, the students can play a different role thereby trying to alleviate any power struggles associated with they roles they are given. The facilitator is to act as a resource person and not exert any power over the participants.