The ID CaseBook

Case Studies in Instructional Design

Peggy A. Ertmer, James A. Quinn, Krista D. Glazewski, Peggy A. Ertmer, James A. Quinn, Krista D. Glazewski

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781351374552
• Edition: 5
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

The fifth edition of The ID CaseBook provides instructional design students with 26 realistic, open-ended case studies that encourage adept problem-solving across a variety of client types and through all stages of the process. After an introduction to the technique of case-based reasoning, the book offers three sections dedicated to K-12, post-secondary, and corporate clients, respectively, each composed of varied, detailed cases created by instructional design experts. The cases and their accompanying discussion questions encourage students to analyze the available information, develop action plans, and consider alternative possibilities in resolving problems. The esteemed editor team of Peggy A. Ertmer, James A. Quinn, and Krista D. Glazewski continue their considerable contribution to the teaching of instructional design with this thoroughly revised and updated volume.

Part I

The Case-learning Process

Strategies and Reflections

Peggy A. Ertmer, James A. Quinn, and Krista D. Glazewski

Collecting stories from experienced practitioners will provide relevant information that can be used for interpreting and understanding problem-solving tasks in order to design instruction. In addition to providing potential case problems for solving, that information will also yield an abundance of conceptual and strategic knowledge that can be included in the instruction.

(Jonassen & Hernandez-Serrano, 2002, p. 71)

Storytelling has been part of the human experience since people learned to communicate with symbols and words and continues to be a regular part of our lives today. We tell stories to gain attention, elicit emotion, illustrate our position, humanize a situation, explain the complexity of something, make distinctions, build commonalties, and create meaning (Bruner, 1986, 1990; Jonassen & Hernanadez-Serrrano, 2002; Kolodner, 1992). But perhaps a more meaningful idea to consider is what you, as the learner, have to gain from the stories of others, and more specifically, what you have to gain from the experiences and stories of other instructional designers. As Jonassen and Hernandez-Serrano noted, problem solving from within the stories of others may yield an abundance of conceptual and strategic knowledge.

Instructional design (ID) represents an ill-defined skill that is largely dependent on the context in which it is practiced and occurs within a series of iterative decision-making cycles as designers consider both constraints and resources (Jonassen, 2008). In other words, there isn’t a single set of principles and procedures that can be applied in the same way in every situation. While there is no formula for good design (Cates, 2001), there is evidence to suggest that the more we know about ID, and the more we practice solving ID problems, the more “expert” we become (Atherton, 2003; Bransford, Brown, & Cocking, 2000; Ertmer & Stepich, 2005; Hardré, Ge, & Thomas, 2005).

It is our hope that the cases in this book provide you with the kind of opportunities you need to initiate the development of your instructional design expertise. The case studies are purposefully complex and, by design, do not lend themselves to simple, “right” answers. The goal of the case method is not to help you find answers to every possible design issue but rather to increase your understanding of the types of complex problems professional designers encounter in their everyday practice. By analyzing and reflecting on a variety of complex design situations, we expect that you will be better prepared to solve similar problems when it comes to your own instructional design. This assumption is based on our understanding of a practice known as case-based reasoning.

Case-based Reasoning

Picture a designer asked to develop instruction to train teachers and administrators on a new student information management system for a K-12 school district. The project manager suggests to the ID professional that she may want to develop three separate trainings to target three levels of personnel: elementary, middle, and high school. The designer has never worked for a public school system before, but she has extensive experience designing instruction on information management systems for universities and community colleges. Her prior experience informs her that instructors, administrators, and staff will use the information system for different purposes. Instructors will use the system primarily for organizing assignment information, inputting grades, and communicating with students. Administrators will use the system largely for tracking sites and programs when it comes to matters of compliance and reporting. But she is not sure how staff at the schools may use the system since she has limited knowledge of their roles, which she imagines to be much different from the role of a staff member at a university. In fact, she remembers a former graduate school classmate who worked as an assistant principal at an elementary school. This individual regularly referred to the staff as being the “central nervous system” of any school, signifying that their roles involved interacting with and providing information to parents, students, administrators, teachers, public officials, and visitors. The instructional designer reasons that she should leverage her limited, but relevant, knowledge as a starting point for the initial needs analysis. She concludes that there may, indeed, be a need for three separate trainings, but rather than dividing them by associated school level (elementary, middle, and high), she decides to explore dividing them by role (teacher, administrator, and staff).

In comparing her prior experiences in higher education settings to the K-12 setting, the designer is able to consider some of the similarities and differences between these settings. Her prior involvement with universities and community colleges gives her related experience. For example, she recognizes there are at least three target audience groups who will use the system for distinct purposes, but that these audiences are most likely determined by their roles in the district, not the school level or building in which they work. Furthermore, her interactions with her former classmate provide her with direct insight into the role of the staff. Thus, while neither situation is exactly the same as the current one, both of her prior experiences represent case examples that she can use in initiating the analysis. This type of reasoning, from direct and indirect past experience, is known as case-based reasoning (CBR).

Formally defined, case-based reasoning involves “using old experiences to understand and solve new problems” (Kolodner, 1992, p. 3). But the process of case-based reasoning may be easier said than done. First of all, the individual must have prior knowledge and understanding that will inform the current situation. Furthermore, this knowledge must be readily usable. For these reasons, Kolodner, Owensby, and Guzdial (2004) argued that it’s not enough to have extensive experience, but that this experience must be reflected on and interpreted for meaning, relevance, and lessons learned. Only then can it be usable for the individual as a relevant case to reason from in future applications. In other words, each meaningfully interpreted experience is stored in an individual’s memory as a case, and it is helpful to think of this collection of cases as a metaphorical case library. From our example above, you know that the ID professional applied reasoning from two separate cases in her case library—her prior expertise developing similar trainings for higher education professionals and her interactions with an assistant principal.

The second step in the CBR process involves indexing the cases (Kolodner et al., 2004); if we continue with the library metaphor, we know that a resource can only be located efficiently within a collection to the extent that the indexing itself is logical and organized. In other words, the individual must recognize when a prior case has applicability, and meaningful transfer of this knowledge first depends on indexing the case for relevant aspects, features, and significance. Imagine again our ID professional—you can reasonably conclude that at some point in the past, she indexed conversations with a classmate (who also served as an assistant principal) as potentially relevant to K-12 settings. Similarly, it is just as easy to imagine someone else participating in the same conversations, but never reflecting on or creating meaning from them.

The final step of case-based reasoning involves case retrieval and application (Kolodner, 1997; Kolodner et al., 2004). At this stage, the individual must know when a case’s stored lessons and meaning relate to the new problem. Furthermore, the individual must know which lessons can be leveraged to inform the current situation. Our ID professional knew when to apply relevant experiences from her past employment and when to apply relevant knowledge gained from conversations with a former classmate.

The Case-learning Experience

Although case methods have been used in business, law, and medicine for over 100 years, it is likely that this will be one of your first experiences with the case approach. This may give rise to a wide range of feelings—excitement, nervousness, curiosity, intimidation. In addition, you’ll probably have a lot of questions: How do I analyze a case? How long should a case analysis be? How will I know if I’ve done it right? Where will I find the information and resources I need to solve the case problems? Although it is our experience that students are typically excited about using case studies in instruction, they often feel a little apprehensive as well, possibly due to their unfamiliarity with this approach. We’ve written this section, addressed to you specifically, because we have found that initial concerns can be lessened by describing, up front, the types of tasks you will be expected to complete, as well as some of the adjustments you may need to make in your current learning “mindsets.” As one of our former students noted:

In my opinion, if students were told up front that this approach to learning (case-based instruction) feels slow and cumbersome at first, and that they should read and re-read the information in the case a couple of times, do what they need to visualize and better understand the scenarios—it might be easier to adjust to. I think case-based learning is a valuable and interactive method that just takes a different mindset than most students are used to.

We think this student makes two excellent suggestions: tell students what this approach feels like and tell them how to do it (i.e., analyze a case). Although we don’t really believe that we can tell you exactly how it feels to learn from cases or how you must go about analyzing a case, we offer a few thoughts and suggestions related to these two elements of the case-learning experience. We begin with suggestions on how to adopt a reflective mindset and then provide strategies and procedures for analyzing a case.

Developing a Reflective Mindset

One of the primary goals of professional education is to help novices “think like” members of the profession (Shulman, 1992). This entails being able to look back on practice as a way to understand experience (Schön, 1983), as well as engaging in an internal process of reflection and inquiry as a way to improve future practice. According to Hartog (2002), this type of skillful inquiry takes “time, commitment, and practice” (p. 237).

Kitchener and King (1990) described mature, reflective thinkers as being able to view situations from multiple perspectives, search for alternative explanations of events, and use evidence to support or evaluate a decision or position. These qualities form an essential part of the mindset that we believe facilitates learning from case studies. We provide additional guidelines below, gleaned from our own experiences and those of our students, as well as from the results of an exploratory research study conducted by one of the authors (Ertmer, Newby, & MacDougall, 1996).

• There is no one, right answer. If you enter the case-learning experience with this idea firmly planted, you are less likely to be frustrated by the ambiguity inherent in the case-study approach. There are many answers to the issues in each case. The solutions you propose will depend as much on the perspective you take as on the issues you identify. Accept the fact that you will not know how to solve each case. Furthermore, if you have no clue where to begin, give yourself permission not to know. Then begin the analysis process by paying attention to how others analyze the case based on their personal experiences.

After you have analyzed the case, you may think that it would be helpful to know how the designers in the cases “solved” the problems. However, this is not as helpful as you might think. Being frustrated by a lack of answers can actually be very motivating. If you’re left hanging after reading a case, chances are you’ll continue to ponder the issues for a long time to come.

• There is more than one way to look at things. One of the advantages to participating in case discussions is that you get the chance to hear how others analyzed the case and to consider multiple points of view, thus gaining a more complete examination and understanding of the issues involved. Not only will listening to others’ ideas allow you to see the issues from different points of view but it will also force you to consider exactly where you stand. By paying close attention to what others have to say, you can evaluate how their views fit with your own. Thus, you learn more about who you are, where you are coming from, and what you stand for. Your views of others, as well as of yourself, may be broadened.

• Keep an open mind; suspend judgment until all ideas are considered. This suggestion builds on the previous one. It is important to come to the case discussion with an attitude of, “Let’s see what develops.” Begin by regarding your initial solutions as tentative. Listen respectfully to your peers; ask questions to clarify and gather additional information, not to pass judgment on ideas different from yours. As one of our students recommended, “Be flexible and open-minded. Remember that problems can be attacked from many different angles.” Use the case discussion as a means to gather additional data. In the end, your final recommendation should be informed by the collective wisdom of the whole class, yet reflect your own best judgment.

• Be leery of assumptions and generalizations; avoid seeing things in extremes. If data are ambiguous or there is little evidence to support why case players behaved as they did, be cautious of the assumptions you make. Be especially careful to state your assumptions tentatively, suggesting uncertainty. Furthermore, be careful about making assumptions that allow you to propose easy solutions. Before going d...