The usual long, hot summer. In Townville, Illinois, manager Joseph D Doe of the Buy-It-Here supermarket chain is getting hot under the collar. For the sixth time in three days he is listening to another complaint from one of his branch managers about ‘poor freezer maintenance service’. There is a pattern in the complaints which come from different areas in the state. Continue reading 5.5 Case study no. 6: Troubleshooting refrigeration systems
Category: Case studies
4.4 Case study no. 5: Riding out the storm
In this case study we return to the Botany students and their encounter with the use of the scientific method of enquiry into the phenomenon of apical dominance in plants. The results, you will remember, were not all that we hoped for in this think-band-do-for-yourself type of experiment. The encounter in most groups scored too low on effectiveness (-/+) and efficiency (-/+). What was the problem? What was the solution? Continue reading 4.4 Case study no. 5: Riding out the storm
3.5 Case study no. 3: Pictures in your mind
From our own experience in learning situations we know how special and important it can be to imagine something. Why then don’t we (as designers and teachers) give more attention to the use of the student’s imagination in a teaching-learning situation? Imagination can be a very powerful tool for learning. Below is a description of an S-R event in which didactic use is being deliberately made of a doctor’s imagination. Continue reading 3.5 Case study no. 3: Pictures in your mind
3.6 Case study no. 4: Giving students the chance to think for themselves
As a designer of courses and lessons you will always be in demand if you have success in creating response environments for learning in which students are given the responsibility and the chance to think for themselves. Continue reading 3.6 Case study no. 4: Giving students the chance to think for themselves
2.7 Case study no. 2: Fighting forest fires safely
On repeated occasions in 1964 on the shuttle flight between La Guardia airport New York and National airport Washington DC, I was struggling with a course design problem. It seemed relatively simple and yet the solution (the choice of a plan, structure and strategy of instruction for the course involved) eluded me time and time again.
At the time I was assigned by the consulting company for which I worked in New York to an account in the US Forestry Service (Fire Control Division) in Washington DC. The service was concerned about the loss of life and injury to personnel that had occurred in some large forest fires in the western states of America. A directive on the subject, formulated years earlier, was re-issued for urgent attention.
The directive was crystal clear. It referred to Ten Safety Orders for strict observance when fighting forest fires. ‘These orders’, the directive ran, ‘are to be committed to memory by all personnel with fire control responsibility’. The directive to me was also unequivocal: to Washington, work with the US Forestry Service Training Department (Bert Holtby) and with the Fire Control Division (John Pierovich) and make an effective, valued (etc) course to teach the ten orders.’ Continue reading 2.7 Case study no. 2: Fighting forest fires safely
1.8 Case study no. 1: The design of an educational encounter
Here is our first case study. It describes the designing of an educational visit to a doctor and to a patient at home. The substance of the story is from an article (Earl, Everwijn and de Melker, 1980) in Medical Education. It will introduce you step by step to the activities illustrated in Fig. 1. In this way you will have a better idea of where the learning experience design step fits into the whole picture of activities at the micro level of design decision-making. Continue reading 1.8 Case study no. 1: The design of an educational encounter