A case story can be defined as reflecting on one owns experiences related to a topic that is relevant to the discussion and then sharing that experience with others for constructive feedback. The first step is to construct the story through a free write. The learners are asked to free write about a prompt that is related to the course and it can take any format. After they have written it down, they share the story with others in small groups. After they presented their story to the group, the rest of the group provides clarifying questions and digs deeper into the story. The story reader will then answer questions and begin to reflect on their own story. Case story is a non-judgmental activity and therefore the students must be comfortable to share their personal insights as well as be kind when giving feedback. The main considerations for this activity is that it can lead to some students not sharing because they are uncomfortable, or groupthink, where only one idea is talked about. These can be avoided by not forcing participation and also facilitating as the instructor to make sure other ideas are presented. The instructor is only involved for clarifying questions and facilitating throughout the discussions, they should never lead ideas because it is a reflection of the student rather than the instructor. Since the case story is so many steps, it involves a decent amount of time to complete, so for shorter courses it might be able to be broken up in separate days in order to complete it. Case story allows students to reflect on themselves in a deep insightful manner to help them understand other perspectives on their own personal situation.
Application:The application for a case story activity would be in an intro course when we are talking about learning styles and study strategies. After material has been presented on the different styles and strategies, I could have them free write about a negative experience they have had with a teacher at some point in their life. It would have to have a specific tied in factor, such as the teacher only verbally said the notes and didn’t have any slides, so I struggled to learn because I am not an auditory learner, but instead a visual learner. They would dig deeper than that but that would be the initial premise. They would have about a half hour to free write and then the next class period I would have them get into groups and share their experiences for the entire period. I would facilitate to keep them on topic and maybe even have some prompts as examples to get them going in conversation. I would want to have discussion and reflection heavily involved in my course, so it wouldn’t be the first time they had done something like this and would be more comfortable expressing personal stories.
Assessment: Quick Write (Barkley & Major, 2016 pp. 105-110)The best formative assessment for this activity would be a quick write because it would allow them to get their thoughts out after a group discussion. This would allow the students who aren’t as open in discussion to express their thoughts individually and give me an idea of the depth that they were able to go to when discussing the topic. I would also be able to see if I needed to clarify anything related to the topic in the next class. This would take little preparation and the implementation could even be done as homework rather than in class if time didn’t allow it.