Case Studies from Literature and Movies: A Best Practice for Learning

Abstract

Pedagogy today has a greater need to focus on relevance for students between course content and the real world of student life and work. Educators across disciplines have found a challenge to engage students in learning activities that carry value for them. The case study is a pedagogical tool that can connect student learning to real life examples. Narratives from books and movies present characters and situations that provide opportunity for student analysis within course concepts and student application to both personal and professional experience. Students enter example experiences that they might encounter and gain insight of potential response. This qualitative study examined graduate course work with case studies in Life-span Development, Multi-cultural Counseling, and Traumatology in which students reviewed books and movies with case examples aligned with course content. The instructor provided structured analysis format in which students were required to reflect on both personal and professional application relevant to the focus of the course. Student responses indicated perception of strong value for insight and application gained from the case studies and also high perception of use of these as tools in their own future work as educators or mental health professionals.Keywords: arts in learning, case studies in pedagogy, student engagement Two needs with good pedagogy in graduate education today seem to be relevance to the real world of the student and student active engagement with the learning process. In yesteryear, the norm may have been lecture, note-taking, and examination. Yesteryear also had fewer students in pursuit of collegiate and especially graduate education. Machovec (2017) noted that while high school graduating classes are getting smaller, the percentage of those students going to college is getting larger. This trend aligns with the historical shift from agricultural to industrial to information-age worldviews. A growing concern is a trend toward overeducation and underemployment of young adults (Li & Simonson, 2015). Li, et al. (2015) indicated that 48 percent of workers were overeducated for their job positions.A challenge for educators in all disciplines is to engage students in academic endeavor that has perceived value for the student. LeDuc and Kotzer (2009) conducted a study with current nursing students, recent graduates, and seasoned nurses on their professional values. They found that across all three groups, competence, collaboration, and peer-evaluation were considered as the most important professional values-all indicating relevance in real-world application.