Case-based Instruction A case is a written or video summary of an activity, situation, event, or process. For example, many business schools and law schools use cases heavily in their programs. To illustrate the way a certain aspect of international business law works, for example, the professor might assign a case that describes a particular lawsuit in which the points of law under discussion were crucial.
Students study the case then discuss it in class.
In a similar way, teacher education students studying something like how long to pause after asking a question might watch a video case of one or more teachers asking questions in their classrooms and then discuss that teacher's approach. The links below provide much more information on case-based instruction. A Multimedia Teaching Case Project Cape Town is a multimedia teaching case to take advantage of the World Wide Web as a medium to make cases available to teacher education centers worldwide. Although this case is for preservice teacher training, the same format can be applied to other areas in education. Different data types, including text, still images, sound, and full motion video, have been used to describe four actual teaching scenarios in schools in Cape Town, South Africa.