gms | German Medical Science

GMS Journal for Medical Education

Gesellschaft für Medizinische Ausbildung (GMA)

ISSN 2366-5017

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Case authoring for the class-room and web-based self-directed learning: the road from basic data to a polished case

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  • corresponding author Thomas Link - Medical University of Vienna, Core Unit Medical Education, Methodik und Entwicklung, Vienna, Austria
  • author Martin Aigner - Medical University of Vienna, Department of Psychatry and Psychotherapy, Vienna, Austria

GMS Z Med Ausbild 2007;24(3):Doc142

The electronic version of this article is the complete one and can be found online at: http://www.egms.de/en/journals/zma/2007-24/zma000436.shtml

Received: May 31, 2007
Published: August 15, 2007

© 2007 Link et al.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/deed.en). You are free: to Share – to copy, distribute and transmit the work, provided the original author and source are credited.

Outline

Workshop

At the Medical University of Vienna, we developed a set of cases in order to support training in psychiatry. These cases are meant to be used in the class-room as well as in a web-based software system (Casus) to enable self-directed learning. In this workshop, we present our approach to case authoring based on PowerPoint presentations originally prepared for lectures with a four step method (information, questions, answers, discussion). Other topics are: history of case studies; didactics of case-based teaching and learning (with special mention of cognitive apprenticeship and anchored instruction); the 4 types of case studies

1.
Case-Study-Method,
2.
Case-Problem-Method,
3.
Case-Incident-Method and
4.
the Stated-Problem-Method;

characteristics of a good case (relevant, realistic, engaging, challenging); important criteria for the evaluation of cases (effectiveness of the case, appropriateness of the content, attentive focus of the content, authenticity of the problem scenario, unity of organization, coherence of organization, clarity of presentation, effectiveness of questions); tips for case authoring.

The discussion focussed on the following topics:

  • Possible uses of web-based case studies in teaching, e.g., as a requirement for attending a class-room session;
  • Guidelines for evaluation of a case’s quality;
  • Technical aspects of the implementations of web-based case studies;
  • Collaboration and sharing case studies across medical schools.