DEFINITIONS

What is the Case Study?

With inquiry-based earning at the core of our LCI mission and vision, a case study approach to reporting community learning was established. The inquiry approach is, of course, not new.  Dewey called for teachers to engage in “reflective action” (1933), Boyer in Scholarship Reconsidered (1990) said that scholarship of teaching must include an aspect of faculty engagement and reflection. Action research, double loop learning, problem-based learning, constructivist practices, and situated learning share the same underlying assumption: as practitioners continuously create questions about their practice, study it, seek collegial feedback, and pursue valid explanations, they improve what they do.

Each learning community was expected to continuously reflect on their work. OLN challenged each community to look deeply into group learning and provide a midterm and year’s end Case Study. Each Case Study was to encompass not only basic information about the project, participants, technologies used, and resources developed, but also the following key elements: