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Ideas for using case studies in the classroom
Introduction
Cool Planet for teachers and children contains case studies about people’s lives and Oxfam’s work around the world.
Case study material can of course be used in many different ways depending on the age group you are teaching and your aims for the lesson. To provide inspiration for your teaching, we have brought together many simple ideas for activities that help your pupils get the most from case study material. These are not full lesson plans, but simple suggestions to spark off your ideas about how to get the most out of case study material.
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Using photographs
Many case studies are illustrated with colourful photographs, and the photographs themselves provide excellent educational stimulus. Find out more about using images in the classroom.
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Using case studies
These suggestions are designed to give you ideas that can be applied to most case study material. However, since case studies differ in emphasis, some of these activities will be more appropriate than others. We hope these ideas will provide some inspiration!
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Introducing people
Introduce the class to the person featured in the case study. Read the class their story and show them the photographs. Allow plenty of time for discussion and questions, but ensure discussion remains positive about the person featured. Encourage pupils to find differences and similarities between that person’s life and their own lives. Try and help them begin to think about why some things are different.
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Global connections
Before using a case study from a country other than the UK, ask the class if they have any connections with other parts of the world (for example through having lived there, having relatives there, visiting on holiday etc). You could create a wall display by asking pupils to write a caption or illustrate their connection, and then pin a string to connect it to that country on a world map. If your class doesn’t have many connections to the rest of the world, you could consider where our food comes from, using food labels or real food.
Then, read the case study and add the country where the person lives to your world map (see also our Mapping Our World activity).
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Write your own
When you’ve explored a case study with the class, get them to write their own. Go on to consider what this case study does and does not tell the reader. Use this to devise questions you would like to ask the person in the case study.
With older children, you could discuss the problems of stereotyping and biased choice in more depth.
With younger children, you could refer to the language of frequency as a basis for discussion. For example, ‘I always wear my school tie’, ‘I usually bring a packed lunch’, ‘I sometimes have my hair in braids’, ‘I never eat cucumber’, I occasionally like my teacher’.
If the case study is about adults, children could write about one of their parents or carers in the same way. They could do research at home, asking questions of their family if they do not already know the answers. This can provide a good opportunity for children to find out more about the lives of those near to them.
You could guide their writing using a format similar to the case study you have looked at. For example:
How old are you?
Where do you live?
Who do you live with?
Where do you go to school?
What are your favourite foods, TV programmes, sports, computer games, etc.
What issues are important to you? (for older children)
Write a diary of a ‘normal’ day (in which you go to school) – include times, modes of transport, food eaten, lessons enjoyed etc.
Describe a special day you have enjoyed in the past six months.
Write about your dreams for the future.
If the given case study is short, children could do research to find out more about the likely life of that person (there is information about life in other countries on Cool Planet for Children).
They could think about what that person’s ‘normal’ day might be like and write an imaginary diary. Be careful to challenge stereotyping using questions like ‘Do you think all children in Kenya live in villages? Can you find out the name of a city there?…’.
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Raising the issues
If the given case study raises an issue, you can use several methods to go on to discuss the causes and effects of the issue, and what could be done to effect change.
The issues tree:
Working in groups, pupils should draw the outline of a tree and label the trunk with the issue raised by the case study. They should then think about the causes of the issue (and label the roots of the tree with these), the effects (labelling the branches), and the possible solutions (labelling the fruit).
The issues tree could be used either before the pupils do further research about an issue (to see what they already know) and/or after they have learned more about it.
The why-why-why chain:
This tool allows pupils to look at the causes of issues in a systematic way, and to map how things that seem like causes of an issue, are in fact caused by other things…and so on.
Pupils should use the why-why-why chain template to identify causes, the causes of causes, and the causes of causes of causes... Then ask them to look at each cause they have identified and ask ‘Is it fair that this is happening?’ and ‘What can we do to change things?’. Answers could be written by each box and pupils could present their analysis back to the class.
You can find more information about using an issues tree (and examples of trees made by pupils ) and a why-why-why chain in the Get Global resource, available to download here.
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Get creative!
You can use case studies as a starting point for all sorts of creative activities. Pupils could design leaflets or posters about people, countries and issues they learn about through case studies. They could choose to highlight a particular issue and persuade others why the issue is important, or design something to inform people about an interesting fact they have leaned about another country. Pupils could research textiles or patterns used in a different country as the basis for their design.
Working in pairs, pupils could each write a letter asking the person they have learned about questions about their life, and their partner could respond in the role of the person in the case study.
This could also work as a role-play activity. Pupils could role-play asking questions of the person in the case study. One pupil would pretend to be that person, and the other the interviewer. They can swap roles.
Here, as in many of these activities, it is important to challenge stereotypical views of other people and countries that may be expressed in pupils’ work.
You could ask pupils to write a postcard or diary from an imaginary trip to visit a person or country they have heard about in a case study. They could illustrate a postcard themselves or use pictures cut from magazines. Children can be encouraged to think about how and why tourist brochures might idealise countries, and how it is that some countries have areas that are visited by tourists while other areas may be much poorer and less attractive. Go on to discuss how local people may not have access to the types and quality of services and amenities that tourists do.
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