Steven W. Schmidt / Steven WSchmidt
A volume in Adult Education Special Topics: Theory, Research,and Practice in Lifelong LearningSeries Editor: Kathleen P. King, Fordham UniversityCase studies have become a widely-used instructional tool in many educationalenvironments. The use of case studies began in the 1950s at Harvard BusinessSchool. Today, they may be used as part of a course of study, or as the mainfocus of a course, to which other material is added. While the use of case studiesis prevalent in schools of business and medicine, they are not often used in adulteducation or human resource development. This may be because there are nocurrent major publications that deal with the use of case studies in these disciplines; nor are there any majordatabases of adult education or human resource development case studies for instructors to use. Good casestudies can bring reality into the classroom. They can provide frameworks for discussion based on issues thatmust be faced in real life. Complex case issues can be broken down and examined for greater understanding,then pulled together again for resolution.Case studies can be used successfully in adult education. I propose a bookbased on the use of case-based learning in adult education and humanresource development (HRD). The book could be positioned as asupplement to course textbooks for courses in adult education and HRD. Iwould write the cases and develop the exercises, but could also get othersto contribute a case study or exercise to the book. Cases would each be ahalf-page to maybe 2-3 pages at the long end, and would include questionsfor students/readers. Supplementary information (possibly in the form of aDVD) could be put together for instructors. This information wouldinclude case study focal points and examples of possible responses foreach study/exercise.
