Grant To Advance Case-Study Approach To Teaching Science

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A University at Buffalo professor who says his mission in life is to revolutionize the teaching of science has received an $800,000 grant from The Pew Charitable Trusts to do just that.

His "revolution" makes use of protagonists, storytelling and ambiguity, and other elements that sound more suited to a college lit class than to chemistry or biology.

For the past 15 years, Clyde F. Herreid, Ph.D., SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor in the UB Department of Biological Sciences, has been using these features in his classes to pioneer the case-study approach -- standard fare in schools of law, business and medicine -- in teaching science to undergraduates, particularly to nonscience majors.

The response from students has been unequivocal.

"Students who appeared tired and disinterested during lectures are suddenly animated and involved," said Herreid, principal investigator on the Pew grant.

Herreid will discuss the case-study approach to teaching science during a lecture titled "Teaching in 2061" to be held at 7:30 p.m. March 20 in the Screening Room, Center for the Arts, on UB's North (Amherst) Campus. Part of the College of Arts and Sciences Lecture Series, the lecture is free and open to the public.

He and other professors -- both at UB and other schools -- who have incorporated case studies into their science courses have seen class-attendance rates jump to 95 percent from an average of 50-65 percent.

Said Jane Connor, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology from Binghamton University and a recent case-study "convert:" "I cannot believe the attendance and cohesion in the groups -- the students seem to be really loving the class!"

It's not the typical response from students who just want to get their basic science requirement out of the way.

But according to Herreid, nonscience majors are a tremendous missed opportunity for college professors.

"As a professor, your greatest impact is on the nonmajors," he said. "Nationally, we have serious concerns about how to engage students in science and there is a lot of pressure now coming to bear on how to teach science more effectively. These collaborative strategies will make a huge difference. This revolution is about to happen."

The Pew grant will turn that into a reality.

One of the largest awards ever granted for active-learning techniques--the umbrella term that describes any method of teaching other than the standard lecture format--this grant differs from previous awards in the field.

"Most other efforts are institutionally based, where they are trying to change how things are done, one institution at a time," explained Nancy Schiller, associate librarian in UB's Science and Engineering Library and Herreid's co-investigator on the grant. "This effort is broad and in a way more grand."

The grant will establish at UB the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science, the goals of which are to:

• Instruct undergraduate-science faculty in teaching and writing case studies

• Establish the center's Web site http://www.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases as a national, digital library for cases in all scientific disciplines and as a clearinghouse for information and resources related to the case method of teaching science

• Publish 100 new cases per year on the center's refereed Web site, eventually developing a collection of science cases comparable to that developed by Harvard for business and international policy

• Support the Journal of College Science Teaching, published by the National Science Teachers Association, in producing an annual special issue devoted to case studies

• Publish books on case teaching in each of the natural sciences and mathematics, produce a series of videos that instruct faculty in the approach and publish an electronic newsletter.

Until now, Herreid has been preaching the word on case teaching mostly at workshops he hosts at UB that are funded by UB, the National Science Foundation and the U.S. Department of Education. Since 1990, more than 300 faculty members from around the United States have attended these intensive, five-day workshops in which participants learn to teach using the case-study method and in which they have a chance to actually lead a class of students, who then evaluate them. More than 500 others have attended Herreid's workshops held at other institutions around the country and abroad.

But Herreid routinely has had to turn away nearly half the applicants for each workshop.

The Pew grant will give the case-teaching approach much wider exposure; with the money, Herreid expects to be able to conduct two workshops each summer, providing 80 faculty members -- twice the usual number -- with the opportunity to learn the approach. Meals and workshop materials for attendees also will be paid for with the grant. In return, attendees are asked to produce one case study, plus teaching notes, within the next six months, for which they will receive a $200 stipend.

The grant also will provide for an annual conference on teaching science with case studies.

According to Herreid, the "magic" of the case approach is that, through role-playing, debates or group presentations, students become directly involved in a controversial, unresolved topic that has a solid, scientific core and deals with important social and policy issues.

"The students care about case studies because they are learning the material on a need-to-know basis," Herreid said.

Notes Schiller: "The idea is to let students experience some of the ambiguity that all scientists have to deal with as they explore."

Faculty members who teach with cases say the method provokes students to learn the science; they want to learn it on the way toward discovering where they stand on a particular issue.

For example, in a case about recent political turmoil in the Galapagos Islands that pits fisherman, the Ecuadorian government, tourists, scientists and environmental groups against one another, students were divided into teams representing one or another of these interests. Their task was to research extensively the social, political and scientific issues at hand from the perspective of the interest they represented.

The result? Students get so caught up in the story and their active role in it that it naturally increases their appetite for learning the science.

"Storytelling is so compelling, but we've left it out of teaching science," said Schiller. "The case approach uses stories to get students involved in the science, not as spectators but as participants."

Some of the 30 cases currently available on the UB Web site include "Seeds of Dissension: A Case Study in Patenting Genetic Material," "Baffled by the Baby Bottle: A Case Study in Chemistry," "Bad Blood: A Case Study of the Tuskegee Syphilis Project" and "Life on Mars -- A Dilemma Case Study in Planetary Geology."

Schiller and Herreid hope to have 10 times that number by the end of the grant period.

Part of the strategy includes encouraging significant contributions to the current repository of cases through collaborations with English teachers and science-writing instructors, establishing a board of consultants to serve as editorial referees for cases and consulting on case-study writing and teaching with faculty members around the country.

The Pew Charitable Trusts http://www.pewtrusts.com support nonprofit activities in the areas of culture, education, the environment, health and human services, public policy and religion. Based in Philadelphia, the trusts make strategic investments to help organizations and citizens develop practical solutions to difficult problems. In 1999, with approximately $4.9 billion in assets, the trusts committed more than $250 million to 206 nonprofit organizations.