TeC@ses Tool

Welcome to the online training of the TeC@ses project!

One way to organise the learning process is to use (business) case studies. They present business issues practically, challenging students to handle realistic work-life problems. As a teacher, you know the importance of combining theory and practice. Instead of abstractly teaching theory, analysing practical cases makes economic theories understandable. This approach allows your students to experience theory as a valuable problem-solving tool. It can motivate them to actively address relevant questions that are relevant to their lives and professions, bringing learning to life. With the economy demanding increasingly flexible and intelligent professionals, case studies are an excellent way to prepare your students for future challenges.

Things that you can do after you have completed all of the learning nuggets of this TeC@ses-Tool:

Explain the foundational principles for designing pedagogical case studies.
Explain the core principles for teaching pedagogical case studies.
Identify digital design options for designing and teaching a case study.
Identify the core principles for designing effective digital teaching-learning contexts and apply appropriate digital tools to achieve this.
Design (digitalised) pedagogical case studies.

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Information on how to use the TeC@ses tool:

Click at the grafic to get to a simplyfied example case:

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What are case studies?

Case studies are a didactic approach that enables your students to handle realistic business challenges, make decisions and justify their actions – competencies they will need in their future careers. Depending on their complexity, case studies can take several lessons or even entire project days to complete.

Features and didactic value
As a teacher, you create complex decision-making situations. You encourage your students to analyse business problems independently, make decisions and develop alternatives in an action-oriented manner.
The cases are based on authentic situations from everyday business life and are therefore highly practically relevant. Case studies do not present clear-cut problems with a ‘correct’ solution, but reflect the complexity of real-life situations in which different solutions are possible.
The case is presented in detail, written out over several pages. The case is described from the perspective of the protagonists, highlighting different points of view and interests. This enables students to take on different perspectives and understand the complexity of operational decision-making processes.

Your role as a teacher
You organise the learning process by providing the case study, moderating the work process and acting as a learning guide. Students usually work in groups: they are presented with the case study, gather information, discuss possible solutions and agree on a solution. The groups defend their decisions and, if possible, compare them with the actual decision.

Competence development
Your students develop essential competencies in a targeted manner: analytical and networked thinking, decision-making and problem-solving competence, independence and social competence.

Practical challenges
Case studies also present practical challenges: preparation, implementation and evaluation are time-consuming. Access to high-quality, freely available case studies is limited. In addition, clear methodological guidance is often lacking. Structural difficulties such as fixed curricula or rigid timetables can limit the necessary flexibility.

This TeC@ses tool offers you as a teacher twofold support: on the one hand, you learn to teach with and to design didactically high-quality case studies; on the other hand, the TeC@ses tool promotes your digital skills to create digitised case studies and teach with these in a digital environment, in line with the European Framework for the Digital Competence of Educators.
Unlike many e-learning courses, TeC@ses is not uniform or linear by design. Each learning nugget intentionally looks different to showcase a range of possible design approaches. You can see various ways to structure and visualise teaching materials, giving you inspiration for your own practice.

The modular structure of the TeC@ses tool gives you the freedom to choose your own learning path. The different learning nuggets are self-contained, so you can focus on what you really need. Please note that due to this “pick-and-mix”-approach, some content relevant to different learning nuggets may be duplicated.

So, if you have no experience in designing case studies, it is best to start by looking at the quality criteria for case studies in “Design Your Effective Case Study” and at the orientation points for case study teaching in "Teach Case Studies Effectively". If you would like to learn more about the digitised preparation and processing of case studies, we recommend the learning units "Use Digital Possivilities when Designing Your Case Study" and "Use Digital Possivilities in Your Case Study Teaching".

The TeC@ses tool is currently still under development.

Design

Learning unit "Design Your Effective Case Study".

Learning unit "Use Digital Possibilities when Designing Your Case Study".

Teach

Learning unit "Teach Case Studies Effectively".

Learning unit "Use Digital Possibilities in Your Case Study Teaching".

UNIVERSITY OF COLOGNE

Faculty of Management, Economics and Social SciencesTeC@ses - design and teach case studies in vocational schools

This is a preliminary version of the online tool with test versions of the video material