This is a good way to help students understand why they have to learn something - it contextualises the theory.

If students are encouraged to explore all aspects of the case themselves, they will discover their own learning agenda and see how knowledge and concepts interrelate to enable them to analyse a case and develop appropriate management strategies.

The 'case' might be a blood sample arriving in the lab - what procedure should you follow? what might you discover? are there any special precautions you should take?

You can build a network of cases linking the concepts in a curriculum:

This can be a good way to summarise material that has already been covered, or provide a new way of looking at concepts that may previously have seemed unrelated.

One example might be a physiological syndrome, such as 'shock', which might pull together information learnt about different body systems.

A different example might come from the area of Public Health, where the 'case' could represent an emergent health issue to be tackled with pre-existing knowledge and resources.

In a group situation, this will lead to further discussion and questioning as the new context is understood: