Facilitating Distributed Systems Course for Under Graduate Students using Case Studies: Impact Analysis

Abstract

Measuring effectiveness of the teaching method has become a challenge for teacher. Teacher depends on the reflections of the students instantly in the classroom. Background of adopting certain teaching strategies is considering one's own experience and researching the literature on experiments done by other teachers in similar field. Theory suggests or recommends certain methodologies as proven to produce success. Teachers adopt little pedagogy to facilitate their academic course and reflections of the learners might look very positive. Immediate measure of success is only the student feedback and instant assessment in term of asking quick questions or conducting a small quiz. Learning of students must translate into applying thoughts in action and perform in building tools for society. But there are several examples where retention of knowledge which need to be applied in relevant context disappears and results in confusion. Teachers interested in involving their students more fully in classroom discussion have found that case studies can provide a rich basis for developing students' problem solving and decision making skill (Goodenough, 1994). This paper attempts to present experience of choosing case studies as teaching pedagogy, implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of pedagogy.