Why and how? Case-based teaching in interprofessional and interdisciplinary education

Abstract

The field of interprofessional education is complex and intricate. Students from different professions, who have distinctive knowledge bases, develop a mutual understanding of how to work together in future professional environments. The aim of this article is to explore case-based teaching (CBT) as an approach to develop and provide effective teaching, preparing students for future work. Specifically, the article focuses on why and how CBT may be a useful approach in interdisciplinary and interprofessional education. A traditional scoping literature review is conducted to provide a broad overview of the field. The analysis ended up with three themes: (1) the theoretical foundations for CBT, (2) the reasons given for using CBT and (3) the process of case production. The article discusses how CBT, by taking complex real-world situations as a point of departure, may facilitate active learning strategies that promote relational agency and critical thinking through meta-learning. In this way, CBT prepares students to handle problems that they are likely to encounter in their professions.

Keywords

• case-based teaching
• critical thinking
• interdisciplinary
• interprofessional
• relational agency