When I was an adjunct faculty member, I taught several different courses in healthcare administration. Many of the courses included textbooks that contained cases for students to evaluate. However, the cases were more at an executive level and many of my undergraduate students were in font line entry level positions, early careerist positions, or entry level management positions. As a result, the students often had a difficult time wrapping their minds around the cases and the scenarios presented in the textbooks.
In order to facilitate learning, I decided to draw upon my prior training in secondary education. Although the students were considerably more advanced, I could still use many of the tools I learned to use in the secondary education classroom in the college classroom. Two such tools that we were encouraged to use were simulations and case studies. Although similar, case studies and simulations are not the same. A simulation puts the student in the place to make the decision himself/herself, whereas a case study allows a student to evaluate a case more objectively and look at decision making more judiciously. Since the textbooks often provided cases, I decided to also lean toward this method. However, I should note that I used many other teaching methods in the classroom other than these two.
I initially began writing cases for use in the classroom only. I would write a case, hand it out to the class, and in a group the students would evaluate the case and report back to the rest of the class about it. These were often very high level evaluations of the cases since the students were usually given half an hour to work on the cases in class, and then I spent 15 minutes with discussion.
I really wanted the students to have more of an in-depth understanding of the cases, so I then began to write more cases that would be more pertinent to a greater number of students. The cases also required deeper thought and analysis. I wanted to challenge students' thinking from how they perceived healthcare administration and assist them into getting into what I call "next-level" thinking. I used these cases as assignments. By doing so, I was able to see where the students were regarding analytical thinking and solving management problems.
After a while, I realized I had written about half a dozen cases. Several of my fellow faculty members had written short books, and this was something I wanted to try my hand at. I realized quickly, that I most likely had a book in the works already with the cases I had already written. As a result, I sat down a couple of winters ago, and I wrote "Cases for Developing Healthcare Leaders" in a few weeks. I first created it as an ebook, just to see if it would go anywhere, and this year it was published as a paperback. The purpose for the book is to provide a resource to help healthcare leaders at all levels in their careers address difficult issues and address common problems that occur across the industry.
In order to facilitate learning, I decided to draw upon my prior training in secondary education. Although the students were considerably more advanced, I could still use many of the tools I learned to use in the secondary education classroom in the college classroom. Two such tools that we were encouraged to use were simulations and case studies. Although similar, case studies and simulations are not the same. A simulation puts the student in the place to make the decision himself/herself, whereas a case study allows a student to evaluate a case more objectively and look at decision making more judiciously. Since the textbooks often provided cases, I decided to also lean toward this method. However, I should note that I used many other teaching methods in the classroom other than these two.
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I initially began writing cases for use in the classroom only. I would write a case, hand it out to the class, and in a group the students would evaluate the case and report back to the rest of the class about it. These were often very high level evaluations of the cases since the students were usually given half an hour to work on the cases in class, and then I spent 15 minutes with discussion.
I really wanted the students to have more of an in-depth understanding of the cases, so I then began to write more cases that would be more pertinent to a greater number of students. The cases also required deeper thought and analysis. I wanted to challenge students' thinking from how they perceived healthcare administration and assist them into getting into what I call "next-level" thinking. I used these cases as assignments. By doing so, I was able to see where the students were regarding analytical thinking and solving management problems.
After a while, I realized I had written about half a dozen cases. Several of my fellow faculty members had written short books, and this was something I wanted to try my hand at. I realized quickly, that I most likely had a book in the works already with the cases I had already written. As a result, I sat down a couple of winters ago, and I wrote "Cases for Developing Healthcare Leaders" in a few weeks. I first created it as an ebook, just to see if it would go anywhere, and this year it was published as a paperback. The purpose for the book is to provide a resource to help healthcare leaders at all levels in their careers address difficult issues and address common problems that occur across the industry.
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