CASE – cognitive acceleration in science education

It was quite a few years ago that I attended an introductory session on CASE. Two schools in the locality have used the material designed to aid cognitive development for a limited period.

Colleagues in my own department are now keen to integrate the programme into the material being taught at Key Stage 3 claiming that evidence suggests that exam results will improve in science and other curriculum areas.

Have any other schools used CASE?

Is there any evidence for improved performance?

Over the last few years we have used elements of CASE and found that parts of it certainly have improved the 'thinking skills' of many of our KS3 students, as well as their ability to more clearly express some of their thoughts. We only adopted about 10 of the early exercises, however, as our students are not very able and would have found later exercises impossible to understand. For able students it offers some very challenging activities to really get them thinking! It is certainly worth using in any science department but staff do need to try it out together first to really get their heads around it, and the exercises do need to be used sequentially and regularly to really see the benefits.

>claiming that evidence suggests that exam results will improve in science and other curriculum areas.<

I once observed a CASE lesson at my school and both I and the science teacher were impressed with what the class achieved.

I have a subject-specific Thinking Skills (TS) portal at:

http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/nc/thinking/

Science is one of the 13 National Curriculum core and foundation subjects covered. A couple of the references listed address TS in science for pupils with special needs, so TS aren't just for the more able!

David Wilson
http://www.specialeducationalneeds.com/