I teach at a highly selective secondary school. In our ninth grade science course, we are teaching critical thinking skills through the use of medical case studies. While teaching the human physiology systems, we have students work their way through medical cases. In each case the students must take information provided to them and make a reasonable inference (several hypotheses/diagnoses) based on that information. Then they must request further information (lab tests, physical tests, interview questions) and they must give good reasoning for why they are requesting that information. At the end of the case, students must present either in writing or verbally an explanation of their thinking process from start to finish.

Thanks for making these cases available.

Comments submitted 06/07/2006 by:

Jim Jordan
Science
The Lawrenceville School
Lawrenceville, NJ
jjordan@lawrenceville.org