Navigating an IRIS Case Study

Transcript: Navigating an IRIS Case Study

Hello and welcome to the IRIS Center! The purpose of this video is to acquaint you with IRIS Case Studies, one of which we are looking at now. You might be wondering, What is a case study? IRIS Case Studies are a collection of strategies and problem-based scenarios. They provide opportunities for learners to analyze and synthesize information and respond to a number of common classroom challenges and issues through multiple levels of complexity and detail. They can be used as companions to IRIS Modules or as stand-alone exercises.

Before we dive deeper into this case study, I’m going to show you how to access the case study collection from our home page. I can always return to the home page by clicking on the IRIS logo in the top left corner.

Currently, we are on the IRIS website home page. To access a case study, we will use the IRIS Resource Locator, or IRL. To get there, click on the Resources tab at the top and select IRIS Resource Locator. Using the IRL, you can search for case studies in different ways. For example, you can search by topic or you can filter the resource type to show only case studies. For each case study, you will see the title and summary. To access a case study, click on the title. I am going to click on Mathematics: Identifying and Addressing Student Errors.

IRIS Case Studies include five sections: Introduction, STAR Sheets, Cases, Credits, and Standards. You’ll notice these along the top navigation bar, which is a quick and easy way to access different parts of a case study. We will revisit these later. Case studies are organized as one continuous web page, so you can also access the five sections by simply scrolling down the page. I’m going to begin scrolling to showcase some important features.

First, we have the Introduction, which presents a brief overview of the case study topic. There is also an embedded References drop-down, which contains the resources used for the Introduction. Beneath this is a key that describes the core content of our case studies: STrategy And Resource (STAR) Sheets and Cases. The STAR Sheets—marked with a star icon—are descriptions of evidence-based or best practice strategies that can help you locate the information needed to answer the assignment questions in the Cases. The Cases—marked with a notebook and pen icon—are problem-based classroom challenges and assignments.

When I hover over STAR Sheets in the top navigation bar, a drop-down menu appears that displays each STAR Sheet within this case study. I’m going to select the second one, Identifying Error Patterns. When I do so, I am automatically taken to that STAR Sheet. Each STAR Sheet contains a description of the strategy, relevant research findings, key information related to the strategy (in this case, you will notice tables with examples of common error types), and references. Depending on the strategy, the STAR Sheet might also include implementation steps or other beneficial information.

If I continue scrolling down the page, I would reach the first case. Instead, I’m going to use the top navigation bar to jump to the Cases section. Designed to accommodate a wide range of learner skills, Cases are divided into three progressive levels: A, B, and C. At Level A, assignments allow learners to show that they understand the possible strategies for the case. At Level B, learners additionally are asked to analyze the information presented in the STAR Sheets. At the most complex level, Level C, learners are also required to identify and defend their application of specific strategies. I’m going to select Level B, Case 1 to highlight the main components:

• Background: This contains information about the students featured in the case.
• Scenario: This is a description of a hypothetical situation that requires an educator’s response.
• Possible Strategies: For Levels A and B, multiple strategies described in the STAR Sheets are suggested as responses to each scenario. However, when I select Level C, Case 1, you will notice that this more complex level does not contain the list of possible strategies.
• Assignment: An assignment accompanies each case and is appropriate for the case level.

The next section is Credits, which provides citation information and a list of contributors. Finally, the Standards section outlines the relevant licensure and program standards aligned with the case study.

At the very bottom of the web page, there are print and PDF icons, which allow you to print the full case study or download it to your device as a PDF. Additionally, in the bottom right corner of the web page is an accessibility tool, which allows you to adjust accessibility settings.

I’m going to return to the top of the web page to highlight one final feature. In the top right corner is a tool you can use to translate IRIS Case Studies, and any other IRIS resource, into 90+ languages.

This ends our IRIS Case Study tour. Thank you for watching this video. We hope you find these resources helpful in your current and future work.