It is well-established by Physics Education Research (PER) that the active learning environment results in improved learning outcomes when compared with the traditional didactic lectures. Interactive engagement strategies are known to positively affect both the course retention rates and the resulting student grades. Case studies are just one of many existing interactive engagement strategies. Case studies are relatively time-consuming to use, and it is likely the main reason why they are employed relatively little compared to much more popular, easy to use, Peer Instruction pedagogy. However, the success of Peer Instruction depends on the quality of the multiple-choice format questions which are not open-ended and do not prompt the students to develop and formulate their own ideas. Using case studies to supplement Peer Instruction methodology provides the students with the opportunity to analyze more open-ended and often, more realistic scenarios than those presented by the multiple-choice questions format. Even though the case studies can be used for individual homework assignments, the authors believe that most promising use of case studies is for the in-class collaborative groups discussions. Ideally, the context-rich case studies involve more than one concept and require the students to gather and analyze additional information. A set of case studies was developed for a large-enrollment introductory physics courses for the students in Science and Engineering programs. These scenarios target fundamental concepts of the typical introductory physics curriculum for STEM education. Whenever possible, the case studies are intended to bring a real-life context to the classroom. The case studies have a potential to engage and motivate the students. This paper provides examples of these interventions and, in particular, the task of designing a roller-coaster with certain specifications, as well as an activity analyzing a real-life event record-setting fall from the stratosphere.

Keywords: Case studies, STEM, introductory physics.