STS has developed useful methods for teaching how science and technology shape and are shaped by historical, social, and cultural phenomena. However, STS scholars in both Japan and the UK are now also tasked with teaching Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) and training future scientists to be responsible scientists. In this presentation, we consider how conventional STS pedagogy can be adapted to satisfy this new expectation. Specifically, we reflect on the role of the case study, a stalwart standby in many forms of STS teaching. By comparing and contrasting our teaching experiences in Japan and the UK, we reflect productively on our teaching practices and how case studies can contribute to them. For instance, case studies can give substance to otherwise abstract concepts like ‘responsibility.’ We introduce and examine the notion of ‘proximity’ in order to consider how relevant and comprehensible case studies are to students’ lives, training and future work. We can select and design empirical examples to increase proximity and so use case studies to foster student engagement and reflection toward increased critical capacity. Based on our teaching experiences and our reflections, we present different forms of case studies: disasters, successes, controversies and imaginary futures. We use those to consider how STS can orient and configure its pedagogy in order to teach responsibility responsibly.