Case Studies | Why use cases?
In 2000, the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy published a guide for professors looking to bring the case study method to their classroom, called “The ABCs of Case Teaching.” Prepared by Vicki L. Golich, Mark Boyer, Patrice Franko, and Steve Lamy — all pioneers in the case study field — the guide presented a comprehensive assessment of how professors can systematically deploy the case study method in their classroom.
In this latest piece in our series spotlighting the book’s key insights, we return to a fundamental question in case teaching: Why use cases at all?
Case teaching enhances learning by engaging students in very powerful ways. Teachers use cases because they believe that students learn more when they are at the center of the process. Case teaching actively connects students with course content and shifts responsibility for learning to students. With faculty as their guide, students simultaneously discover (or construct) a body of knowledge and master life-long learning skills.
The focus on process does not mean that facts, theories, and concepts are sacrificed. Good cases are chock full of information and require students to apply text-based theory to analyze complicated, real world events. The difference is that active learning promotes deeper understanding and improved retention. Running cases helps build interpersonal skills that find significant resonance with life after the university where teamwork can be as critical to success as the ability to work through problems individually.
Faculty use cases because:
- They are interesting and they are real. Cases make course content relevant to students in an extraordinarily powerful way: they demonstrate the application of, as well as the limitations of, concepts and theories.
- They compel students to take responsibility for their learning. Case learning is vital to subsequent student success in law school, graduate programs, and careers. The case method is consistent with a philosophy of teaching that assumes a major goal of higher education is to empower students to think critically and act responsibly in their various roles at work, at home, and in their communities; asserts that students must be able to apply the collection of concepts and facts they learned to new situations; and posits that integrating knowledge from other classes and/or life experiences is important.
- They help students develop critical skills. Working through a case requires students to sharpen their skills — both quantitative and qualitative — in analyzing material and enhance their ability to use new concepts and information to substantiate their arguments (learn to use empirical evidence to support their claims and why it is important to do so). The case study method also improves students’ ability to listen and to communicate with faculty and other students, contest or refute the points of others, using reasoned argument, and build on points made by others to develop a response that draws on the best thinking of a group. And finally, the case study method helps students develop hypothetical solutions to problems and examine the consequences of decisions they make.
- They help faculty exercise “good practices” in their teaching. These “good practices” include: developing reciprocity and cooperation among students, encouraging active learning, giving prompt feedback on performance, emphasizing time on task, communicating high expectations, and respecting diverse talents and ways of learning. The case study method naturally encourages all of these.
[Click here to access ISD’s library of over 250 case studies]
Read more from ISD on case teaching:
