On case method teaching reform in the background of China
Recently I attended a dept-wide activity on case method teaching demo. The instructor is one of our new colleagues, who combined almost successfully bilingual teaching and case method teaching during the demo course. I said almost because I believed what she conducted was not the real case teaching, a widely accepted and welcomed term among world-wide business schools. Based on my learning experiences at Nanjing Univ and Nanyang Business School, plus years of teaching and research, I am inspired afterwards to write an essay telling you readers why we may not implement such a teaching revolutionary program too hastily among our college students here in mainland China.
It is undoubtedly clear that case teaching has gained acknowledgement in the last century even by some strict researchers[1]. Such a method also attracted some early Chinese scholars’ interest and they found that the teaching quality improved remarkably[2]. However, due to our culture’s uniqueness, the teaching and educational management systems are fairly different, which raises the question of how far we have covered and will in the progress of implementing case teaching.
What’s the real case teaching method?
From a recent email communication with my graduate school professor, I learned that the case method “is based on discovered knowledge rather than delivered knowledge”, and “there is no forecasting what they (the students) will discover”. This idea coincides with Professor Christensen’s that “case method is … discussion-based learning” and “case teaching is the art of managing uncertainty”[3]. Based on these descriptive statements, it is presumably clear that a good case method requires: 1. course participants to form study groups and conduct discussion with group members, and 2. case instructors to step aside and be a planner, moderator and guide. By in-group discussion, the course participants will explore the case deeply, exchange ideas with other group members, and form their own opinion as well as draw conclusions. By acting as a host, moderator and judge instead of a teacher who stay at the centric position of the pedagogical process, the instructor will go with these case participants and walk them through an adventurous journey like that of Indiana Jones’. An unforeseeable gaining adds the burden of the instructor but enriches the students’ learning experience.
While this method is almost welcomed and accepted as the sort of industry standard in the western b-schools, situations here at mainland China seem different. Chinese people traditionally grant teaching positions with due respect and control, so respectful that challenging a teacher in class in the form of raising questions from the students’ side would be considered not politically acceptable, not to mention acquiring and discovering knowledge by their own instead of by the teacher’s delivery so that everything the students learn would be a fairly precise copy of the teacher’s. To put it simple, ours is a pyramid structure to guarantee the transmission of an exact information, like an order from a general. The case method system is a self-generating bio-ecosystem to guarantee the production and innovation of knowledge in a sustained way. So based on these understandings, let’s move to see some opposite opinions and consequent practices.
Some commonly accepted misunderstandings and malpractices
When in the last century this method was introduced into China’s universities and colleges, it was not rapidly accepted as it requires complicated training of the teachers and meantime, the corresponding reform of the old pedagogy. Only in recent years, an increasing number of colleges begin noticing its value as the method itself adds chances of conducting a successful reform preferred by the above supervising government institutions. This situation brings about an unexpected consequence, that is, colleges and professors easily go after the means rather than the goals. We should note that the case teaching method is one form of pedagogy which itself is not the ultimate goal. Thus instructors should focus on the exploration process students go through, and lead them into the process rather than to a certain desired conclusion. Or otherwise the case lecturing became the instructors’ personal show.
The case teaching method can be applied to all business majors, but not to business majors of all levels. Admittedly, this method has been widely recognized across the globe in the arena of academia and industry. It has been employed by many prestigious global b-schools ranging from HBS (in the states), to Nanyang Business School (in Singapore) and by a few less globally recognized or even unknown ones from Nanjing University to Changshu Inst. of Tech. However, considering the application of case method in b-schools, esp. at Harvard, it’s worth noting that Harvard only recruit MBA students with relevant work experiences, which means, contrary to some colleges’ current practices of adopting case teaching in postgraduate students lecturing, Harvard MBA students with abundant working experiences can conduct / organize required discussions and perform efficient explorative learning while average Chinese college students, without corresponding work experiences, can not.
Attributions of malpractices and suggested counteracting strategies
Let me point out some malpractices first. The most obvious practice is that schools treat this method unfairly and adopt it hastily. If this practice were treated in a way to help attract attention from above very soon, people involved would not pay due attention to the students’ learning but to some superficial elements that can easily be polished. The light generated thus will not last long. The same logic applies to the teachers engaged. And for the students, they are lured by such a refreshed method for sure, but without long term training on critical thinking together with skills and capabilities of persuasive essay writing and conversing, it could be very hard to participate in a typical case lecture. When a feeling of interest turns out to be that of torture, student participants will easily form negative impression on case learning. The last I can raise is how the instructor view the case lecturing. I see most instructors present the case (or better with another term, tale) in a story-telling style so that students certainly can figure out the desired conclusions even before the lecture begins. This is against the philosophy of case teaching as the set answer, whether implicitly or explicitly declared in class, will vandalize the journey where students may advance. Simply put, hints are not allowed but guidance is encouraged.
The way out is always there. To implement this method, first we need officially trained instructors. It will be very expensive because HBS case method training is not cheap, but it is worthy of investing. The only problem is that the schools care more about the students or more about all levels of educational supervisors? Second, we need professionally trained instructors, so well-trained that they are capable of creating an atmosphere for hot but controllable discussions among student groups. Third, we still need ethically trained instructors. With these people so true-heartedly devoted to case method teaching but not to school issued medals or calculated workload to add stipends at the end of the year, superficial elements to get the show done will not be tolerated.
References
Böcker, F. (1987). Is case teaching more effective than lecture teaching in business administration? An exploratory analysis. Interfaces, 17(5), 64-71. ↩︎
Zhiyi, H., & Meng, S. (2005). Research on Management Case Teaching in China [J]. Nankai Business Review, 1, 019. ↩︎
Chris Christensen (2003). Case Method in Practice. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.hbs.edu/teaching/case-method-in-practice/. ↩︎