How can we, through case studies, ignite in-class participation?

By Dorothée Sidokpohou – Professor of Management Practice, Marketing Department at ESSEC Business School. After 15 years of marketing experience in the corporate world, Dorothée favors teaching interactive methods, such as case studies and project groups, in partnership with companies.

A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to take a two-day course offered by Harvard Business Publishing (HBP), the “Teaching with Cases Seminar”, led by Bill Schiano, professor of Computing Information Systems at Bentley University, Massachusetts (USA). This seminar, organized on the Audencia campus in Paris, gathered a large crowd of professors of diverse nationalities and departments, working in French business schools. 

Bill Schiano delivered a smooth demonstration of how to teach with cases using a mise en abyme, as we all had to read cases in advance, exactly the same way students would do, and learnt from each other through the in-class discussion of the various cases. This participant-centered learning is very consistent with the learning by doing approach promoted at ESSEC, and more relevant than ever in a context where knowledge is available everywhere, from MOOC and Coursera to Youtube tutorials, and where classrooms are more a space for discussion than for lectures.