What Makes the Case Method Work? Darden Professors Share Their Insights

In every Darden School of Business classroom, students carry out robust discussions around actual business situations to help them learn how to collaborate, debate, analyze and build skills for their careers.

Darden’s reputation for excellence in the classroom experience and among its faculty stands on the School’s embrace of the case method, a cog of student-centered learning.

Turns out, there’s a method to that as well, and a market for Darden’s expertise.

This month, veteran Darden faculty leaders Yael Grushka-Cockayne and Marc Lipson shared some of the School’s accumulated expertise during a seminar sponsored by Darden Business Publishing, “Student-Centered Learning: Enhance Engagement and Learning with Proven Discussion-based Teaching Techniques”. The seminar covered everything an instructor should consider “from the designing of courses or programs, through the planning of class sessions, to the specific skills required to inspire engagement by every student.”

Naturally, participants had to practice what was being preached. Before the seminar began, Grushka-Cockayne and Lipson shared a case-study based on the real-world challenges of Ben & Jerry’s, the home-grown Vermont ice cream company that struggled with how a sale to the giant corporation Unilever might affect its commitment to its mission and social impact. They then began the program by leading a discussion about the case to give participants a taste of the Darden classroom experience.

This year’s seminar attracted an array of participants including 10 new UVA Darden faculty members and 16 instructors from other schools across the country.

In addition to the basics around structuring and leading student-centered environments and using the case method, participants focused on using quantitative analysis, building a brand as an instructor, and how to facilitate discussions among students with different backgrounds, experiences and opinions. The program culminated with each participant having the opportunity to lead a brief discussion using the techniques they had developed over the previous day-and-a-half.