Note on Designing a Case Method Course

Robert F. Bruner
(From Case Studies in Finance, Instructor’s Manual, 3rd ed.)

Studying by the case method is like sailing along a coastline. The student sees the immediate landscape (the case), but he or she may not gain a sense of the continent until the end of the course. I believe it helps for the guide—the instructor—to have the "satellite photo" in mind with which to aid the process of discovery. The purpose of this note, therefore, is to highlight some considerations worth bearing in mind as you plan the journey of case discussions.

The most successful case-method courses have in common many of the following attributes:

Focus on learning, not teaching. The first rule in the design of a case course is to start where the student is. The instructor needs to define the student and his or her needs. From their starting point, how does one construct the required understanding? This is a "bottom-up" design perspective.
A Few "Big Ideas." A large temptation of a teacher is to cover many ideas in the belief that this adds the most value to the student. But this focuses on volume instead of quality, and ignores the basic fact that repetition is one of the soundest foundations of learning. In the pursuit of value-added to the student, an emphasis on quality of learning (rather than quantity) must rule. One must ask, "What few big ideas, which if learned well, will make this course truly valuable?" The answer should become the underlying themes of the course to which the instructor can return repeatedly and which form the basis of the closing class session. These are the kinds of ideas that students will recall for a long time. The casebook affords several theme-setting cases (chapters 1-4) which can be mined for the "big ideas" you wish most to emphasize.
Conceptual or Topical Flow: Eclecticism is the entropy of a case-method course. It pulls hard at any structure the instructor might have in mind, and is powered by sentiments and situations common to most teachers: a list of favorite cases; the absence of good cases on particular topics; the natural reluctance to dally with new and uncertain teaching materials; the belief that, in the case method, the students are responsible for figuring things out for themselves; and the awkwardness with which corporate finance fits into a linear course plan.¹

Nevertheless, a good course design has a beginning, middle, and end; it flows. An important benefit of a good design is that it fosters the students' trust and respect for the instructor, which can yield huge dividends when the time comes to convey difficult concepts or techniques. More importantly, if topics are structured on top of each other, each new module of cases reinforces the work in earlier modules; the learning gain is multiplicative rather than merely additive.

A way to begin the process of building the flow of your course is to survey the materials available and to look for ways in which they fit well together. One strives to build a mosaic of individual learning experiences in which the individual pieces fit with, and contribute to a sensible whole. "The Third Edition 'At-a-Glance'" presents an overview of the cases in this edition, giving a synopsis, teaching objectives, level of challenge, and suggestions for complementary cases. A survey of these cases will suggest ways in which they can become additive i.e., each building upon or extending themes from prior cases while adding something new.
Carefully Designed Beginnings and Endings: The opening and closing of a course (and of modules within it) present excellent opportunities to frame the subject matter of the course. At the opening, one creates expectations about the contents of the course and the effort necessary to absorb the contents. Above all, the course opener should convey some of the intellectual excitement inherent in corporate finance. At the closing, one has the opportunity to summarize and build students' self-confidence in mastery of the material.

One strategy for exploiting these opportunities is to use comprehensive cases to open the course. For instance, "Warren E. Buffett, 1995," raises many of the main themes in corporate finance: value creation, assessment of performance, valuation and market efficiency. With a case such as this one, the challenge for the student is to assess a situation rather than to crunch many numbers—assessment permits students to focus on themes rather than on minute details. Comprehensive cases also challenge the students from the outset.²

Many instructors prefer the opposite opening strategy. They use a relatively simple case, seeking to minimize possible confusion at the start of the course and to give even novices a sense of accomplishment on the opening day.

At the close of a course, comprehensive cases help review the terrain covered by the course and build student confidence. Cases in the areas of mergers and comprehensive financial policy invite a good synthesis of valuation, capital structure, and financing tactics.
Variety in Delivery: Variety enlivens student participation and learning. Within a course, an instructor can achieve considerable variety along the following dimensions:
Format: A steady stream of standard case discussions can be leavened with classes based on team presentations (see cases 51, 52, 53, and 54), role plays (see cases 21 and 24), or negotiation exercises (see cases 37 and 49).

Task: Students appreciate a mixture of both number-crunching problems and situations in which interpretation and the exercise of managerial judgment are important. For instance, the module on financial analysis includes cases requiring both modeling (case 7), exercise of existing models (cases 9, 10, and 11), and interpretation (cases 5,6, and 8).

Pacing/Intensity: This edition offers a mixture of cases according to challenge. Students welcome periodic "breathers" and opportunities to dwell more carefully than usual on a complex situation. Some of the short cases in the collection may be considered "breathers" (cases 5, 6, 16, 17, 22, and 26). Other cases are rich enough to be taught over two class periods if time permits detailed exploration.

Direction/Ambiguity: Another dimension of variation is the degree to which the instructor "sets up" the case discussion—that is, through a choice of problem or use of advance assignment questions. This collection contains a number of relatively ambiguous, less directive cases, which are useful vehicles for problem identification, for which the case method is excellent exercise.

Variation of unknowns: An instructor tries to reinforce what has come before without being repetitious. It may help to have one day's case solve for B given A, and the next day's case solve for A given B. Cases that pair up well are 14 and 15, 18 and 19, 24 and 25, and 46 and 47.
Helping the Students Help Themselves: In the case method, one often observes that the hardest-won insights are the best learned. Unfortunately, this kind of "best learning" is difficult to stimulate: the instructor must walk a thin line between giving away too much and giving away too little. Ultimately, I believe the best an instructor can do is to help prepare students for the process of self-discovery in the following ways:

Collateral readings: Where especially useful, some of the teaching notes cite articles and textbook chapters that help set the conceptual foundations for the case analysis. Habitually assigning supporting readings, however, might signal to the student that the case is an extended problem meant to exercise a specific technique in the reading, which no true case study will do effectively.
Course tracking: Preparing a syllabus and sending periodic memos to students can help them track the flow of the course and follow the progressive structure of concepts and techniques. Memos should not present case solutions, but should remind students about ideas/techniques/terms recently presented and worth thinking about further.

Study Groups: Small group discussions before class can be an extremely effective device for building self-confidence and student mastery of the material. The instructor can encourage the voluntary formation of these groups simply by suggesting the idea and letting motivated individuals do the rest. In my experience, a significant percentage of students will participate in study groups. (Incidentally, when study groups are used, the instructor will need to establish the norm that every student is individually accountable for class preparation; one needs to discourage free riding.)

Feedback: Quizzes, exams, and written and oral comments on class participation can give students a sense of their grasp of the material and can motivate students' efforts to consolidate course material periodically.
Experimentation and tinkering. The best case-method course designs grow out of relentless tinkering. Thus, I encourage you to experiment—use these cases in whatever combinations make sense to you. I have grown to believe that students genuinely respect instructors who are themselves seekers and learners. Yet all too often instructors rest on the laurels of a successful course design (‘If it ain’t broke, don’t ‘fix’ it.") or resist the professional exposure of trying new course designs and materials ("It ain’t in my paycheck.") To these one can reply:

"Success is never final." These immortal words of Winston Churchill have borne the test of time in both politics and business. Typically, and industry leader will neglect product or process improvements and then decline. In like manner, course designs gradually grow stale. To prevent this, one must continually tinker.

"A mistake is an event, the full benefit of which has not yet been turned to your advantage." (Edwin Land, founder of Polaroid.) One runs risks by tinkering with course designs. Often they pay off handsomely. But the occasional failures need to be viewed as failed lab experiments--the source of insights on which to build the next success.

Conclusion
In the aggregate, these seven pointers amount to viewing course design as process not product. If one continually asks the questions behind these pointers, effective designs will emerge.

¹One can easily conjure up the classic course-planning dilemmas in corporate finance, which include: (1) whether to teach financing or investing first; (2) whether to teach cost of capital before capital structure; and (3) whether to teach dividend policy before capital structure.

²In the spirit of showing a climber the height of the mountain, I prefer to use challenging course openers. My expectation is that the class will not gain full closure on the case, but will raise a number of themes and issues to be dealt with throughout the course. The opener, in effect, becomes a foil for the course (e.g., "We've seen this before in Buffett...", or, "What would Warren Buffett say?")