When I was growing up, there was this show we all watched and were very fond of called Tales by Moonlight. It came on at 6:30 pm, and it always started with a wise elder gathering a group of children around to share a story. The stories were rich and often drawn from folk wisdom or everyday life. Each session always ended with the same question: “What’s the moral of the story?”
Looking back, that was my first exposure to what we now call teaching with cases.
Case teaching has been around long before it became a formal method in contemporary higher education. This teaching method is rooted in something deeper than pedagogy, but how we, as humans, make sense of the world. We tell stories to explain things, to connect, to pass on values, and to imagine new possibilities. In that sense, case teaching is by no means new. We can argue that perhaps what is new is the structure, the setting, and the intentionality we bring to it in today’s classrooms.
What we do with case teaching is taking real or constructed (fabricated/fictitious) scenarios (typically problems, dilemmas, or decision points) and placing them in front of learners. We then ask them not to define a term or regurgitate a theory, but to step into the shoes of the protagonist. What would you do if you were in this situation? What are the trade-offs? What does your decision say about your values, your thinking, your leadership? This method is most relevant in business education, where answers are very rarely clear-cut and decision-making often involves a blend of data, judgement, emotion, and context. But I would argue it has a place in any field where uncertainty exists, where people matter, and where the future is not written in a manual.
Now, shall we be honest? With GenAI rapidly evolving, and with our students who live in a digital-first world, attention is fragmented, and student engagement/participation is now a frequent topic of discussion in most higher education fora. For context, some[1] suggest that Gen Z has an average attention span of around 8 seconds! Whether entirely accurate or not, the broader point stands: the traditional model of delivering long, one-directional lectures to passive listeners is progressively mismatched with how people engage today. But even more importantly is the fact that it is mismatched with what the world now requires from our graduates.
We are no longer preparing students to become walking repositories of facts. They have Google, Bard, CoPilot, Grok, ChatGPT (and the many more future tools) for that. Instead, we are (or should be) preparing them to manage complexity, make sound judgements, and solve problems that do not come with model answers. We must be preparing them to sit in ambiguity, collaborate across differences, and communicate ideas clearly and persuasively. These are things AI cannot automate; at least not with the current versions of AI we have. Who knows what the future holds in terms of technological advancement, but right now, these human skills are still very relevant and in demand.
So, you may ask me “is case teaching better?” That depends on what you mean by better. For certain learning goals, e.g., encouraging discussion, developing diverse perspectives, and building decision-making capabilities, case teaching offers unmatched value. But, make no mistake, it is not easy nor will it always work as intended. There are real challenges. Case teaching demands serious preparation from tutors. You cannot just walk into a room with a set of PowerPoint slides. You must know the case deeply, anticipate different student reactions, and be ready to pivot when the discussion takes unexpected turns. You also need to learn how to ask questions that open up thinking rather than close it down. Participation and engagement are another layer entirely. There’s a universe (and let’s be honest, for example, sometimes a 6pm Friday seminar) where students simply don’t engage. You ask a brilliant question, and the room falls into awkward silence. No raised hands. No eye contact. Just a sea of mobile phones and disengaged faces. What do you do then?
Let me give you a simple practical example of case teaching. Imagine you have planned to teach a short case about a newly promoted team leader who inherits a demoralised team. No datasets, no financial projections. Just a messy human problem. When you drop this in front of a group of students and ask, “What would you do on your first day?”, you see the classroom come alive. Someone may talk about setting expectations. Another might say listening is more important. A third person might argue for a bold change. And suddenly, you move away from teaching leadership to watching students practice it in real time. This is the beauty of the case method. It gets under the skin of the content. It draws out emotion, experience, and judgement. It gives students a chance to develop a point of view, defend it, revise it, and learn from others in the process.
And this is where GenAI becomes interesting. Although it currently may not be capable enough to lead a discussion or respond to live feedback (or non-verbal cues) in the way a human can, it can be a powerful tool for tutors in planning and preparing case discussions. For instance, a tutor can use AI to generate a variety of opening questions tailored to different learning outcomes. Or use it to explore possible student responses to a case, helping them plan how to guide the discussion. You could even use it to adapt a case for different cohorts, say, undergraduates vs. executives.
Instead of fearing GenAI, we can ask: how can it help us design better learning experiences? How can it free us from repetitive planning tasks so we can focus on the high-touch elements of teaching, including the facilitation, the feedback, creating the aha moments?
In the Business School, via the Business Education Research and Scholarship (BERS) community, we are starting a fresh conversation around this. We are creating spaces for colleagues to explore what case teaching looks like in our context. In doing this, there is no assumption that everyone is already familiar with the method. In fact, we are assuming the opposite, that many of us are curious, maybe a bit sceptical, and possibly unsure about how to start.
BERS is running a series of seminars that provide colleagues a chance to experience case teaching from the inside out. It includes activities ranging from reading and discussing a case on the challenges of case teaching itself and experimenting with GenAI tools to develop case teaching plans. But more than that, it is a space to reflect on what kind of learning we want to create, and how we can co-create it with our students.
One of the most powerful questions I heard during my recent training at Harvard Business School was: “If you gave your students the same assessment again, four months after your class ended, how many would pass?” If they could still do it (or maybe even do it better), then that’s evidence of learning that has stuck. That would constitute learning that mattered. And that’s the kind of learning I’m advocating for in our classrooms.
So, I’ll leave you with a question, whether as a unit or programme director, tutor, teaching assistant, or just someone thinking about how to make teaching more engaging:
“You’re teaching a topic that matters. What kind of case would help bring it to life?” Could you find it? Would you have to write your own? And if you did… what would be the moral of the story?
Let’s talk.
[1] https://www.keg.com/news/the-first-8-seconds-capturing-the-attention-of-gen-z-students
