The challenge of being a case teacher in business school.

Teaching a case study nowadays do not provide adequate return on investment. For a new field case (one that is on real companies written based on field research) , it takes 10 to 12 hours of preparation and a few hours on learning about industry context. A lot of physical and cognitive effort is needed to extract and organise the analysis, and a lot of emotional labour is involved in remaining calm and not getting upset and frustrated. 

After every thing, look at the exprience . There are students who have not read the case, so they sit wondering what is happening. There are the smart alecks who ask profound metaphysical questions like see an example "In business why should margins be proportionate to price";  There are those who are desperate for class participation who want to have airtime at any cost and contribute a point which might have been relevant 45 minutes back. There are those who have an existential dilemma about a typographical error in the case and refuse to proceed unless it is resolved to their satisfaction. 

After all the excitement, there are those who leave the class with the big question, so what is the take away, so what is the correct answer, and where is the secret recipe for success?

The instructor stumbles out, in a stupor, some how makes it to the room and fall asleep. Later in the night, will have nightmare about all that instances when the class suddenly fell strangely silent with no helpful responses to take the analysis in the planned direction.

Compare this to a lecture, text book authors provide the slides, instructor manuals provide the examples, every minute can be scripted and the lecture can proceed even if every one sleeps. There is no problem if the students are not prepared, if they  do not respond.  Own sound coming through the speakers give a nice sense of power. Above all , at the end of the session, satisfaction can be measured in slides per minute and words per minute. Some how if all the pesky questions can be ignored and the enterprising doubting Thomas could be brow beaten, lectures are a teacher's heavenly job. 

I have not given up yet, at least some students are there in every batch for whom the effort is worthwhile. 

PS. This is teacher's one sided perspective. At times, there are students who are well prepared and the instructor may be simply killing time. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Limited service websites

Have you ever been denied access to a seemingly innocuous website on account of your nationality. I am not talking about NASA or Pentagon websites, but about www.komando.com. I got the shock of my netlife to get this message . Request denied For security reasons, we block IPs from a few parts of the world. Our business primarily serves the citizens of the United States. Regarding online operations, we will take whatever precautionary steps that we believe are in the best interests of our company and our operations. However, if you reside in the United States of America or are a member of our armed forces and feel this is an error then let us know. When you see this message, your IP address can help us resolve the problem. You can determine your IP address by going to: http://www.whatismyip.com We are not affiliated with whatismyip.com. We do not support for their product. We are not liable for any damages incurred by using their product nor any claims or representations they or th
Read more

What is the mystery of Patanjali?

Recently I attended a marketing conference. Most of the 'who is who' of marketing academics in India were there, and every meeting formal or informal finally lead to Patanjali. There were many scholastic opinions shared. Some emphasized the celebrity endorsement effect of Baba Ramdev, the most visible, iconic brand ambassador. Some argued that the emerging trend of patriotic fervor, some touched upon the emerging Hindu nationalism and Patanjali riding on the same trend that brought BJP to power . Some pointed out the health and fitness concern and back to nature and natural being good and related the same to a global trend. The political academic saw a hidden agenda and concerted right wing attempt and Government support and subsidy behind the success of Patanjali. There were those who eloquently spoke on their go-to -market strategy and umbrella branding. May be they are all right, but beyond all these , Patnajali is providing a compelling value-for-money proposi
Read more

90 percent vegetarian

A few years back, I went on a road trip with a colleague of mine on the east cost of US. We being in this noble profession could not afford the restaurants and hence thought of relying on the ubiquitous and benevolent Uncle Mac-the patron saint of broke tourists any where in the world. My friend being a vegetarian had a problem to contend with. He does not like burgers , will not take fried chicken. We tried the super market, but the frozen delicacies need a micro wave oven and our rooms did not always have one. So he subsisted on fruits though he had a value based objection to GM foods. After a day of bananas, apples and pomegranates, I took to him a packet of bread and marmalade. He was quite hungry, still he carefully read the contents listed on the pack. Being in US, most packets list a lot of ingredients.Turning to me with a frustrated look, he said, the bread is omega enriched which most likely must have come from fish and marmalade contain gelatin which is of animal origin
Read more