Word: methodical
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Dates: during 1980-1980
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WHEN PRESIDENT BOK suggested last spring that the Business School should de-emphasize its use of the "case method," faculty members and students across the river rushed vigorously to the defense. The standard they raised to rally support for the school's teaching techniques, however, is a barely visible one: no two people can ever be sure that they are talking about the same thing when they use the phrase "case method...
Perhaps the best way to sharpen that vocabulary is to look directly at the kinds of "teaching" presently used at the Business School under the loose rubric of the "case method...
...characteristic that links all "case method" classes together is, obviously, their use of cases as illustrations of a source for class study. A case is a set of facts or circumstances adopted from real life business situations for use as a tool for business analysis. A case can be a copiously researched paper or a small drama; it can flood students with data or can leave them searching for more. The forms a case can take seem limited only by the aim and ability of the professor researching and presenting...
Even in courses where the case and support materials are similar, there is a tremendous diversity of approach among teachers all professing to be using the same "method." A paper issued in 1977 by Arch R. Dooley, Philips Professor of Manufacturing, and C. Wickham Skinner, Robison Professor of Business Administration, stresses just that diversity. The report, called "Casing Case Method Methods," claims that "the phrase 'case method' embraces such an array of pedagogic practices that the term itself has no precise connotation...
...There seems to be a lot of confusion in the History Department about the criteria and procedures," Phyllis Keller, associate dean of the Faculty for academic planning, said last week. Even Wallace T. MacCaffrey, department chairman, admitted that the currect method for judging teaching ability is "primitive at best." He added, however, that he was unsure of how to improve the system...