Case based learning

This teaching method is a contribution by prof. dr. Gijsbert Oonk (ESHCC). After studying at Harvard Business School, he wanted to apply the case study method to his teaching in history and social sciences. To be able to develop this teaching method sustainably, he applied for a CLI Fellowship and, together with Gijs van Campenhout, he created a course and put it into practice. This course called "Utopia for Beginners: Teaching Global Challenges through Local Cases" is about forming an opinion as a process; probing and questioning, learning to disagree with each other instead of being right. Skills that will help students when coping with problems while working as a manager, government official or responsible citizen.

The first lecture explains working with the case method and provides a basis for all cases to follow in subsequent weeks. In this case, students received an explanation of the moral principles of justice (libertarian, community and an interim form) based on 6 articles. They were then asked to write the constitution of their utopia. From the 2nd week, they were given a new case after each lecture and confronted with moral dilemmas, like:

• Who can apply for citizenship? From former slaves in the 19th century to refugees in 21th century.
• Has a conservative religious hotel owner the right to refuse a double bedroom to a married gay couple?

At the end of the course of lectures, the students wrote an evaluation. In their feedback, students said that this way of working taught them the importance of listening to each other's arguments, about the role of (social) media in forming an opinion and how polarised public debate currently is. Students also said that working with a self-written constitution helped them not to think based on their own convictions and prejudices. In fact, it created a safe setting and invited them to be creative and take a completely different position. Examples of cases, the starting assignment of writing a constitution and the self assessment can be found in the download section below. 

Furthermore Oonk and Van Campenhout developed extensive teaching notes. If you are part of the EUR's teaching staff and want to give case based learning a try, you can request them by sending an e-mail to cli@eur.nl. 

For these lectures, the week was planned as follows:

• Monday: lecture and hand out the case (whole group of around 80 people)
• Tuesday to Thursday: develop and submit case individually or in small groups
• Friday: discuss case in tutor groups of around 20 students