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Pedagogical Approach

Case-Based Learning

Active and Experiential Learning Strategies

Case-based learning is an instructional method, long central to legal, business and medical education, in which students analyze a detailed real or realistic scenario, a legal case, a business decision, a clinical presentation, and work through it to identify the relevant issues, apply principles, and reach and defend a judgment, rather than being told the applicable rule and then given a simplified exercise to practice it. Christopher Columbus Langdell introduced the method to Harvard Law School in 1870, and Harvard Business School extended it to management education from 1920 onward, from where it spread into other professional fields.

Facts
Central Question
How can students quickly make sense of a complex problem, reach a reasonable solution and communicate it effectively? 1
Most Effective For
Students in professional schools such as law, business and government 1
Connections

Associated With

Developed By

Source Case method, Wikipedia
Sources
1. Case method, Wikipedia
  • Section on the aim of the case method
    The case method gives students the ability to quickly make sense of a complex problem, rapidly arrive at a reasonable solution, and communicate that solution to others in a succinct and effective manner.
  • Section on professional schools using the case method
    is used in a variety of professional schools
  • Developed By: Christopher C. Langdell, Lead
    It developed during the course of the twentieth-century from its origins in the casebook method of teaching law pioneered by Harvard legal scholar Christopher C. Langdell.
  • In Group: Project, Problem and Inquiry-Based Learning, Lead
    The case method is a teaching approach that uses decision-forcing cases to put students in the role of people who were faced with difficult decisions at some point in the past.
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