What is the Case Method?

This spring, Online G3 is proud to be able to run our very first Case Method workshop: Madison and Hamilton Make Their Cases – A Workshop on Constitutional Quandaries.

You might be wondering, however, what exactly IS the Case Method? Why is Online G3 using the Case Method?

If you follow the goings on at Online G3, you might have noticed that we make use of all kinds of materials and methodologies in our history education program. From Horrible Histories (such as this spring’s Horrible Middle Ages) to board games (watch for our Memoir ’44-based summer workshop on WW2), we love approaches to history that engage learners through many different lenses (humor, interaction, critical thinking, etc.). We have also long been fans of narrative approaches to history, as you can tell from our long usage of Joy Hakim’s A History of US books. The Case Method is a narrative approach to big moments in American history that puts learners in the driver’s seat.

The Case Method comes to us from Harvard, where it has been used for decades in the Business School. More recently, Professor David Moss adapted the Case Method to courses in American history and democracy, and these materials are now graciously provided to learning institutions like Online G3 by the Case Method Institute. As the Case Method website explains:

A “case” is a short narrative document – a story – that presents a particular challenge facing an individual or organization. Each case reflects the information available to decision-makers at the time, and builds to a particular decision point, but without revealing what decision was actually made. For each class, students are asked to read the case and to put themselves in the shoes of the actual decision-makers to consider what they themselves would have done given the information available at the time.

https://www.hbs.edu/case-method-project/about/Pages/case-method-teaching.aspx

Outside of the classroom, students will read and absorb the background of the scenario facing a founding father. In class, we will then challenge the students in a collaborative discussion to reason out the challenge and desired outcome. Why did James Madison seek a “Federal Negative” at the Constitutional Convention? Why did Alexander Hamilton propose a national bank? How did the outcomes of these battles over early America affect our government and country ever after?

In other words, in this workshop, our young learners will be put in the shoes of James Madison and Alexander Hamilton in two of the most important moments in our country’s youth, and then they get to decide what to do. Like history detectives, they will retrace the steps of Madison and Hamilton and piece together their motives and desires. Afterward, they will learn the outcome of each of these scenarios. The results may actually surprise them!