Last week I used one of Mark's case studes in MKT2003 - the students found it tedious, and so did I really - although they engaged fairly well.
Today, I did a case study seminar twice for MKT1001. Scruffy photocopied content, two case studies. The first session I spent too long on the first case study - Kirby cleaners - I just couldn't get anyone to give an opinion. The room is arranged in a horseshoe shape and they all just sat there avoiding my eye. Many of them also took an eternity to actually read it. The second case study was Tesco - it had a bit more to it, and they had to discuss in groups... even then, about half of them sat in silence not discussing. Really hard work. The afternoon session went better - a more lively group in spite of the graveyard slot. Conversation went better, more dialogue - less of it ME! Still felt I did relatively too much of the talking. Especially on Kirby - that one was dull and OLD.
Need to think about how I can improve on my technique with case studies as I'm going to get a lot of these. Also I can't feel happy about working with tatty handouts. They are hard to read and look unprofessional..... but how to handle this? Should I shut up & put up?
Wonder if the arrangement of the room has a bearing. The horseshoe is a bit confrontational. The afternoon slot we have taken to holding in the comfy chair area in Senate rather than in the lecture room we're timetabled in - there's nobody around - this seems to help the conversation to flow.
ReplyDelete