Teaching Cases in a Virtual Environment: When the Traditional Case Classroom is Problematic

Abstract

The rise in interactive digital media has catapulted faculty-student contact abilities from the traditional Web 1.0 model to a post-Web 2.0 world where students and faculty can have much more interaction in classroom exchanges. Since business cases have long been a pedagogy of choice among professors concerned with training the next generation of decision makers, the intent of this exploratory teaching execution was to gain insight into the case teaching experience in Second Life (SL). SL is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab that enables its users to interact with each other through avatars (virtual representations of the self). While online classrooms in SL are not new (a number of universities throughout the world have set up virtual campuses), business education scholarship is lacking as related to the use of virtual worlds for educational purposes. The aim of the execution was not to suggest that SL case teaching should displace the traditional case classroom interactions. Rather, the exercise found that a case-based class can be held and attended independent of time, distance, and location should the need arise. Case teaching in SL offers an availability alternative or supplement to the traditional case teaching and learning approach.

Interactive education in public administration (1)

“…The point is that there are innumerable ways of discussing cases, limited only by the teacher’s (and the students’) imagination (Foster et al, 2010; Halvorson et al, 2011; Roth and Smith, 2009)). Instead of the teacher didactically explaining the concepts, the students’ understanding of them emerges from wrestling with the complexities of the particular case, with more or less gentle guidance on the part of the teacher.…”

Exploring Automated Data Augmentation Approaches for Deep Learning: A Case Study of Individual Feral Cat Classification

“…Conversely, virtual labs provide a realistic learning environment that is both cost effective and more easily implementable for online students (August et al, 2015;Ruiz-Martinez et al, 2013). These labs can range from virtual learning spaces mirroring the classroom (Halvorson et al, 2011;Wyss et al, 2014) to environments mimicking the real-world (Rursch & Jacobson, 2013). Specifically, in the area of networking, virtual laboratories have been utilized to enable effective learning of hands-on networking concepts Ruiz-Martinez et al, 2013;Wolf, 2009) as well as related areas such as network security (Willems & Meinel, 2012;Xu et al, 2013).…”

The Use of Case Studies in Undergraduate Business Administration

“…Their study included interviews with faculty and students over a two-year period about international business, foreign languages, and culture. Halvorson, Crittenden, and Pitt (2011) and Pitt, Crittenden, Plangger, and Halvorson (2012) used Second Life to create a virtual case study classroom successfully in a marketing class. Prat (2012) looked at perceived and actual student learning (performance) along with student satisfaction and participation among graduate information systems students.…”