Case Teaching Workshop that Changed my Career

Dr Seidu Mahama Alidu’s experience with the case teaching method stretches back to 2013.

That is when he attended a workshop that “completely changed my career as an academic and a teacher,” he says.

Although Orientation to Case Study Teaching was just one of the offerings at the MRPP workshop, the political science lecturer from the University of Ghana describes it as an “eye-opener” and a “complete point of departure in both case writing and teaching using cases.”

While the don already preferred using the case-teaching method with his graduate students, it was always with difficulty. At the 2013 Nairobi workshop, which also covered Alternative Pedagogical Approaches and Curriculum Development, learning the various components of a case and the rationale behind them added value to Dr Alidu’s way of teaching using cases.

“Now I not only teach almost all my graduate sessions with ease, but I have become a peer leader in facilitating workshops on case teaching. The MRPP has boosted my confidence by providing me with not just a continental, but also global platform to share this experience.”

He participated in the 44th Annual Conference of the Association for Research on Non-profit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA) in Illinois, Chicago, in November 2015. About 700 participants attended ARNOVA’s 2015 edition, which featured more than 450 papers, 26 panel discussions and 49 colloquia. PASGR partner, the Humphrey School of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota, sponsored the session Dr Alidu facilitated.