One of the main drivers of my choice to attend Ivey was the case-based learning method. I had heard from alumni and friends in various programs about the emphasis on classroom discussions; I thought back to my English classes in high school, where I had enjoyed being in marked small group discussions. Starting out the program online, I logged into Zoom on my first day to find that classroom discussions were not what I had expected.
I spent my undergraduate degree in an engineering program, where classes followed similar patterns. There would be a set of lectures, followed by take-home problem sets and courses always culminated in final exams. At first, adjusting to discussions and the heavy emphasis on teamwork at Ivey was challenging. Although I have always been an outgoing person, maybe too talkative at times, I was caught off-guard by the prospect of taking and defending positions in a classroom of peers who had prepared very detailed analyses of the cases, often presenting facts, calculations, and recommendations that I had not thought of previously.
At first, I found myself getting lost in the race to raise hands over Zoom. I would spend more time during a class worrying about contributing than listening to my peers to find where I could build upon the discussion. A habit that I had to break was the notion that I had picked up from my undergraduate study, that classroom discussions were facilitated by the instructor and based in questions and answers. I found that at Ivey, discussions flowed in different directions and accepted that I did not have to contribute every class if I didn’t have a constructive point. At the same time, I also understood that I would not be able to prepare for every way a case could be analyzed in class. Instead of spending hours working out the case from every angle, I fell back on my strengths, focusing on creating a few, well thought out points that I could build upon during the discussion. I also decided to reframe class discussions away from presenting my case preparations towards trying to learn from and build upon the points being made by my classmates. As we moved to in-person instruction, this became easier as classes felt more conversational.
Looking back on the term, I realized that I still have more room to grow in terms of my contributions to class discussions. Coming from an engineering background, I am used to being right or wrong when asked a question in class. My major takeaway from my first term of discussions is that there is very rarely a wrong answer. There may be times where an instructor wants to take the discussion in a different route, however, most of the time there will be a way to approach a case from many directions. There were many occasions where disagreements occurred in class, in fact, many instructors encouraged it. In Lucas Monzani’s Leadership class, we frequently took votes on approaches to the case and spent the class discusses the merits and downfalls of each option. Understanding that having classmates disagree with a point or taking the unpopular approach to a case does not make my answer “wrong” was a key learning opportunity for me that has built my confidence in class.
My advice to those entering the program nervous about the case-based discussions would be to prepare for class and slowly build the confidence to leave your comfort zone, knowing that everyone else is in the same position. It is important to not only make well prepared contributions but to also make ones that lead to disagreement, as they provide the best learning opportunities.