INCAE teaches teachers in Latin America the Harvard Business School teaching method

Learning to teach like in Harvard, that is the mission of INCAE's program "Workshop on writing and teaching by the case method", dedicated to teaching Latin American teachers and researchers the case method created by the North American business school a little more 100 years old and that continues to be the flagship brand of the best business schools in the world, including INCAE.

The system seeks to teach students to apply knowledge directly in real situations of companies around the world, in order to consolidate what they have learned and know how to function once they graduate. In addition, with this method, teachers can understand a problem from different angles and also learn from the result of the discussion generated in the class.

"Business administration is not only having a list of knowledge or a manual where you execute the recipe, that does not work, the important thing is the ability of a manager to distinguish based on the environment what are the possible courses of action and at the end of You have to make a decision and execute it well; the case method is the closest thing to being able to simulate that process "explained Professor Carlos Rodríguez, who taught classes during the program, as did Juan Carlos Barahona, Francisco Leguizamón, Julio Sergio Ramírez and Enrique Ogliastri- Academic Director of the Program.

Teachers and researchers from business schools such as Universidad Tecnológica de Bolívar (Cartagena, Colombia), Universidad Autónoma de Bucaramanga (Colombia), Universidad Católica de Uruguay, among others, participated in the 2015 edition. "The participants belong to the INCAE Network, which is a mutual cooperation agreement with Latin American business schools where INCAE gives them tools to grow and improve in content and methods to develop a critical system and a more structured way," he said. Alexandra Esquivel, Director of International Programs.

The interaction of the group, the dynamics with the teachers and the quality of the classes generated great satisfaction in the participants. "The objectives with which I arrived were met. The reflections and elements that the case methods carried are valuable, the teachers have extensive experience and shared good knowledge with us, this system clearly reflects a real management, different from the scheme traditional ", commented Carlos Chaverra, economist, workshop participant and Executive Director of Core School of Management, Universidad Autónoma Bucaramanga, Colombia.

On the other hand, Carlos Fernández, a Costa Rican researcher, also gets a good impression of the activity: "The case workshop was an enriching experience, as a novice writer of cases, it was valuable for me to learn about methodologies and formal frameworks for the elaboration and teaching plans. I really enjoyed learning about new trends and challenges in writing these, such as "live cases" using public information and the difficulty of building a case that can survive the dissemination of your "solution" through Internet.".

This workshop is taught every year and its consistent success shows that it needs to continue.