The Great Case-Teaching-Notes Debate

Teaching notes, sometimes called an instructor’s manual, are routinely required to accompany written teaching cases that are submitted to case journals and case writing conferences. Although the content and organization of these notes have become fairly standardized, the literature on the case method contains relatively little discussion concerning the merits and limitations of case notes. It seems widely assumed by case writers that case notes are both essential and positively useful. This article is a modified transcript of an interactive presentation debating the merits of case notes that typically accompany teaching cases.