Passive consumers or productive participants? Engaging students as partners in a collaborative learning model

This paper explores a novel and innovative approach to learning and teaching Strategic Management, that enhances the ‘staff-student partnership’ dimension of learning and teaching within the context of higher education. Instead of being passive consumers, students are turned to active participants in this model of teaching and learning.
It uses postgraduate student-authored cases derived from their own professional experience, for discussion in the classroom. In order to assess the method’s effectiveness and student response, empirical data is captured and analysed over four academic years, by administering a semi-structured questionnaire. The study finds that given the rich diversity of the cohort and variety of the cases submitted and discussed, the method led to a deeper understanding of subject-related topics which students found to be very useful.