From August 26th to 27th, 2014 National MPA Faculty Seminar on Case Teaching was held in SPPM. The seminar was organized by National MPA Education Steering Committee of China and Co-sponsored by School of Public Policy & Management, Tsinghua University. During the seminar, more than 80 instructors from 73 universities and colleges throughout China have participated in the training program. Specially, professor Anthony Saich, professor Arnold M. Howitt and professor Dutch B. Leonard from Harvard Kennedy School have also attended the seminar.
The seminar lasted for 2 days, covering four issues in terms of Case Teaching Demonstration on Public Administration; Case Writing and Case Teaching Method in China; Teaching Experience exchange; Writing and Evaluation on Case Teaching Manual. The training program was composed by different sections, including lectures, a class demonstration, group discussions, exchange of experiences, case teaching practice, performance evaluation and so on.
On the first day of the program, the director Muling from the China Case Center of SPPM and the director Lizhu Zhuo from the Nanping Case Center of SPPM delivered lectures to show the importance and advantage of case teaching method in the study of public policy and management. Later a demonstration lesson was taught by assistant professor Caofeng of SPPM on the topic of social conflict management and negotiation, and introduced how to write a case teaching manual. At the same time, ten professors from different universities and colleges throughout China shared their experiences of case teaching to all participants. On that night, these participants were divided into six groups to discuss the case study of "Burdensome Cotton". Every group was required to write a case teaching manual based on their discussion. And the group that wrote the best teaching manual won the chance to practice case teaching on the next day, with other participants as students.
On the second day, professor Anthony Saich, professor Arnold M. Howitt and professor Dutch B. Leonard from Harvard Kennedy School delivered their respective speeches on related issues. These statements of the three scholars from Harvard Kennedy School, arouse the general concern of participants and their active discussions. Later in the afternoon, the teaching manual presentation on the case of Burdensome Cotton was done, which was commented later by Professor Wu Yongping and Director Mu Ling of Case Center.
The seminar has effectively promoted communication and learning among different universities, different colleges and different scholars between academics, positively impacting on the area of public policy education. By now, the China Case Center of SPPM have organized 8 national training programs from 2001 to 2014. More than 450 instructors from 123 universities and colleges in China participated in the training. Also, we have developed special training workshops or lectures for academic institutions based on their specific needs. Their feedbacks prove that our seminar on case teaching is very valuable for faculty members of China to improve the overall quality on public policy education programs.
