Puzzled by his students' ability to listen intently during class, yet fail to comprehend concepts or be able to apply them later, Dr. Dahiya redesigned his multi-section Advanced Financial Management course to be completely based on the case study method. By spending class time with students reasoning through a series of situational cases in the business world, Dr. Dahiya has found a way to actively engage them in the real work of the discipline from day one.

Introducing the case study method to students posed a challenge, however, because many students arrive in class with a traditional view of what it means to sit in a classroom and learn, namely to sit and listen. To change students' attitudes and mindsets toward learning, Dahiya establishes new norms of interaction by contacting students over email before the course begins, by writing expectations for participation and preparedness directly into the syllabus, and by introducing a case study at the first class meeting. Because the case study method requires students to be prepared for "cold calling" during class and this can be hard for students to adjust to, Dahiya makes an effort to find out about his students' backgrounds and interests so that he can facilitate connections between a case being discussed and a particular student's motivations and interests. Drawing upon the natural interests of students helps them connect to the case under discussion and helps them to feel prepared to speak with authority on a particular case.

With the help of CNDLS' Assessment Team, Dahiya has conducted mid-semester small group feedback sessions with his students over multiple semesters. Originally conducted by CNDLS staff, Dahiya has moved to a less time-intensive in-class survey of a few questions distributed about halfway through the semester. This brief, anonymous feedback informs him of how students are adjusting to the case study method, and course concepts they might be struggling with. Positive effects of incorporating the case method into this course have been that his students now spend about half of class time in discussion, his teaching evaluations have soared, and he was nominated for the Dorothy Brown Teaching Award in 2005 and 2006.