HI2002 Case Study
Dr Mike Cosgrave
Online Case Study Class
James MacGregor Burns Transforming Leadership (New York, Grove, 2003)
Burns’ Transforming Leadership is a study of leadership in history. In it, he advances a case for a history of transformational leadership based on a range of historical case studies. The book is popular, and it has bridged history and leadership studies and brought both to a wide audience. It is an accessible and popular book by a political historian who has written a heavy-weight studies of several American presidents, and won a Pulitzer Prize.
This case study provides us with an opportunity to look at the work of a successful, distinguished and popular historian; to see how he uses evidence to support his interpretation of the role of leaders in history. It alos allows us to look at the question of leadership in history in general, looking at alternative theories of leadership and how they might be applied both to the cases Burns uses and to other “Great ‘Men’ in History”
This particular case study class, unlike the 23 other groups in Hi2002, will be taught entirely online. Since the Case Study is a reading and discussion based class, it is very suitable for online teaching using discussion forums, and this will be the principal method we use in this case study. Discussion topics and questions will be posted weekly, and students will be expected to respond to these online and to raise questions and issues of your own in the discussion. Students will also be asked to setup and write a course blog, and online reflective learning journal. Early in the course, we will discuss the differences between blog posts and forum discussions, and how these represent different forms of online scholarly community building. We may experiment with other online collaboration tools, like chat, but at a minimum, students opting for this case study must be willing and able to participate in online discussion forums. Some students may prefer this to face-to-face discussion classes, and some students – those with mobility disabilities or parents with children – may find the online case study more convenient.
Assessment is by end of term essay and by coursework, which normally consists of an oral presentation. For this case study, students record their presentation as a podcast. Indeed, students in my Hi2002 case study were doing course podcasts before the word podcast was coined! I will factor in online discussion and blog entries into the 20% going for the oral presentation for students who do well in those arenas. The end of term essay will be a conventional essay, due in the usual way. Students may find the discipline of writing in the forums and blog during the course helps with the writing of the final essay.
Final essays (and podcasts) may deal with critiques of Burns theory and case studies, individual leaders in history, comparisons of several historical leaders, applications of particular leadership theories to a historical figure, or application of a particular leadership theory to several historical leaders.