How professional schools teach professional skills

All professional schools face the same difficult challenge: how to prepare students for the world of practice. Time in the classroom must somehow translate directly into real-world activity. A surprisingly wide range of professional schools, including Harvard's Law, Business, and Medical schools, have concluded that the base way to teach these skills is by the case method. The Law School led the way. The Business School followed fifty years later. It was founded in 1908 with a committment to discussion and practical problems, but did not adopt cases until 1920 when its second dean, a Harvard Law School graduate, championed their use.