In just a few weeks, a different kind of conversation will be taking place at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, long recognized as one of the world’s leading champions of the student-centered Socratic case method.
In partnership with poet and poetry Darden and American University’s Kogod School of Business will host a conference bringing together deans and other business school leaders to address issues that go far beyond a single educational approach.
How should business schools evolve in a world where AI can seemingly create knowledge instantly?
The focus on Socrates’ case method is intentional. This is because the Socratic method is one of the clearest lenses through which to understand broader educational phenomena. Can this 2,400-year-old method help us critically examine business education pedagogy as it evolves in the age of AI?
Case method as bellwether
For decades, the case method has been one of the most powerful teaching tools in business education. At Darden, it’s not just a method, it’s a learning philosophy, built on dialogue that encourages learners to master critical thinking, work through ambiguity, and foster collaboration and collective meaning-making.
The pressure visible to AI is not in the method itself. It’s about pedagogy across higher education and across business education. If a method is currently evolving that is as robust and persistent as the case method, that is an indication that something is deeper. A little history? The Socratic Method has been around for about 2,400 years. It began in Athens in the 5th century BC by the philosopher Socrates (c. 470-399 BC). Rather than lecturing to his students, Socrates engaged them in a dialogue of disciplined questions to peel back layers of assumptions and arrive at deeper, more sophisticated truths.
The case method is a specialized form of the Socratic method designed for professional leadership training. Rather than listening to lectures on business theory, students are placed in the shoes of real-world protagonists facing high-stakes dilemmas.
When knowledge is instantaneous
The basis of most educational models, including case study learning, was the effort required to access, structure, and interpret information. Cases immerse students in real-world, often thorny business challenges that span a variety of industries, functions, and global geographies, putting them in the role of decision-makers.
That foundation is changing.
Today, it might be tempting to think that students can take a case or business problem, feed it into a generative AI system, and receive structured analysis, strategic options, recommended decisions, and more within seconds.
Tasks that previously took hours now take minutes and require almost no effort. But what is the real value that learners gain from this? The actual learning process, the ability to lead a conversation, be decisive in the face of ambiguity and conflicting opinions, develop leadership muscles, etc. will probably be left out along the way.
We must not allow AI to eliminate learning. But it is certainly challenging, changing the meaning of learning from K-12 education to lifelong education, and expanding the boundaries of what is possible.
Beyond the case study method: A pedagogical reset
The increasing scrutiny of the case method is a proxy for a larger problem.
If AI is powerful in accelerating some of the analytical processes, how do business schools ensure that the learning behind that outcome remains deep, rigorous, and intellectually sound? What is the role of business and other formal education as a whole in ensuring this deep learning?
The answer is not to boycott AI. From our perspective, there must be a need to redesign pedagogy around it.
This means moving the learning objectives towards what the Darden Socratic Method has always been about, in many ways.
- Deriving answers to develop judgment skills,
- Apply the framework to ask questions,
- Structured analysis to avoid ambiguity.
These are powerful words that reinforce the ultimate goal of learning: developing critical thinking and responsible business leaders among students.
Limitations of traditional formats
The student-centered case method approach clearly demonstrates this shift.
When students arrive in the classroom with sophisticated AI-powered analysis, the nature of the discussion changes. The risk is not that students will stop participating. That means learning becomes more predictable and less exploratory.
Classroom conversations can lose some of the friction and academic rigor needed to foster engagement. And friction is where learning happens.
This is not a failure of the case method. This is a context that highlights its core strengths: improved judgment and the ability to define problems, especially as AI facilitates the generation of solutions.
From case analysis to case construction
What emerges is not the disappearance of the case method, but its evolution. That possibility arises from the inherent advantages of the Socratic educational environment.
Instead of analyzing static situations, students are asked to construct them and are encouraged to become creators rather than passive consumers of the case.
Through a more immersive and interactive approach, students engage directly with decision makers, explore incomplete information, and build their own understanding of a problem before proposing solutions. They no longer just solve cases. They are gathering opinions, asking questions, and defining cases. Instead of reading several perspectives, learners can meet store owners, business developers, and manufacturing leaders and hear first-hand about the business situations they face. They are all less likely to forget them.
Reintroducing complexity into the world of AI
AI is great at providing structured answers.
But leadership is about making decisions when the answers are incomplete, contradictory, or unclear. Leaders must learn how to ask better questions, interpret signals, and make informed decisions in the face of uncertainty. These skills are not compromised by AI. In fact, they can be amplified through carefully designed experiences and uses of AI.
New roles for teachers and new classroom models
AI-based pedagogy offers an opportunity to reimagine the role of teachers, from discussion facilitator to designer of learning environments where AI is integrated but not dominant.
A new type of flipped pedagogy is beginning to take shape.
Students use AI to accelerate analysis. But learning happens through how we challenge, judge, interpret, and apply AI.
In practice, this can take the form of a virtual case experience. Faculty introduce students to the corporate, industry context and the challenges and strategic tensions that define it. But instead of receiving a complete case, students enter an interactive environment where they must interact with AI-powered agents representing key stakeholders: executives, CEOs under pressure, CFOs balancing constraints, chief sustainability officers adjusting tradeoffs, and more.
Students ask questions, test hypotheses, and dynamically uncover information. Each interaction shapes our understanding of the situation. There is no complete dataset given to them, only what they can extract. Just like what happens in real life, no one will give you a complete report of static reality. You are required to develop a holistic understanding of reality and the forces that act on it.
Students become authors of their own cases, constructing a narrative, defining a problem, applying fundamental skills, and clarifying strategic options before presenting their analysis and recommendations.
Assessments will evolve accordingly, with emphasis placed on the quality of inquiry, depth of understanding, and ability to navigate complexity, rather than reproducing the expected correct answer.
A strategic moment for business schools
The scrutiny and evolution of case law is not a weakness, especially in an institution that has established its excellence.
It’s a sign of leadership.
This reflects a willingness to question even the most established models in order to remain relevant.
Because it’s not the method that’s at issue.
It is the future of pedagogy.
Why this conversation matters now
The conference at Darden brings together deans and business school leaders, with Poets&Quants as a media partner, and is an opportunity to advance this conversation and share best practices among business school leaders.
This is not to defend the past.
But to design what comes next.
Because AI is no longer a distant disruptor.
It is already reshaping the way we learn.
And schools grappling with this change today are doing more than simply adapting.
They will define what business education will be next.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne He serves as associate dean and senior associate dean for the full-time MBA program at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. benjamin steven He is a former director of business school solutions and partnerships at Times Higher Education.
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