Transcript

So at the time there were two seminars that were offered by Chris Christensen, and they were offered in the fall and in the spring.  The fall seminar, called the discussion leadership skills seminar, was offered across the river.  It was really a broad-based seminar, not only for HBS doctoral students, but also for instructors in other fields across the university.  And this was the seminar that I took. It made a lot of sense, just because I was going to be teaching in the spring, for me to take the seminar in the fall.  So I got to experience Chris with a number of other faculty from all over the university, which was also really interesting in and of itself. And to have an opportunity to really see him in action, thinking about modeling one's own teaching, and seeing the master at work, but then thinking about sort of developing your own teaching style.

That was a very important theme that was really present throughout Chris's teaching is that you -- you shouldn't be mimicking other people; you should find a way to really connect on your own.  And that ultimately even finding your own style is finding your style to connect with the students, with the audience that you have.  As he always said, you teach the class, you don't teach the case.

I think that was a very important distinction.  Because we can get so immersed in the content of what we're teaching that we lose sight of who we're teaching and, in fact, the collective learning experience.  And it's not just about as an instructor teaching the class.  It's also learning from the class, and finding ways to enable the students themselves to teach each other.  And I think that was the core theme in all of the sessions with Chris.  And it really stays with me until today.