The Prepare–Draw–Deepen (PDD) cycle

Research · Teaching & Social Research

A draw-to-defend operating system for case-based teaching, developed at the Berlin College of Business and Technology (BCBT) and the World Cleanup Institute. PDD builds on the case method of the Harvard tradition and changes one thing at its core: it makes preparation the rational choice for every student.

Case methodActive learningRetrieval practiceMBAIn evaluation

The problem

Case teaching assumes prepared students. In practice preparation is uneven, hard to verify and easy to avoid: groups invite free-riding, and skimming passes for preparation. Students then meet the material for the first time in the lecture, the weakest use of contact time. Research shows that students feel they learn more in polished lectures but measurably learn less than in active formats (Deslauriers et al., 2019).

The cycle

1 · AssignTask assigned in-session only, on the final slides.

2 · ActivateT−24h mail: refinement note and three cold-call questions, never the deck.

ONElongitudinal case

4 · DeepenThe lecture deepens what the room produced.

3 · Draw & defendA randomly drawn group defends its work for marks, scored on the rubric.

Term finale: in the last session every group defends the whole case and reflects on the cycle.

Incentive-compatible by design: unprepared = scored as delivered · on-time preparation is grade-wired · marks private, feedback public

Term finale: Presentation Assessment · Wed 14 Oct 2026International MBA, May 2026 batch · 13:30–16:30 · CIC Berlin, Checkpoint Charlie room

Nine design principles

P1 · Assign in-session only

Tasks appear on the final slides of the session, never by e-mail: the room hears the assignment together.

P2 · Activate at exactly T−24h

One refinement note, three cold-call questions and the task repeated verbatim. The questions exist only in this mail, so the retrieval event is preserved.

P3 · Draw without replacement

A random draw opens each session. Draws run in rounds, so every group is drawn equally often: fairness is arithmetic, not assurance.

P4 · Unprepared = scored as delivered

No re-draws. The rule is announced in week one and applied calmly.

P5 · Marks private, feedback public

The debrief runs in rubric language and calibrates the whole room; scores appear only in the learning management system.

P6 · Preparation is grade-wired

On-time group submission is itself a scored part of the participation grade.

P7 · One longitudinal case

A single evolving case carries all sessions, so every framework lands on the same facts.

P8 · Teach after the defence

The lecture deepens and corrects what the groups produced: instruction becomes feedback.

P9 · Close with a whole-project challenge

In the final session every group defends the whole case before a jury and reflects on the cycle itself.

Grounding

Retrieval practice

The three activator questions at T−24h are scheduled retrieval events (Roediger & Karpicke, 2006).

Active learning

Active formats outperform lectures (Freeman et al., 2014), even when students feel otherwise (Deslauriers et al., 2019).

Accountability

Cold calling raises voluntary participation (Dallimore, Hertenstein & Platt, 2013); scored random draws extend this from individuals to groups.

Case method

Preparation is the professional skill the case method certifies (Garvin, 2003; Ellet, 2018).

Design thinking

The drawn defence works like a low-fidelity prototype that is tested and iterated (Scheer, Noweski & Meinel, 2012; Meinel & Krohn, 2022).

Incentive design

Timeliness is a scored component, aligning private incentives with the pedagogy, a mechanism most active-learning designs leave implicit.

Pilot and evaluation

PDD is being piloted in 2026 in the MBA module “Strategy, Organisation & Project Management” at BCBT, built on one longitudinal case. The evaluation combines process data (preparation on time, attendance, rubric scores across draws), outcome data compared with a previous cohort, and student experience data (one-minute papers, an end-of-term survey on fairness and draw-related stress).

Data are used only with informed consent, anonymised and in aggregated form. Fieldwork and grading are separated: consent forms and research data are handled by the co-investigator, not by the grading lecturer.

Team

Hon.-Prof. Holger Holland: concept, method, teaching
Maloth Surender Naik: fieldwork, data curation, evaluation
Team →

Run PDD with us

We are preparing a multi-site evaluation for 2027 intakes. If you teach case-based courses with group work (15–40 students), you can run the cycle with the full replication kit: session plans, scoring matrix and dispatch templates.

Join the multi-site evaluationOpens an email to [email protected] with a short template

References

Dallimore, E. J., Hertenstein, J. H. & Platt, M. B. (2013). Impact of cold-calling on student voluntary participation. Journal of Management Education, 37(3), 305–341.
Deslauriers, L., McCarty, L. S., Miller, K., Callaghan, K. & Kestin, G. (2019). Measuring actual learning versus feeling of learning in response to being actively engaged in the classroom. PNAS, 116(39), 19251–19257.
Ellet, W. (2018). The Case Study Handbook (rev. ed.). Harvard Business Review Press.
Freeman, S. et al. (2014). Active learning increases student performance in science, engineering, and mathematics. PNAS, 111(23), 8410–8415.
Garvin, D. A. (2003). Making the case: Professional education for the world of practice. Harvard Magazine, 106(1), 56–65.
Meinel, C. & Krohn, T. (2022). Design Thinking in Education. Springer.
Roediger, H. L. & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.
Scheer, A., Noweski, C. & Meinel, C. (2012). Transforming constructivist learning into action: Design thinking in education. Design and Technology Education, 17(3), 8–19.