Transforming Year 1: from workshop tasks to digital projects
Even before the global pandemic hit, the School of Business was undergoing some radical changes to its curriculum with a focus on social learning and the need to build a stronger identity for its students.
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New modules addressing current business challenges were introduced, all underpinned by the School’s values of social justice, sustainability and good governance. The new modules this year are framed around the themes of COVID and its differential effects, especially on communities of colour.
Teaching and learning on the new modules were already shifting from weekly tasks to three-weekly projects, so the transition from face-to-face to digital has been relatively easy to incorporate. “We’ve moved from workshops in person to two-hour online sessions but we’re still able to break out into small groups of six, collaborate using whiteboard spaces and share files.
Groups are self-directed but facilitated and instead of a Powerpoint presentation, the output is a web page,” explains Patrick McGurk, Reader in Management Practice and Deputy Director of Education. “It’s working well so far and early indicators suggest a deeper level of learning due to the open-ended and creative elements of longer projects.”
First-year students need more time and structure than those in the following years, believes McGurk. “Time in the classroom (physical or virtual) is very important for first-year students. Our objective is for all students to thrive as independent, autonomous learners in Years 2, 3 and beyond.”