AHEAD OF THE GAME Learning through play provides a novel lens for developing holistic skills in students around the world. This type of pedagogy is designed to be a hands-on approach to collaboration and critical problem-solving that aims to incorporate the UN’s sustainable development goals into management education, as Meredith Storey explains
I n just seven more years, the countdown to achieve the UN’s Agenda 2030 and its sustainable development goals (SDGs) will expire. When the world committed to sustainable development, leaders signed a pledge that global stakeholders would embed these issues at the heart of all work. While some goals and targets are more explicit to educational work than others [eg goal 4: quality education, target 4.7], education is foundational for each issue underpinning the SDGs. Despite a tremendous uptake in the SDG application for global business reporting, policy making and educational application, the SDGs remain marginal in the mainstream content of business disciplines. They must have a place in the educational narrative, particularly in management education institutions. Working with the Lego Foundation and its learning through play and skill set development work, the Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME) translated lessons from young learners to the adult audience of business school students and educators. The Impactful Five (i5) pedagogy was developed to be an innovative way to create meaningful educational environments in tertiary business and management schools. To better understand the application of this pedagogy, PRME is working with its network of more than 800 business school signatories worldwide to foster lessons of creative and innovative pedagogy and praxis. Various cohorts shared unique lessons in discipline and subject matter, issues of focus, geography, learner-level, class size, experience and more. All this provided crucial insights for the application of the i5 pedagogical methods in business education. Strategies to align with the i5 For the past two years, the PRME secretariat has been working with educational partners at Project Zero (PZ), an initiative of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and with independent NGO Sulitest to identify ways of enabling learning through play in business schools. By targeting the five characteristics of learning, the i5 project utilises meaningful, socially interactive, actively engaging, iterative and joyful methods, with the goal of impacting student skill set development.
Make learning meaningful Creating meaningful learning experiences involves acknowledging and valuing students’ existing skills, mindsets and experiences. Instead of simply imparting information, facilitating the learning process to promote individuality creates meaningful lessons. By being transparent and sharing personal stories, educators foster a genuine learning community where everyone feels involved and valued. Strategies to make learning meaningful include the following concepts. Role modelling: demonstrating responsible leadership competencies in observable ways that students can understand and emulate. Personalising: attuning to students’ backgrounds, interests and needs and giving them more agency to design their learning. Surfacing: uncovering the values, norms and biases that exist in individuals, ideas, societies and systems. Dignifying: honouring and supporting the identities and perspectives of minority and marginalised groups.
48 | Ambition JULY/AUGUST 2023
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