What were the challenges in the implementation of hybrid technologies in your business school? Donald Lancaster, MBA director, Exeter Business School “I think there’s a risk when considering ROI (return on investment) because, while schools may be willing to invest in dedicated facilities with the intention of going much further into the online landscape, the feedback I get from students is that they expect online courses to be much cheaper. “That’s not necessarily going to be the case if you’re delivering anything other than massive open online courses (MOOCs). If you’re trying to put together an online programme, a mixed method programme or indeed a hybrid programme, then it can be as expensive or even more so than doing it in class, even though you can’t ignore the fixed cost of your classroom. “There’s potentially a large mismatch between what the student expects in terms of their costs and what the institution expects in terms of return.” Kevin Johnson, MBA director, HEC Montréal “For public school such as ours, local students pay low tuitions fees in comparison. So, the perceived ROI is diluted in the many perceptions of value. One of the most salient issues on hybrid learning is ideological. “With the MBA programme, we need to be attractive to professors, not just to students. Since we’re a rather big school, professors can easily find other programmes where they can teach to great students, who are 100 per cent in class, and where there’s not much technology involved in the teaching relationship. “One main challenge we identified is the need to train and coach our professors and lecturers on hybrid classroom technology. Teaching assistants and personalised training sessions on the functionalities of the classroom, in line with needs of a specific class and contents, are of the utmost importance.” Turki Al Masaeid, director of the Academic Support Centre, Abu Dhabi School of Management (ADSM) “The duration of our classes is five hours. Can you imagine how many challenges that creates? We start at 4.30pm and our students come directly from their jobs – they need to be in a good frame of mind and prepared to learn after their day of work. “From my own experience and from what I noticed as an academic support director, our faculty are
challenged by the lack of student creativity. In order to overcome this limitation, they need to apply different innovative teaching and learning approaches in the classroom. “ADSM’s MBA Signature Learning Experiences (SLEs) occur throughout the programme, giving students the opportunity to integrate the knowledge gained in the classroom and apply it to entrepreneurial decision-making. The focus is not only on the development of the business skills necessary to be successful in a changing global environment, but also to give students the skill sets necessary to manage themselves and others in this context. The SLE emphasises the importance of strong communication skills, as well as an ethical and societal approach to decision- making in a global context. Using online or hybrid learning creates challenges in the process of learning experience development and building entrepreneurial culture. “These are some challenges we face in online or hybrid learning, and they will disappear when we go back to face-to-face learning. Take cultural challenges as an example. More than 50 per cent of our students cannot turn on their camera during class due to societal limitations. They cannot open their cameras at home for many reasons – for example, women are obliged to be covered.” What technologies do you think will be essential for business schools in the next five to 10 years? For example, are virtual classrooms and virtual reality headsets the future of higher education? Harihara Natarajan, vice-dean, Miami Herbert Business School “In terms of evolving technologies in content delivery, I think
24 | Ambition | DECEMBER 2022/JANUARY 2023
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