ROUNDTABLE ATTENDEES CHAIR Leonora Clement, head of marketing and communications, AMBA & BGA PANELLISTS Chinedum Ewuzie, MBA director, Lagos Business School Thabang Mokoaleli- Mokoteli, MBA director, Wits Business School Elena Beleska-Spasova, pro-dean for education and innovation, Henley Business School Javier Yanez-Arenas, MBA director, Adam Smith Business School Debbie Kemp, MBA director, Kent Business School Yasmina Kashouh, head of academics and innovation, College de Paris International Marika Taishoff, MBA programme director, International University of Monaco Daniel Hill, regional vice- president for EMEA, Canvas
Chinedum Ewuzie, MBA director, Lagos Business School: “We had a couple of challenges in online learning – one being how to keep students engaged. Many of the students have to attend classes on a laptop for many hours, on top of all the other things they do on their laptops, so maintaining that student’s attention is difficult. We also had problems with infrastructure; for example, with sound systems in the classrooms. Here in Nigeria, we have issues with connectivity, we have students in locations where the connection is not good. Another issue is the skill set of the faculty. It takes different skills to teach online and also to navigate the learning platform. It took a bit of time to get started. Finally, for many students, networking was a key factor for joining the programme, so we have tried to create some online networking opportunities.” Yasmina Kashouh, head of academics and innovation, College de Paris International: “It was challenging to shift face-to-face learning to online learning. It was even harder to help students and instructors to adapt to an online curriculum. We also found it challenging to help students accept the idea of opening up to other students over screens and share their concerns. Change is always difficult and, especially with the pandemic, it was even harder. We tried as much as we could to manage and control online learning and to give students the best experience they could have.” Part two: Increasing engagement Having spoken about the challenges associated with moving online, the participants went on to
consider some of the ways they had overcome these issues, mainly through the gathering of insights on engagement. Elena Beleska-Spasova, pro-dean for education and innovation, Henley Business School: “We have utilised the data in terms of gathering insights on engagement, but more importantly, on whether the level of engagement had any implications on attainment, progression and student achievement. We got some really good analytics out of the data from that time – it was clear that tracking just logins was not enough. We looked at how they engage through the login, how many pages/topics they’ve actually been through, what areas on Canvas they looked at and for how long. We also considered whether they contributed to other things such as discussion forums, group work, and so on.” There’s a long list of metrics we looked at which directly correlated between the level of engagement and the success of the student. What was really important to us was that we were able to look into the equity, diversity and inclusion aspects of our student population. It was striking to see metrics from students in terms of diversity, minorities, gender, and even experience and age. There were differences in engagement but also in achievement during this period. We now continue to do that, learn from it and make adjustments.” Yasmina Kashouh, head of academics and innovation, College de Paris International: “To maintain student engagement, we used a method of approaching all students and creating an interactive board. This platform was somewhere all students could communicate and share their concerns.
There is a misconception in our industry that online learning is cheaper. I don’t think that is the right way to think about it
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