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We spoke to our lead Learning Designer about the lengths they go to ensure our online courses uphold Melbourne Business School’s signature learning experience.
If you’ve ever attended a Melbourne Business School course you might already be familiar with the concept of our Signature Learning Experience.
It’s a premium learning method which draws on the extensive expertise of our academics and educators and also connects students to a highly experienced business community.
Now, this unique experience is available wherever you are in the world.
We spoke with our Lead Learning Designer for short courses Nathan Stewart about how his team ensure the premium in-person offering is replicated for our online users.
“One of the benefits of attending a course at Melbourne Business School, is the calibre of people who you meet in your cohort. “Each participant brings their own perspective and expertise which challenges you,” he said.
“We wanted to ensure that sense of community and connection was something which was upheld online.”
What is the Signature Learning Experience?
The Signature Experience was developed by our Client and Learner Solutions team led by Director Dr Damir Mitric and is grounded in contemporary learning science.
“At Melbourne Business School, learning is not something you receive – it’s something you create,” Dr Mitric said.
“We recognise that people learn best when they actively construct knowledge through personal reflection, social interaction and by applying ideas across real-world context.”
To address this, the team defined four quadrants which serve as the basis for every course design at the School. These are:
- Expertise: learners leverage their own expertise, the facilitators, as well as that of their peers to elevate their learning.
- Challenge: learners explore new ideas and innovative solutions to apply their knowledge in purposeful ways.
- Engagement: learners engage with real-world materials to situate their learning in context. Learning is authentic and relevant.
- Community: learners belong to an inclusive community of peers where learning is socially constructed through discussion and collaboration.
Creating an online community
With community such an essential element of the experience, Nathan and his team go to great lengths to ensure that each participant feels connected to the School and each other – regardless of where they are.
“For online courses we build in a lot of videos that are interactive within the content itself. So not in the sense where you’re just watching a series of recordings and switch off. It’s very much a two-way involvement,” he said.
There are also “Campfires”, ways in which they bring the learners together independently, offline.
This could be via social learning tools encouraging participants to communicate with each other or it might be through a set of challenges and case studies that they need to work together to respond to, using their own experience.
Finally, there are the Live Labs, which are typically held once a week. “The live labs are really what we call a synchronous learning opportunity, where we gather everyone online at the same time so they can interact with each other in real-time,” he said.
All of these elements fill that gap between the face-to-face and the online experience and create a true sense of community, engagement and challenge.
Pivoting the course in real-time to meet your needs
Having worked with a range of Higher Education organisations both in Australia and internationally, there was one feature of the School’s short courses Nathan believes is truly unique.
“One of the key features of our short courses which I feel we do very well, is the attention to the learner experience both in the course material and in the delivery of learning,” he said.
Part of this attention involved monitoring the learning experience and using real-time feedback from course participants to pivot during the course to best meet the unique needs of the cohort.
This can include the customisation of learning materials, such as case studies.
“This is testament to the quality of the learner experience in our courses and the level of attention the facilitators provide to learners.
This expertise is a cornerstone of the signature learning experience.”
To find out more about our premium online offerings, visit our Short Courses page. Or visit our For Organisations page to learn how we can custom design online learning programs that address the specific challenges of your senior leaders, managers and teams.