Abstract:

Over the years, management teaching has increasingly used student teams to reinforce learning. Grounded in social constructivism, learners construct or build their own understanding through their interaction with the teacher and other students. Research has shown that learning through teams improves student engagement, generates greater cognitive gain, fosters inclusion and accessibility, improves knowledge transfer and integration as well as improves performance.

With the current pandemic forcing institutions to pivot to online delivery, academics face the challenge of how to continue facilitating team learning. This paper presents how case study workshops in a first-year introductory course in management is pivoted from face to face to online delivery using technology. Prior to attending the workshop, students are expected to complete online interactive learning materials which cover the management concepts and theories and are expected to read an assigned a case study. During the Zoom workshop, teams of 5-6 students are allocated to breakout rooms and are provided discussion questions and collaborate on a Google document. After the breakout room closes, the teachers facilitate a plenary discussion of the responses and link them to theories and concepts learned in pre-class activities.

Two technologies are used to support this method of teaching and learning–Google documents, and Zoom. The use of Google docs facilitates active and social learning because it allows for everyone in the team to enter their thoughts and ideas simultaneously while they are discussing the case. It also allows each team member to edit each other’s entries and track’s each member’s contribution. Zoom is the videoconferencing software used to run the workshops. The breakout room function is a key feature in facilitating active and social learning. Because the students are learning in an untried and untested approach (case study method), they need to be reassured that they are progressing in the right direction, because their student identities are still developing. By discussing the case together in breakout room groups, students are able to validate their individual knowledge and ideas to a small group of their peers before they discuss with the whole class. Students are more confident in presenting their knowledge because it is socially constructed. Collaboratively developing solutions also reduces stress and fear of failure because the group is responsible for the output rather than putting the spotlight on the individual.

To evaluate the effectiveness of the online workshop delivery and the tools used to facilitate them, a student survey was constructed. The survey included questions about the workshop activities, the skills and responsiveness of the teachers and the effectiveness of the tools used. There were 363 respondents to the survey and the overall results were very positive. Open-ended questions generated qualitative feedback on the positive and negative aspects of the online workshop delivery as well as the tools used. The survey also gave the students an opportunity to provide suggestions on how to improve the workshop experience. Findings show that this model of online team learning is effective and can be replicated in other disciplines outside of management (and business) and can also be adapted for face to face delivery.

Keywords:

Active learning, social learning, technology-enhanced learning, group work, case study method, online learning, Zoom, Google documents, team-based learning.