CNN.com - Course delivery explores new paths

More attention is being given to the best ways to deliver knowledge.

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FT's Executive MBA Rankings
1. Wharton, U.S.
2. Kellogg, U.S.
3. Chicago GSB, U.S.
4. Stern, NY, U.S.
5. Fuqua, Duke, U.S.
6. Hong Kong UST, China
7. Columbia, U.S.
8. Instituto de Empresa, Spain
9. London Business School, UK
10. Tanaka, Imperial College, UK
Source: Financial Times 2005

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Executives taking the top EMBA courses in the U.S., Europe and Asia have average salaries of around $130,000 to $200,000.

A typical EMBA student is likely to be aged in the early 30s, with 6-10 years of working experience.

A top EMBA course can cost $100,000. Customized courses start at a few thousand dollars.

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(CNN) -- As competition between business schools to attract top-rate students continues to escalate, more attention is being given to the most effective ways of delivering relevant knowledge and skills.

While formal lectures and study of business cases remain vital components, growing numbers of academic institutions are putting more emphasis on interactive learning.

By providing more opportunities for the sharing of thoughts and experiences, the schools are finding participants are getting more value from their time in the classroom.

Techniques being used include Socratic dialogue, role-plays, discussion of exemplars and so-called immersive experiential learning.

Sessions can involve students discussing a chosen topic in the context of their real-world experiences. Rather than relying on documented examples, they are encouraged to offer insights into subjects and back them up by referring to situations and challenges they have come across during their professional lives.

Experiential learning sessions involve students being taken out of their particular business sector or industry and put into a different environment where it becomes difficult to rely on tried and tested knowledge and responses.

While the situations are fictitious, each is constructed so that students can see analogies with their day-to-day work challenges.

For example, a group of business consultants might be asked to become a medical team tasked with giving bad news to a patient. The skills and thought processes required can then be transferred to their real-world jobs.

Paul Baerman, director of marketing at U.S.-based Duke Corporate Education, says such techniques are particularly valuable for more senior executives who are looking to extend what is likely to be an already extensive skills set.

"They know a great deal about their business or they wouldn't be at the top in the first place, so they're demanding and impatient students," he says. "To effect change at that level, one often needs to come in under the radar of their common wisdom, which means teaching through metaphor."

Other interactive sessions may include discussion of a successfully completed project within a particular student's company or a group dissection of a project that failed. Such sessions can shed new light on key management techniques and provide students with insights from industries other than their own.

"Energy can learn from the history of the tobacco industry, mining from the high-tech realm, and high-tech firms from the consumer products companies of two or three decades ago," says Baerman.

Many business schools recognize that one of the most important reasons students choose a particular institution is the level of interaction they can expect to get with peers. Those schools that are successful in making such interaction an integral part of their course offerings are likely to prosper.

At the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, staff are using interactive lectures, field learning and peer-to-peer to sessions as a way of enhancing their course offerings.

Multiple approaches

Peter Degnan, executive director of Wharton Executive Education, says his school's approach has been designed to extend well beyond the boundaries of the classroom. He says Wharton program designers leverage multiple educational approaches when creating each curriculum.

Elements can include case studies, interactive lectures, field learning, simulations, and peer-to-peer information sharing sessions.

Degnan says the school's new education model, dubbed the "Wharton Learning Continuum", comprises a range of elements that encourage students to interact and continue their education even after their courses have been completed.

Every two to three months, course participants reconvene to discuss progress and coach each other to help overcome any challenges that may have been encountered once they have returned to their jobs.

These interactive sessions are often conducted through the school's online "virtual classroom". Students are able to log on to the service and participate in chat sessions and post questions and comments for other students.

Such innovations are becoming increasingly popular in many business schools as faculties realise that students are keen for their education experience to extend beyond the end of formal classes.

Course delivery explores new paths

Interactive learning gets more emphasis

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Multiple approaches