Bridging industrial "best practices" and learning in business schools: the value of a model and a process orientation

Abstract

Summary form only given as follows. This paper presents a framework for understanding and applying information technology to the processes of learning in business schools. The paper arises from a concern that business schools are like the proverbial cobblers' children (who were poorly shed) in the sense that we do not always apply to our own operations the concepts we espouse and teach to our students. In particular, we observe that industrial best practices that might have considerable value are not always applied in business schools. The authors discovered, through independent educational design experiences, the value of a process orientation to educational design and the value of an experiential model of learning. The paper summarizes the experiences that led to this finding through two brief case studies, one from the US and one from France. The paper suggests that a process approach and the experiential learning model together provide a framework for understanding how educators (faculty and administrators) can adapt industrial best practices to designing and managing learning experiences. The paper illustrates this for the application of information technology to learning. The paper concludes with a discussion of other trends and best practices that may be particularly useful in the design and management of learning experiences.