From small acorns: Using a creative metaphor in postgraduate course design

Jane Neal-Smith and Nathan Page
Additional contact information
Jane Neal-Smith: School of Business and Society, UK
Nathan Page: Programme Design and Learning Technology, UK

Advances in Online Education: A Peer-Reviewed Journal, 2022, vol. 1, issue 1, 26-31

Abstract: The acceleration of online education especially during the COVID-19 pandemic has been well documented, and many educational institutions prepared online materials for their learners with great success. Existing fully online programmes, however, continued to operate and be developed as a matter of course. To expand the online Master’s portfolio at the University of York, a new Master of Business Administration (MBA) programme was proposed. The use of a visual metaphor in teaching is not uncommon; however, the metaphor of a tree allows a path to be traced from the roots/key themes to the fruit/key skills. The metaphor works as a template or map showing how programme learning outcomes are linked to module learning outcomes. The tree metaphor also has transferable applications such as embedding employability or decolonising the curriculum. Using the tree as a template enables future-proofing of the course’s integrity, because revisions can be embedded and linked at an ideas stage rather than in a more ad hoc manner. Examining the underpinning concepts which were derived from the University’s strategy, this paper explores the influences on the MBA’s programme design and how the inspiration and subsequent adoption of a metaphorical tree facilitated the construction of a relevant, creative and coherent programme.

Keywords: creativity; metaphor; programme design; MBA; visual metaphor; online course; online learning (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A2 I2 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://hstalks.com/article/7224/download/ (application/pdf)
https://hstalks.com/article/7224/ (text/html)
Requires a paid subscription for full access.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aza:aoe000:y:2022:v:1:i:1:p:26-31

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Advances in Online Education: A Peer-Reviewed Journal from Henry Stewart Publications
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Henry Stewart Talks ().