Enriching IB Course Design with Active Learning

1. Course designs for active learning in IB

Student engagement is most important for effective learning. While this is true for all learning settings, it is particularly true in teaching complex and inter-disciplinary subjects, such as international business. Active learning is a very important component of engagement and so active learning usually is a critical component in the international business (IB) curricula. Active learning tools can also greatly help internalize the concepts and knowledge being taught. Such internalization is an important part of building a global mind-set making many aspects of IB analysis and decision making instinctual – a very useful ability in complex and rapidly changing business situations. Consequently, it is imperative that we include active learning tools and pedagogies in IB course designs.

Effective IB education should enable students to make decisions by analyzing and synthesizing information from multiple disciplines and, at the same time, accounting for the cross-cultural and cross-national differences. Neither of these two key abilities can be achieved through a single typical college class; rather, the development of business analytical skills and the global mind-set are likely to be the cumulative effects of the IB and non-IB disciplinary courses offered within the IB program (Aggarwal and Goodell 2015). An IB program needs to encompass a variety of courses and learning styles and components that can reinforce and build upon each other, and subsequently advance students along an effective path toward the desired outcome of student understanding and an ability for multidisciplinary and integrated decision making in IB settings.

To develop students’ business analytical skills, initial IB courses usually focus on exercises that facilitate the learning and application of content related to a single business function (such as finance and marketing) with the emphasis on the difference between decisions within the domestic versus international scale. Higher-level courses tend to tap into the integration of business functions and the development of overall global management strategy. To develop students’ global mind-set, IB courses commonly also focus on nurturing students’ interest in learning other languages and cultures, building global awareness, and encouraging students to step outside of their domestic comfort zones. Some courses then further enhance students’ cultural intelligence under a broader framework that encompass politics, economics, social, and ethics (Aggarwal and Goodell 2013). High-level courses can also help students develop specialization in a specific region or country. Experiential learning tools with different immersion intensities, from short-term and long-term study abroad programs and international internships, are also found to be particularly effective in building students’ global awareness and perspective (Aggarwal and Zhan 2016).

IB teaching tools can be more diverse than the teaching tools used in traditional business disciplines (Aggarwal and Goodell 2015). Hence it is crucial to choose the teaching techniques that fit with the students’ cognitive skills, critical thinking abilities, and level of cultural intelligence. There is no single course design or teaching tool that works the best across all academic levels, but the key is to promote continuing active learning by students. There are many available active learning tools for teaching IB courses at different levels. For example, individual exercises such as simulation games are well suited for lower-level courses, while complex case studies and team projects are effective for learning integrative business strategy. However, the preparation and implementation of these tools can be especially time- and effort-consuming for IB courses. For instance, the widely applied cooperative learning pedagogy proposes that in order to maximize student learning through collaborative group work, the course design and execution should facilitate positive interdependence, individual accountability, face-to-face promotive interaction, appropriate use of social skills, and effective group processing (Johnson and Johnson 1999). All of these elements can be more difficult to achieve for global virtual teams where students come from diverse cultural and social backgrounds and have different language abilities and learning styles. In summary, IB educators are always need wisdom and experience of active learning at various academic levels.

As this discussion implies, the nature and sophistication of active learning tools clearly needs to reflect the sophistication and experience levels of the students. For example, active learning pedagogies that are suitable for graduate students who also may have significant work and international experiences must differ from active learning pedagogies suitable for teen college freshmen. In general, active learning pedagogies must reflect the backgrounds and knowledge levels of each IB class. The task of selecting appropriate active learning pedagogies for a class, of course, gets more complicated as the range of such student abilities in an IB class widens. So, it is useful to have access to as wide a range as possible of IB active learning pedagogies.

To enrich the IB course design, in this issue we present a selection of articles that add to the range of innovative active learning techniques for developing international business analytical skills and a global mind-set.

2. Introducing the papers in this issue

This issue of JTIB includes a selection of papers on IB course designs and active learning tools, ranging from a portfolio of experiential learning activities to a rich and complex raw case method and in-class activities that facilitate cross-cultural learning. The techniques covered in this issue include both individual- and group-oriented exercises, and can fit with different levels of IB courses.

The first article, titled “Piloting a Portfolio of Experiential Learning Activities for International Business Students” by Nuno Arroteia of De Montfort University, and Justin Okoli and Oliver Barish of Coventry University, proposes and implements a portfolio of experiential learning activities in workshops involving undergraduate students in an international business management module. The workshops aim to bridge the gap between theory and practice and steer students toward an inductive and collaborative learning experience. The authors find that the workshops significantly improve students’ engagement and learning experience.

The second article, titled “International Business Education at the Interface: The Raw Case Study Method” by Sandra Dow and Yuwei Shi of Middlebury College, presents a raw case method of learning. Unlike a traditional case study, a raw case is not confined in print or pages of a narrative about a challenging international business situation. It is an open, real-time information space through which case study students may wander. But it also comes with a specific and demanding assignment that requires students to discover, evaluate, analyze, decide, and communicate. The authors introduce the raw case method of learning, make a case for its adoption in international business education, and discuss several implementation issues.

The third article, titled “Bridging Cultural Divides: Role Reversal as Pedagogy,” by Stephanie Slater and Mayuko Inagawa of Cardiff University, explores how education systems, language, and cultural orientations inform students’ approaches to learning. The paper explains how role reversal as a pedagogy of engagement can be implemented when teaching internationally diverse cohorts the nature of cross-cultural understanding. The authors find that the role reversal method, despite some initial resistance, is valued by the great majority of the students in diverse cohorts.

As in the past, we hope you enjoy reading this issue and that you find it thought-provoking – perhaps even giving you ideas to future improve your own teaching. We would appreciate hearing your comments on this issue.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Raj Aggarwal

Raj Aggarwal, PhD, CFA is a member of the Board of Directors of the Kent State University Foundation, the Sullivan Professor of International Business and Finance Emeritus and the former Business Dean at the University of Akron, USA. He is a Fellow and a former VP and program chair of the Academy of International Business. He has won many awards for outstanding teaching and scholarship. He is also a Board Member of corporations, mutual funds, and nonprofit organizations. He is a past editor of Financial Practice and Education, a Finance and accounting area editor of the Journal of International Business Studies, and the current Editor of the Journal of Teaching in International Business. Raj Aggarwal is the author of numerous scholarly publications and is in the top one-third of a percent among SSRN authors ranked by downloads and has over 7,500 Google Scholar citations with an h-index of 45, and an I-10 index of over 100).

Yinglu Wu

Yinglu Wu, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Marketing at the Boler College of Business, John Carroll University, USA. Her recent publications include articles in Journal of Interactive Marketing, Decision Support Systems, and Journal of Teaching in International Business. She is the Assistant Editor of the Journal of Teaching in International Business.