The pandemic continues to pose several challenges to the effective learning experience of students worldwide. In some universities, students may face a rigid teaching style that is not useful in answering their questions during online learning. How can students understand a concept when they don’t even understand the essential parts of the question? And does this refusal to alter teaching style help to overcome other challenges that students may face during the class?
The answer is simply “NO.” NO to the inadequate level of understanding; NO to the continued negative impacts on students’ progress, and NO to preventing successful learning performance. But, here’s why Hult’s teaching has turned out to be special. The unique and effective teaching from each professor helps students to overcome different challenges they face during either in-person or virtual learning. Hult’s faculty team continues to explore a variety of methods to support students’ learning, and that’s why they continue to perform excellently in their assignments.
The unique and effective teaching from each professor helps students to overcome different challenges.
Let me share some of my experiences of the challenges I’ve faced in some classes, and how the teaching at Hult enabled me to overcome them.
Visual communication: more than words
During my Design Fundamentals class, we are asked to apply our own characteristics, visual interpretation, and expression to design our own brand essence. The objective was not just to show our understanding of design impact, but also to “combine” ourselves with the brand. At the start, I’m struggled to figure out what elements I want to express through my own brand, and what kind of style would fit my ideas.
What our professor did, is to break those areas of confusion into sub-sections with different examples and real-life experiences to help us understand the meaning of each component. For example, we looked at Renault’s logo in terms of the meaning represented by the diamond shape, the story that its brand image communicates, and the inspiration behind the the design principles and the elements incorperated. Then, within each sub-section, we dug deeper into each aspect and looked at the effects of the brand in different contexts and in relation to specific target audiences. Throughout, a mixture of different media was used to create a holistic understanding and help us to connect on multiple levels with our own ideas. Communicating directly through visual representations allow us to feel and enjoy the charm of the design; tt creates a stronger impact than using lots of words and paragraphs to explain things.
Multiple tools: the key to engagement
With courses involving a large proportion of theory, it can be hard to understand some of them when they are explained only with words. While we were learning concepts like the different styles of leadership in my management class, I found it difficult to understand the characteristics of each leadership style, and how its advantages and disadvantages create consequences for a particular business. Although the theory can be simply introduced by using historical facts or definitions to explain the meaning, it didn’t effectively help me to understand the particular traits of each leadership style their usages. There needed to be multiple ways to explain the theory using different platforms in order to communicate more effectively and better aid understanding.
They help students to navigate a concept through different perspectives, allowing us to have a deeper knowledge and awareness of how it works in real life.
Instead of using a rigid, traditional teaching style, my professor used diagrams, YouTube videos, and class discussions to tell us about the essentials and application of each leadership style. So I started to overcome the challenge by gaining a deeper understanding of the theory while also enjoying the interactions with my groups. I think it is important to involve multiple-tools and mediums because they help students to navigate a concept through different perspectives, allowing us to have a deeper knowledge and awareness of how it works in real life.
Video learning: beyond books
When it comes to marketing courses, many students, including me, often find it difficult to understand the purpose of marketing strategies, especially how they can actually work in modern business. We expected to be told that we would find the answer from the reading and theoretical studies but in fact, we were totally surprised. Our professor, instead of telling us to learn just through reading and lectures, used a teaching method of videos and discussions to increase the recall of key concepts.
I found it constantly facilitated our thinking process to be more thorough and creative.
I was stunned at first because I thought it may not be as effective as using books to talk about these concepts. However, it was the opposite as I found it constantly facilitated our thinking process to be more thorough and creative. Graphs and analysis also increased the engagement of discussions and demonstrated the specific advantages of specific marketing plans. We learned the marketing strategies that have been successfully used by different corporations while listening to the business leaders talking about how marketing plays an important role in their company growth.
Hult professors: expect the unexpected
From my experiences at Hult, I found the professors often bring me new surprises in terms of the studying methods and the different activities they use to get students to interact, learn, and apply that knowledge. I’m starting to understand that when facing challenges in any of my classes, the best way forward is not just to memorize everything from the textbook or try to read hundreds of pages to find the answer. There needs to be a balance between what you understand from other scholars’ analysis and your own firsthand experience. When interacting with the different perspectives of your classmates, sometimes an answer will suddenly pop out!
If you want a business school where professors are your mentors and teach from experience, take a look at Hult’s live opportunities that put doing at the center of learning.