Integration: Supporting the learning process in management education

Abstract

The challenge for business schools is to continue to present the practical, applied, best practice business knowledge that they are known for, but using an approach that sets learners up to make connections between their learning and their personal, team, organisational and socio-economic worlds. Therefore, the aim of this white paper is to discuss global and South African trends in education, principles of adult learning, and how integration supports the classroom learning process at the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). The writers draw upon literature, and client and delegate feedback from GIBS’ programmes. Integration at GIBS falls within the centre for Personal and Applied Learning, and is designed and delivered across three different principles, which are explained in more detail below. For integration to be measurable, resultant programme learning needs to be embedded in the workplace through new behaviours, habits, skills and/or direct workplace application. This supports the Personal and Applied Learning centre’s overarching mission to make all learning at GIBS personally meaningful to the learner, tangible and impactful in his/her unique environment. Delegates experience the value of the integration process as helping them connect the themes of the programme overall, supporting their understanding of the world as an interrelated set of systems, and encouraging a flexible mindset regarding generative problem-solving, and critical and creative thinking. The intended outcome is for delegates to reflect deeply on their adaptive management and leadership practices.