Do Business School Faculties Have an Ethical Obligation to Maximize MBA Student Involvement by Developing ‘Online Presence’ to Engage Students Displaced During the Pandemic and Beyond?
Abstract
The significance of going beyond asynchronous online involvement and moving towards a more interactive engagement with distance-learning students has never been more urgent than in today’s covid-19 environment. Students and faculty in traditional face-to-face courses were shifted virtually overnight into an eLearning environment. These students and faculty were particularly vulnerable to this transition. Faculty facing the pandemic may be online instruction novices and a substantial portion of the disengaged students feel they learn better and are more engaged in a traditional learning environment. This paper investigates approaches that can help ease the unexpected transition to online learning to yield a more impactful experience to engage these students in an active learning environment in graduate programs.