Online MBA Programs: What Professionals Think

Will Geoghegan and Trent Williams of Indiana Kelley teach in the school’s KelleyDirect online program

Ask the business school teachers who teach MBA students in traditional and virtual classrooms if they prefer one or the other and get some interesting answers.



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 What is it like to teach in an online MBA program? Is it so rewarding for a teacher to work with students through the Internet instead of a physical class? Is it more difficult to teach business in a virtual environment? How to lead a case study discussion in an online class?

We recently posed these and many more challenging questions to two faculty members at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, Trent Williams and Will Geoghegan, and we got some surprising answers recently.


 FROM THE DARK DAYS CHATROOMS ROOMS AND DISCUSSION TO LIVE ONLINE CLASSES AND IMMERSIONS IN PERSON

Geoghegan, an assistant professor of administration and entrepreneurship, has been teaching online courses for almost a decade, beginning with what he calls “the dark days of chat rooms and discussion forums.”

Williams, an assistant professor also in administration and entrepreneurship, is a relative recently arrived at the online academy, who recently completed his first year in the virtual classroom.

In KelleyDirect’s online offering in Indiana, both teach J501 Developing Strategic Capabilities, the seven-week program strategy course that provides the basic strategy frameworks employed by companies around the world and employs cases in such popular businesses as Tesla, Warby Parker, Spotify, Lego, Trader Joe’s and Pixar.

The biggest misperception about online teaching is that it is largely about wandering through a recording studio, recording your classes, pressing play and walk way.

“I think some people assume you’re going to record your videos and then maybe update them ten years later,” says Williams. “That assumption is incorrect, we think about how we can use video to communicate the information that is best communicated in that format.

‘STUDENT DELIVERIES ARE NOT IN A BLACK HOLE OR NOT BE GRADUATED BY A TA’