The “Real-World” is the MBA Classroom at Montclair State University thanks to Experiential Learning Partner, CapSource Education
With Fall semester in full-swing, college students are immersed in classrooms across the country to further their education in many different fields. It’s nostalgic for most to picture faculty members st anding behind a podium, fiddling with their PowerPoint, imparting their knowledge on students.
For Dr. Manveer Mann, Assistant Professor of Marketing at Montclair State University, it’s not enough to teach her MBA students through a typical lecture format. She believes learning should be student-centered, hands-on, and relevant to the needs of today’s workforce. In Spring 2019, Dr. Mann partnered with experiential learning provider CapSource to create a bespoke Live Case for her MBA Capstone seminar.
“I took a different approach to this class. I wanted it to be completely experiential and student deliverable-driven,” said Dr. Mann.
CapSource’s Live Business Case model is an effective way to deliver experiential learning to students at scale. In this case, for a full semester, groups of students were able to connect with real companies and apply what they’ve been learning throughout their program to solve real business challenges.
With CapSource as the connector, the course faculty and key company contacts started off aligning course learning objectives with company goals through a defined Project Charter, which outlines the business challenge, student deliverables, and engagement timeline. Students had the opportunity to speak with company representatives, research the company’s industry and competitors, and ultimately present a marketing strategy to the company’s leadership.
During the Spring 2019 term, Dr. Mann’s students collaborated with two host companies through CapSource, including an engagement with HíDAS, a sustainable, high-end fashion br and and LiveLike, a technology company that uses VR (Virtual Reality), AR (Augmented Reality), and MR (Mixed Reality) to deliver the best live social sports experiences to fans on any mobile platform.
For the LiveLike project, Dr. Mann’s students were divided into two groups of five students. One group was tasked with developing a new marketing campaign for LiveLike’s existing VR product, while the other group was asked to develop a new marketing campaign for the company’s new mobile product.
“Our plan was to try and make LiveLike more marketable to other businesses in order to establish more partnerships,” said Samantha Wells, an MBA candidate in Dr. Mann’s class.
Students had the opportunity to meet with LiveLike’s executive team, try the product for themselves, establish marketing guidelines, and produce a sample campaign to present to the company’s team. Both student groups also leveraged the skills they learned in the classroom to make a real impact on this growing business.
MBA candidate Zena Aldabagh commented, “I think applying what we’re learning inside the classroom to an outside project really makes it more real, exciting, and engaging.”
Hear more directly from participants:
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Montclair State University’s MBA Program is now scaling their experiential learning offerings with CapSource by incorporating more Live Cases as a key learning experience for their part-time MBA students this year. For example, you can learn more about the Fall offMetro project with Dr. Yanli Zhang by reviewing their most up-to-date Project Charter. This project focuses on the company’s content strategy and distribution, where students are able to access and analyze business data to create recommendations for growth for the local travel-focused media company.
It’s now easier than ever to coordinate student learning engagements with CapSource’s new software platform, CapSource CONNECT. CapSource’s software platform allows educators to define company and project requirements and showcase collaboration opportunities to industry third-parties. It provides the infrastructure needed to design highly effective project plans, which function as a course curriculum and learning contract between students, faculty, and host companies.
CapSource’s proprietary process and technology enable educators to source, design, and track project-based learning collaborations with third-party industry stakeholders. A major benefit of CapSource CONNECT is that it can be completely customized and white-labeled to any school or discipline. Institutions can now use CONNECT as a custom-branded environment to encourage their faculty and company networks to collaborate through meaningful, hands-on learning collaborations like Capstones, Live Cases, Site Visits, Micro Internships, Job Shadow Days, and Service Projects (as is the case with SUNY Potsdam who’s using CONNECT this Fall to coordinate custom experiential learning engagements with their alumni and local businesses).
In addition to their software platform, CapSource also helps their university clients with specialized services like company sourcing, project design, and faculty coaching through their effectiveness institute.
To learn more about CapSource and how their team can help with your experiential learning process through our various products, services, tools, and partners, register today or contact us.
MORE ABOUT CAPSOURCE EDUCATION
CapSource has served as a trusted experiential learning partner for 150 higher learning institutions around the world. They specialize in helping schools integrate companies into the education process through experiential learning engagements and have connected over 400 companies with 5,000 students throughout the past four years. They focus on providing school clients with a unique mix of software and services needed in order for them to think more intentionally and methodically about building well-organized, scalable, and impactful experiential learning programs given their unique academic goals. University clients that have leveraged CapSource include Montclair State University, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Illinois, Pace University, and the Copenhagen Business Academy.
CAPSOURCE MEDIA CONTACT
Jordan Levy
Founder & Executive Director
P:(631) 729-0745
MORE ABOUT MONTCLAIR STATE UNIVERSITY’S MBA PROGRAM
At the Feliciano School of Business, they are driven by a single goal: to prepare business leaders for success. Their rigorous MBA programs can help students propel their current career to the next level or shift gears and explore new directions. They offer the flexibility students need, with an innovative, agile curriculum that develops talents and skills — while accommodating a busy work schedule. Their cohort structure maps out a lifelong professional network, starting with a team of diverse, ambitious fellow students who will work with you throughout the program. Courses taught by top-tier professors sharpen analytical skills so students are able to navigate the complex, fast-changing business world. Prospective students can choose from four MBA modalities: online, weeknight, hybrid Saturday, or accelerated to complement their career and busy personal and professional lives.
MONTCLAIR STATE UNIVERSITY’S MBA PROGRAM CONTACT
Nicole Koppel
MBA Director
P: (973) 655-4306