Digital Transformation with The Chicago School of Professional Psychology
After an intensive development phase, the pilot course "Digital Transformation I" could be offered in the winter semester 2021/22 via the learning platform Canvas of the partner university The Chicago School of Professional Psychology (TCSPP).
This IVAC course resulted from a cooperation between the Master's programmes "Digital Transformation Management" at the SRH Berlin University of Applied Sciences (Campus Hamburg) and "International Psychology" at the TCSPP. Lecturers from both universities worked together with instructional designers to identify synergies between the two courses in order to create academic added value. The course had a total duration of seven weeks. At the beginning of the course, there was an introduction to TCSPP's "best practices" for course design. This was followed by a 'technology showcase' where the participating students (nine from SRH Berlin and one from TCSPP) could explore their own ideas for using technology to design a course. The development of the course content took place asynchronously.
By participating in the course, the students should gain a general understanding of the importance of disruptive and sustainable innovations. The intensive development and conception of the course content led to the course being firmly anchored in the curricula of both partner universities as an elective course.
Project Evaluation
The course was evaluated retrospectively with the help of a questionnaire. The self-assessed competence gains resulting from participation as well as the students' general satisfaction with the course were surveyed.
Main factors that influenced the student’s satisfaction with the project:
- Real life cases scenario: through the real-life case study, students were able to better immerse themselves in the topic and gain a deeper understanding of disruptive innovation. Students would like to see similar course content in the future.
- Digital platform: the course was offered through the partner university TCSPP's learning platform Canvas. Canvas is an easy-to-use learning management system (LMS) through which course content can be easily shared with students. The platform combines most facets that facilitate interaction between teachers and learners in digital learning environments.
- Asynchronous format: the asynchronous learning approach, as often practiced in the Flipped Classroom, promotes self-directed learning. Students felt encouraged to learn more about the topics and catch up on their own.
Main factors that influenced the student’s dissatisfaction with the project:
- Accessibility of the course materials: Although Canvas provides many opportunities to share course materials directly with students, this was not always implemented in this course.
- Workload: Students perceived the workload as high in some assignments.
