How VR Enhances the Business School Experience
[At MIT Sloan] Students may see their proposals lead to rising sea levels wiping out Shanghai or housing being lost in California and Florida. The climate simulation "teaches our business students skills such as improvising, negotiating and public speaking," he says. In addition, "it reinforces how their decisions can have consequences that last for decades."
The Stanford University Graduate School of Business has committed to virtual reality in its two online Learn, Engage, Accelerate, Disrupt – or LEAD – certificate programs, one in corporate innovation and the other in personal leadership.
Margaret Neale, a Stanford professor, says she is currently working with a company to develop a new virtual negotiation tool to further enhance learning. "Using either their smartphone or computer, students will be able to use a negotiation simulation that reads their facial expressions and offers feedback on how well they did in a simulated job interview," she says. Students will also be able to see an assessment of how they negotiated compared with their peers.
The Rady School of Management at the University of California—San Diego has found similar success using the VirBELA platform as the centerpiece of its global micro-MBA program in partnership with Waseda University in Tokyo.
The timing also coincides with the decision of various Fortune 500 businesses like Honeywell, Walmart, Volkswagen and United Parcel Service to integrate VR into their worker-education programs. As virtual reality tools gain a bigger foothold in more industries, experts say, graduates who have used these technologies as part of their curriculum will be prepared to help take their employers to the next level.
See the full story here: https://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/top-business-schools/articles/2019-03-28/how-virtual-reality-enhances-the-business-school-experience