This case study will focus on Designing and planning of Undergraduate year 1 Unit for year 1 in BA fashion Marketing. The unit is called Global Fashion Marketing Communication (GFBC).

“In the United Kingdom, the Quality Assurance Agency Subject Benchmark Statements (QAA, 2007a) identify the purpose of general and business management programmes as threefold: “

“It is not clear whether the underlying concern of staff and students in these courses (i.e. Business Studies degrees) is a study of business or a study for business.” (Tolley, 1983: 5).

It is the nature of business studies that they need to be following the dynamic environment they are embedded in. Due to dominant competing demand the shift for this type of education has been more towards employability and there has been a vocational shift in business education Kolb (1984).

Now big questions to consider are the degree to which the taught subjects could increase employability and could be enhanced through lifelong learning.

Huszinski, (1993) acknowledges that the acquisition of the relevant knowledge is of utmost important for higher education teaching these disciplines, and this relevant knowledge includes technical expertise as well as critique of management in the organisational and social environment.

Fry et al., (2008) acknowledge this shift of focus  in business studies and although they acknowledge the main impact in designing business education will come through change of course level/ module level, still they also recognise the impact of single lecture to be designed in a way to inherently hold these values. The figure 1 in this case study has been adopted from Fry et al., 2008 book and it makes me reflect on my own experience on teaching on of my sessions.

The below table is my road map to design one of my lectures for year 3 -BA Fashion Marketing. While the session and lecture will be designed with certain theories in mind to explain the Branding strategies companies adopt, certainly the seminars will adopt case study approach to teach students how to use the learnt theories to ponder and apply to the focal case. It is solution-based approach which teaches students to come with the right solution based on information they search and decisions they make.

Personal examples of Teaching and Supporting Case study: Applying theory to Practice:

  • Start lecture design with theory mapping
  • Preparing the slides with 2/ 3 dominant theories in mind.
  • Seek for relevant cases as an example to apply and explain.
  • Designing the seminar session based on taught theoretical frameworks .
  • Find and adopt a relevant case study for seminar (recent and fashion industry related)
  • Design relevant questions/ role playing games to put students in decision making roles;
  • Discuss the result and demonstrate how they can apply this learning for their future roles as managers.

References:

Fry,H.,  Ketteridge,S.,  &  Marshall, S. ( 2008), “ a Handbook of Teaching and Learning in higher Education : Enhancing Academic practice , Routledge,

Huszinski, AA (1993) Management Gurus, London: Routledge.

Kolb, D A (1984) Experiential Learning, Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.

Tolley, G (1983) ‘Foreword’, in D Graves (ed.) The Hidden Curriculum in Business Studies: Proceedings of a Conference on Values in Business Education, 5, Chichester: Higher Education Foundation.