Blended learning approaches have been widely adopted in colleges and universities worldwide, including Aalto University. The Bachelor’s Program in International Business at the Mikkeli Campus, traditionally known for its “high touch” classroom experience, is looking into how it can benefit from the many advantages offered by blended learning while retaining its traditional “high touch” classroom experience. The purpose of this project is to facilitate an initial discussion on how the thoughtful and systematic development of blended learning at the Mikkeli Campus can best meet the needs of students, faculty, staff and other key stakeholders.
The unique structure of the Program (3 week modules taught by visiting faculty from around the world) requires an equally unique understanding of how to combine pedagogy and educational technology to achieve the traditional “high touch” experience expected by students and faculty. The presentation draws on insights gained from the benchmarking of similar programs, feedback from faculty, students and staff, and review of experiments in blended learning in Mikkeli to suggest directions for blended learning at the Mikkeli Campus. Participants will be asked to share and discuss their blended learning experience and insights in other schools and programs in Aalto.
The workshop is facilitated by Dale Fodness who is an Associate Professor of Marketing, Satish & Yasmin Gupta College of Business, University of Dallas. Dr. Fodness received his Ph.D. in marketing from the Florida State University.
Dr. Fodness’s current research focuses on marketing and sustainability, particularly issues related to strategic thinking and innovation. His work has been published in a number of leading journals including Annals of Tourism Research, Journal of Business Strategy, Journal of Services Marketing and the Journal of Travel Research. He is a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Services Marketing.
Dr. Fodness has taught at the undergraduate (Principles of Marketing, Consumer Behavior, Marketing Research), masters (Value-Based Marketing, Services Marketing, Digital Marketing Strategies) and doctoral levels (Customer Focused Innovation). He is also a visiting professor at Aalto University (Finland) where he teaches Destination Marketing.
Dr. Fodness’s consulting focuses primarily on strategy, research and training and development. Consulting assignments have been completed with Microsoft, Ericsson, Cisco and American Airlines.