Teaching in a Time of Transition

Ronan Gruenbaum, Dean of International Affairs & Program Development, Hult International Business School

Ronan Gruenbaum is Dean of International Affairs & Program Development at Hult International Business School, where he leads strategic global partnerships and drives curriculum innovation across undergraduate and postgraduate programs. With a background in digital marketing, e-commerce, and online learning, he has played a key role in shaping Hult’s award-winning BBA program and previously served as Dean of the London undergraduate campus. A former professor of marketing and technology, Ronan is also a published author and sought-after speaker on digital transformation and the future of education.

Through this article, Gruenbaum highlights that careers are no longer fixed and students need to be prepared for constant change, especially as technology and AI reshape the future of work and education.

Working with undergraduate students and, previously, postgraduate students, I explain to them how they should adjust their expectations of what a 'career' will look like. Many, if not most, come to Hult with an explicit intention to work in a particular sector. However, I like to explain to them how at the local comprehensive High School in the early eighties, our only contact with a careers advisor had him say 'things have changed - you won't have a job for life anymore, it will be more like seven jobs'. And, I say to the students, that is no longer true - you are more likely to have seven careers. I am currently, depending on how you count them, on career number 6. What I have been doing for the past 13 years as Dean of International Affairs & Program Development, and in my previous roles since I stopped being a full-time professor of marketing and technology, is working in academic administration, which is very different from a teaching role at the same institution.

But I joined Hult from another business school, where I was Head of Digital and responsible for all online communications, marketing and learning engagement. Before that, I was Director of E-Commerce at a music e-tailer in Spain at the turn of the century.

“Many are downplaying AI's long-term impact, but I agree with Eric Schmidt that it is underestimated. We all need to think carefully about our roles in the future when AI will be able to do all our jobs”

However, when I graduated from university in 1990, with a degree in computational science and economics, the university did not prepare us for a seismic change that also happened that year: the launch of the World Wide Web. As Douglas Adams once said: "Anything in the world when you're born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works. Anything invented between when you're fifteen and thirty-five is new, exciting, and revolutionary, and you can probably get a career in it. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

I saw this new technology and thought I could probably have a career in it. After working in 'digital' for 15-20 years, I realised I wanted to teach it.

However, an important lesson is always to keep a keen eye on new technologies and innovations. Many are downplaying AI's long-term impact, but I agree with Eric Schmidt that it is being underestimated. We all need to think carefully about our roles in the future when AI will be able to do all our jobs.

Rethinking Business Education

AI can make a huge difference in education. Yet, most schools and universities are not thinking about the impact, with many still discussing assessing students and ensuring they aren't cheating, rather than helping students learn how to use AI effectively, whilst not outsourcing their critical thinking. There are many administrative tasks that AI can already do well, including grading (and I have yet to find any professor who enjoys grading). Still, I find the personalised learning journeys the most exciting. Having an AI Tutor teach an individual student patiently, using Socratic methods, at the student's pace, should change everything. And the challenge for business schools and universities is, when that happens, what will the universities do? What is their purpose?

AI can do analysis, research, content creation, and more, but as Stephen Alexander, an adjunct professor at Hult, used to ask and teach Hult students pre-COVID, how will the younger generation differentiate themselves from AI in the future? What AI won't be able to do (although I suspect it will learn to mimic the behaviours in time) is empathy, emotional intelligence, intuition and creativity. And yet most universities still focus heavily on the 'Knowledge' part of learning (often driven by accreditation requirements and the beliefs of parents and students alike of what a university education should look like) and not the 'how?' or the 'why?'. At Hult we have developed a curriculum which focuses, instead, on the 'how?' and the 'why?' by reducing how much of an assessment is graded on the regurgitation of 'knowledge' or content that can be Googled or provided by AI, and instead developing the Core Skills that employers are looking for (the 5Cs, as we call them, of Communication, Collaboration, Critical Thinking, Creative Thinking and the Capacity to Learn) alongside the mindsets (Growth Mindset, Global Mindset, Ethical Mindset, Entrepreneurial Mindset and Self-Awareness) that will help students develop their empathy, emotional intelligence and intuition.

The biggest challenge for EdTech is bringing the bells and whistles that will allow for truly engaging, pedagogically sound learning, using VR, AR and AI, at a low enough cost to make it accessible to all, not just in the wealthy West. Augmented and Virtual Reality, for example, particularly when combined with AI, offers huge scope for 'live' simulations that adapt to the situation, such that students would be able to work on real problems, seeing the impact in real time, and feel that the experience was IRL (in real life). However, the hardware costs (for headsets, as a simple example) and the licensing costs (which can already be prohibitively expensive to provide all students with simulations for all courses) make these tools only available to the richest schools, and then only some of the time.

Of course, corporate learning and executive education will take full advantage of these tools (and eventually find that they don't need external providers). However, the danger for universities and business schools is that when these tools are available, what will they add to a student's education? What will their purpose be beyond providing the credentials and diploma at the end of the learning?

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