Action based learning at Ross

I am sure most of you would have heard the phrase “Action Based Learning” when discussing about Ross. So what is Action Based Learning… trust me most of us here are not sure whatever it means… most of the Umich people will start talking about MAP and ABL in the same breath. So is that all… guess not… I am trying to answer this here; however again don’t quote me on this in your essays :)

Action Based Learning – When we discuss about various mode and methods of learning, some of the prominent ones come are… academic learning followed by practical (as followed by most of the schools in India and to a certain degree even in the states)… then the case study method in which you will be given a real life problem and will be asked to find the solution of the stated problem in the case and thereby making you learn the hidden academic concepts. I have also learnt a little on the story-based method, though I really haven’t seen any examples of the same. The Action based learning approach works as a superset for the case method though. You will be presented a real life situation in which things are not moving smoothly or at least as desired. You will work on the problem definition, develop your own hypothesis, find the relevant data, propose a solution, and then try to implement the same. Thus not only it encompasses most of the benefits of case study method it takes you closer the real business problems and also makes you work hands on. Let me tell this with an example, so in the Managerial Behavior class, that started with some cases initially, we moved on to team exercises. You get a task and you work in a team, trying to solve a real life problem taken from MAPs or industry projects from the past and the problem is defined through interviews with people. So you define the problem, you search for data, find probable solutions based on assumptions and that is learning through actions.

Then a lot of time you have to prepare cases even; for example, in marketing you make cases and thus learn much more than just solving a case. Again it’s not necessary you get cases in all classes but you may read articles in some. For example, for world economy class, the cases or action based learning really doesn’t work as you have to update the whole thing every year. So the professors make you read a lot of articles before every class.