Accelerating Learning in Marketing Education using Teams: Principles and Practice

Accelerated learning is an integrative method of learning, combining both sides of the brain to strengthen a student’s relationship with self, teacher, subject matter and other students, and so assists students to achieve deep, rather than surface, learning. While the approach has been used to teach school pupils and trainees in the corporate world, its use in marketing education in universities is limited, and there are no reports of studies focusing on its use in postgraduate coursework degrees. The accelerated learning approach sits comfortably with the active approach to student learning, and builds on Kolb’s (1981, 1984) four-stage experiential learning cycle. Educators in the marketing discipline have already embraced these two concepts and, thus, this paper assists educators and students who are concerned to accelerate learning even further. This article examines how accelerated learning could be used in teaching marketing at universities at the MBA level. Some techniques are synthesised from the literature that are particularly appropriate for the students and constraints of an MBA program in a university. We conclude that accelerated learning techniques can be used and are effective in a MBA program. Essentially, accelerated learning incorporates many, already known ideas but it is a useful comprehensive framework