Since 2016, ÐÓ°ÉÂÛ̳ Cities has been running an Executive MSc in Cities (EMC), which includes five residency weeks in London as part of an 18-month part-time degree. During these on-campus modules, around 24 across the world take part in a packed week of in-person lectures, workshops, and other educational activities.
With one month’s notice, our April weeklong London module on urban transformation, governance, and delivery had to be either postponed or entirely re-designed as a virtual learning experience. This decision turned out to be straightforward. On one hand, postponing the week was full of uncertainties and re-scheduling was complicated. On the other, we had nothing to lose to test a completely new virtual approach, building on several years of blended learning experience as part of our postgraduate course ‘’.
But how would our participants respond to something to which they had never signed up? We consulted with the current cohort, and many preferred postponing or even deferring to avoid online education. In the run-up to the April week, we stress