NUCB Business School, Nagoya University of Commerce & Business, Japan
Business schools are slow to teach the global agenda of sustainability as they raise awareness of the UN SDGs (the SDGs), often as one-off workshops, and not as the required curriculum. The lack of attention to teaching the SDGs calls for a more relevant education, using project-based learning (PBL), which covers sustainability and the SDG goals as required topics. To present PBL as an alternative way to teach the SDGs to address global challenges in business schools, we reviewed five PBL cases developed in a needs assessment course in a mid-western U.S. university in 2013-2018, which are aligned with five SDGs. We also evaluated the use of PBL in teaching by: (a) a four-way evaluation (client feedback, student reflection, peer evaluation, and instructor evaluation), (b) a SWOT Analysis on strengths and challenges, and (b) a comparison of the needs assessment course with two project-based courses developed to teach the SDGs. Based on the review and evaluation of the use of PBL in teaching, we provide implications for research and practice that contribute to an understanding of an alternative teaching of the SDGs using PBL as an approach to experiential learning to address global challenges to develop future leaders in business schools.
