The Challenge of Integrating the Real World in the Real Estate Curriculum during COVID-19: A Case Study of Taking an Industry Facing Capstone Module Online

The advent of COVID-19 has brought significant challenges to the delivery of real estate modules which attempt to integrate a number real world elements as part of the learning process. Such elements are essential to enhancing the commercial awareness and employability of real estate graduates and at a wider level act as a means of embedding opportunities for personal and professional development. This paper presents a case study of taking an industry facing MSc level capstone module online while still retaining it core learning outcomes. The module requires students to work as part of team over a six week period addressing three assignments related to an international field trip, an industry challenge and a real estate strategy game. In a normal year the module involves inputs from over 100 real estate professionals. The case study outlines the approach taken to replicating this module online, including the creation of appropriate supports to facilitate students working effectively as part of a remote team. It examines a range of challenges from putting in places the learning resources necessary to support the creation of a virtual field trip experience to the hiring of industry coaches to critically appraise students outputs from a real world perspective. The paper concludes with a critical assessment of the experience and from this attempts to identify any pedagogic innovations which would be retained going forward.