Early makers’ challenge #2: a passionate start to the year!
On 3-4 September, the second edition of the early makers’ challenge was held at emlyon business school’s Ecully campus. The exciting new event marked the start of the academic year for the 1,400 students in the MSc in Management - Grande Ecole programme! This year, the highly successful launch focused on students’ shared passions.
The innovative pedagogical approach was put forward by Nathalie Hector, MSc in Management - Grande Ecole programme Director, and developed by We Are Peers* (WAP), a company created by Diane Lenne, one of the school’s alumni. It set a clear tone for the start of the academic year. The event, enabled students to meet and exchange ideas within the “early makers’” creative and innovative learning environment.
On Monday morning, students were welcomed with speeches by Bernard Belletante, Dean of emlyon business school, and Nathalie Hector. They then discovered the programme for the new academic year, after which they were “matched” by a dedicated online platform using an algorithm based on their individual passions (sport, travel, art etc.). They were then guided in their work throughout the afternoon. 220 teams of 6/7 people were given the task of creating a short course of study in the field of their shared passion. At the end of the day, the students voted for the 40 best courses. The following morning, the course creators then taught their courses to the other students. The launch event culminated at midday on Tuesday with an award ceremony acknowledging the most popular short courses. Students were also able to evaluate the early maker challenge according to a number of criteria.
It is worth noting that emlyon business school pulled together as a whole to get the academic year off to a good start. Teachers, colleagues, students and alumni - nearly 70 people - swung into action to welcome and guide the “new freshers” through the start of the academic year (managing logistics, distributing goodies, and providing pedagogical support). It was a fantastic group success - as demonstrated by the enthusiasm of the students who started this year!
_ *The We Are Peers teaching method - which aims to reveal the knowledge, talents and aspirations of the students so as to enable them to learn from one another - was initially developed as a pedagogical innovation research project. It then became a new course at emlyon business school.” In under a year, it became a gold standard for teaching within the School, and went on to be developed in major companies’ academies. Since then, WAP has been rolled out to more than 15 grandes écoles and businesses _
