2017 Innovations That Inspire
EDHEC Business School was recognized by AACSB International for its submission « The Teaching Factory », which presented how it co-develops classes with corporate partners for some 2,000 students who work with managers on real cases, yet can count on faculty for guidance as needed. The Teaching Factory was highlighted among the 35 best innovations unveiled at AACSB’s 2017 Deans Conference. A total of 315 submissions were received across 33 countries for the second annual Innovations That Inspire initiative, which recognizes institutions serving as champions of change in the business education landscape.
3 emblematic modules from the Teaching Factory:
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EDHEC Open Innovation
• 2 day Innovation Lab
• 24 firms
• 75 managers
• 20 coachs and professors
• 750 students (600 from EDHEC & 150 from
nearby Centrale Lille engineering school)
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NéGO! Challenge
• 15 firms
• 680 pre-master level students
• 2 day workshop simulations in negotiation techniques
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The Explora Certificate
• 9 corporate partners
• 4 start-ups
• 60 MSc students working in teams
• 4-month, fast-track, part-time, disruptive digital training [/column]
The Teaching Factory is helping EDHEC to instill a learning-by-doing approach across its portfolio. Students acquire skills, techniques and behaviors through their experience of solving business problems for practicing managers. It ensures that they become proactively engaged in their own training. Their enhanced motivation comes from learning in an entertaining way, through competing against one another and in tackling challenges addressing real business problems that The Factory’s corporate partners have asked them to solve. Additionally, being team-based, these diverse learning modules are highly interactive, because students must not only work together and with managers, but also in close contact with their professors.
Each learning module offers an exceptional opportunity for corporate partners to forge closer ties with their student target audiences and develop their employer brands. These privileged vantage points for observing students at work can be highly beneficial for successful graduate recruitment. Lastly, partners gain first-hand insight from the views and recommendations of these new-generation, multicultural student cohorts about the topics on which a module focuses. "We are very proud to be recognized by AACSB International for our innovative approach. We have developed The Teaching Factory to meet the demands and new expectations of corporates and students and to be on the cutting edge of innovation in a fast-changing world" commented Anne Guillon, Director of Corporate Relations and Partnerships at EDHEC Business School, who is both one of the project’s originators and its current pilot.
