Learning Communities

Contact person:

Dr. Sandra Tillema (Associate Professor) and Katya Byelova (project leader Learning Communities)

At the Faculty of Economics and Business (FEB), we have developed two types of Learning Communities (LC).

In FEB’s Multilevel LC’s, students of various levels and backgrounds work together, coach and challenge each other, and enhance each other’s learning experiences.

In the Employability Communities, the focus is on our master students, to develop employability skills. Skills like conducting interviews with experts from the field, training with e-assessment tools and e.g. writing policy reports.

External organizations are an integral part of the learning communities with which the participants can work together on an assignment and create a network.

Participating in Learning communities is based on one’s interest. It is an extracurricular activity that is valuable in demonstrating participant’s ability to engage in collaborative projects with the corporate or external world. It enables participants to develop specific skills like project management, coaching, tool development, interviewing, negotiation, networking, which helps them to prepare for their future career. FEB’s LC’s are offered as a special career service by FEB Career Services and Corporate Relations department.

How does it work?

What: The two types of learning communities are extracurricular and a non-credit based activity. Each community is responsible for a project or works towards an intrinsic goal, that is completed by the end of the semester. The activities involve project meetings, interviews, company visits and training sessions.

Who: Students from all the FEB programs at all levels and subjects can apply (BSc, Pre-MSc, MSc, PhD, Exchange). Staff, external business relations, and alumni also join, to provide support and access to information and resources like datafiles to work on, connections for conducting research and guest speakers.

Investment: Students will spend approximately 4 hours a week on the learning community-specific assignment or goal.

Application: Students who are interested can sign up and share their motivation using a digital registration-form on the FEB Learning Community website. The number of participants for each project is limited. Every semester we offer a different set of learning communities, see for examples: Learning Communities

Overview:

In 2015 - 2016 we introduced one community i.e Mergers & Acquistions in SMEs, that had 14 students. This was a pilot edition of the learning communities.

Today we offer a range of 12-14 topics per semester and service between 170 - 200 students each time. The topics vary around themes like Digitalisation, Energy, Corporate Governance, Sustainability, Health, Organizational Responsibility and International Development.

By conducting extensive evaluations of the learning communities over the years, we discovered that participants found the following aspects of LC’s highly valuable:

• Learning from participants from various backgrounds, expertise and levels
• Hearing other participants discuss the information helped them understand their topic better
• Strengthening social awareness and enhancing their intercultural competencies
• Connecting with companies and the corporate community, and getting career-advices from them
• Improving knowledge in a particular topic as well as gaining new knowledge & skills not covered in courses offered in the degree programs
• Improving analytical, communication, cooperation, professional and project-management skills
• The casual atmosphere of LC worked as an effective learning environment for them
• The time spent, cases selected, reference materials used, and consultation by the lecturers were deemed adequate and of high quality

We aim to continuously offer this innovative educational method with new topics and applied skills learning that help our students be even more prepared for the job market.