Independent University Newspaper
Copenhagen Business School

Popular searches:

Independent University Newspaper

Copenhagen Business School

The Dean of Education: We can experiment more with experiential teaching

Gregor Halff expects that CBS will have more experiential teaching in the future. (Photo: Lisbeth Holten)

The Dean of Education at CBS, Gregor Halff, salutes the teachers who have the courage to experiment with experiential teaching, and says it’s among CBS’ future goals. However, scale and resources are always a challenge.

News |   13. Nov 2018

Daiana Contini

Student Reporter / Photographer

Anne Thora Lykkegaard

Journalist

Students studying the MSc in Business, Language and Culture (BLC) are the only students who get to do a three-week field trip to an emerging economy, take hands-on classes in the field, and work with a local partner university. This is thanks to Associate Professor Thilde Langevang and her colleague Søren Jeppesen, who have organized the unique field study ‘Entrepreneurship and Private Sector Development in Uganda’ over the last eight years.

This kind of teaching is also known as experiential teaching, and the Dean of Education at CBS, Gregor Halff, salutes the teachers who have the courage and take the time to create such courses.

“It is fantastic that we have professors who develop these kinds of experiential learning formats. And I congratulate any professor that takes the time to develop this in a pedagogical way, which is clearly what happened with Thilde Langevang and Søren Jeppesen,” he says and praises the students for their courage too:

“Secondly, it actually takes the same amount of courage from the students to go on a trip like this, because it exposes them to things of which the outcome is not always clear. And that is completely different to classroom learning and classroom teaching. So, I congratulate the students as well for taking part in this.”

Will experiential teaching be among CBS’ future goals?

“Absolutely. But that of course means different things in different study programs. A field study won’t possibly be the same in a finance program as it is in a social sciences program, for example,” he says and argues that incorporating experiential teaching does not come without challenges, some of which involve the teachers, and some the students, and nearly always the resources.”

“For a teacher, doing something like this is a high-risk enterprise, as she or he invests far more time in a regular course, with far less automatic success. So, we need to be aware of protecting teachers who try this out and make sure that we have a tolerance for failure when it comes to developing these kinds of experiential formats,” he says.

Doing experiential teaching is about taking risks. Both as a teacher, but also as a student, argues Gregor Halff (Photo: Lisbeth Holten)

On the students’ side, the dean believes that there is a need for broader awareness of the outcomes of such experiences, meaning the capabilities you get:

“When you want to have a meaningful professional life, it requires cognitive skills, but also capabilities such as tolerance of ambiguity, your ability to structure new situations, your ability to put adequate value in instances where you do not have sufficient resources. All of these are a combination of skills, and that requires students to accept that they are coming here not just to gain new knowledge, but to develop complex capabilities too,” he says.

Go abroad, but choose challenging locations

Currently, Gregor Halff is looking into what he calls ‘academically embedded internationalization’, as a way to do experiential teaching.

“We have a fantastic range of exchange opportunities at the moment. But if you look at where the students go, I’m not sure everyone is really pushing themselves to go to challenging locations. How can we overcome that? By having what we call ‘academically embedded internationalization’,” he says and continues:

“This involves taking a cohort of students to a place overseas that might not have Nobel Laureates or a beach, but has specific academic, cultural or social learning potential, which is equally valuable. Simply being exposed to a completely different university type is a form of ambiguity that results from experiential learning.”

The Vice Dean for International Education, Martin Jes Iversen, will be in charge of addressing each of the study programs with the possibility of exchanges in which experiential learning can take place. He will visit the study boards and present the opportunities to them.

It will be up to each program to decide what is the best format of exchange, and how they will implement it.

What do you have in mind in terms of academically embedded internationalization?  

“Some may be short-term, two to three weeks, like we have in Uganda. Some of them may be term-based And then you can go all the way up to joint degrees, which are also a form of exchange,” he says.

Gregor Halff explains that the process of getting structured exchanges will take a number of years, as it is important to make sure that there is enough support from professors who are willing to take risks.

“Any professor who tries something out for the first time will have a learning experience as well. That means that there is less guarantee of success than a well-oiled, classroom-based course. And that is what makes it so great and brave that there are professors trying it out, because there is a chance of failure,” he says.

Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

The Dean of Education: We can experiment more with experiential teachingby

  • News

    Staff layoffs: What happens if you’re fired

    The clock is ticking. On Thursday morning (5 October), CBS employees will know if they are up for dismissal or not. But what will happen on the day? What emotional stages are you likely to encounter? And who will be there to pick you up when you are feeling the blow of being laid off? CBS WIRE has talked to HR and the consulting agency Actief Hartmanns to provide you with answers.

  • News

    Network, network, network – CBS graduates advise on getting your first job

    There are many approaches to finding your first job. Three recent CBS graduates talk about how they landed theirs. Their approaches were quite different, yet they all highlight networking as a key element.

  • News

    A-Z of the dismissals

    In these final days of September, the fate of a number of CBS employees is being decided. The final amount of money saved on salaries via voluntary severance agreements (aka redundancy packages, Ed.) and senior agreements will be known.  After this, the actual number of employees up for dismissal will be decided by management – and then the individuals will be selected.

  • News

    Layoffs break the crucial trust between organisation and employee

    CBS is laying off a number of employees soon, which will affect our university in different ways. When employees are fired without having done anything wrong, it shatters the trust between the organisation and employees, while also taking a toll on productivity, according to a CBS expert. Layoffs also affect the ‘survivors’, who are forced to adapt to a changed workload and the loss of cherished colleagues.

  • News

    Here to help – at the touch of a button and at Campus Desk

    Exam anxiety? Lost student card? I’ve wedged my car between a Fiat 500 and a lamp post, can you help? You never know what you’ll be asked next. But that’s just how the Campus Desk team like it. And if they can’t fix your problem, they’ll know someone who can. CBS WIRE asked the team about the whole range of topics they advice on every day.

  • Gif of the week
  • News

    CBS Quiz Time: Unraveling the success story

    A successful university environment such as CBS is often associated with academic pursuits, but campus life extends far beyond the classroom. At CBS Quiz Time, a student society motivated by creative thinking and social engagement, students join in a refreshing range of creativity, excitement, and social interaction. CBS WIRE talked to Celine Møller-Andersen to find out about the society’s vision, strategies and the factors that are driving its rapid expansion.

  • News

    Why so sudden? The CBS financial crisis explained

    Employees and union representatives have posed many questions in the wake of the 17 August announcement of a firing round. In this interview, University Director Arnold Boon explains how Senior Management has been working with the budget and a change of financial strategy since the fall of 2022, and why layoffs are now necessary.

Follow CBS students studying abroad

CBS WIRE collaborates with Videnskab.dk

Stay connected

Close