First year TEMA students start the programme with a Business Week seminar: an experience-based week during which they have to work together to learn about and present the operations and functioning of a company.

First and foremost, it is a week of integration. Therefore, main objective is to have the students meet each other, talk, and cooperate. After two cooperation behaviour games, they break up into teams of their own choosing.

The rest of the seminar is aimed at developing the student’s ability to adapt. They are invited to participate in brainstorming sessions to stimulate their creativity and to “design” their company in creative and original way. At the end of the seminar, the students have to present a video and a 3D modelling of the company. In these presentations, the functions and missions of the businesses services and its use of digital technology have to be clearly demonstrated.

Vincent Rahir, Designer, guides them in this task: “I work with the TEMA students to give each group hands-on help in creating their businesses. I just want to encourage their creativity by proposing new ideas and concepts to them to make them come up with truly innovative ideas. These different mock-ups and videos help them to communicate and go on to function as the communication tools for their future projects.”

Through this pedagogic method, the students become the main actors in their own learning, by steering their company modelling project, they not only discover how it operates, but they also come in contact with Moodle, which is a tool they will use throughout their time at the school. They learn about two programmes that will allow them to bring to life their future presentations and practice at oral presentations.

“During this week, the students work and become productive. They apply the Learning-by-Doing pedagogic method practised at TEMA. The students are given a tool with very little academic material. By using it and making trial and error efforts, students develop a learning style all their own. They have to embrace this tool and develop the skills to use it,” said Nathalie Fontaine, professor at NEOMA BS.

>see TEMA Business Week 2017 video

>Read more about TEMA, NEOMA BS programme combining management and technology