IFP School in MagRH

29 October 2020
In-person courses and distance learning

In the latest issue of MagRH, Olivier Bernaert, Clément Cahagne and Marie de la Villèsbrunne, from Lab e•nov, IFP School's innovation and digital cultures laboratory, reflect on the educational engineering deployed at the School during lockdown.

Quarterly and free of charge, this magazine is published by the association Reconquête RH, which brings together HR directors, consultants, authors and academics with a passion for human resources.

In their article entitled "First lockdown lessons from a school of application", Olivier, Clément and Marie, evoke the different steps taken to switch from in-person teaching to distance learning.

They recall the speed with which IFP School was able to switch to virtual courses thanks to the digital transformation it has undergone for more than 8 years.

While all three note the need to be well equipped with digital tools for delivering distance learning courses, they point out the importance of maintaining the attention and motivation of learners throughout the virtual training.

This is why the School initially adapted its training courses by reorganizing interactions with learners and modifying the evaluation and monitoring systems. Following this logic, the School has been careful to set the pace of learning through interactivity. To promote engagement, for example, it encouraged students to participate regularly via online voting tools and/or quizzes.

Faced with the increase in skills required by distance learning, IFP School supported its teachers. Among the measures put in place: weekly webinars to master digital tools and share educational approaches, an internal newsletter to cover best practices and a hotline to respond to specific issues.

The third lesson learned from the lockdown last spring was to maintain and strengthen the links between teachers and students by, for example, setting up moments of informal exchanges between them.

Finally, in keeping with its learning by doing approach, the School has also made room for innovation with field courses reinvented thanks to virtual reality or even with courses in video format prepared by the students themselves for their classmates.

While this experience has truly accelerated digitalization at IFP School, it has also created opportunities to imagine a new educational model, in synch with current news given the government announcements of October 28th.

Download issue n°11 of MagRH (article in French only and on page 289).