Concordia teams up with Riipen for enhanced experiential learning opportunities

Concordia faculty can now offer their students more hands-on learning opportunities, thanks to a new partnership between the university and Riipen, a Canadian-based educational collaboration platform provider.

Faculty have access to Riipen’s web-based platform for project-based experiential learning, which connects educators with industry partners — local companies, community organizations, government agencies and NGOs — to share projects and assignments.

School projects created by faculty are closely matched with industry partners’ existing workplace challenges, which students can then solve for class credit. Faculty collaborate with industry to structure the challenges so they meet the learning outcomes of the course.

“Concordia has made it a priority to expand experiential learning opportunities,” says Nadia Bhuiyan, vice-provost of Partnerships and Experiential Learning. “We’re excited to make Riipen available to help faculty facilitate those experiences and keep our curriculum current and relevant.”

Riipen provides thousands of industry- and academic-reviewed templates for assignments that faculty fill out in order to be matched with a partner. Students complete the assignments through the Riipen platform, which allows them to build their “e-portfolio” and gives teachers the ability to track student progress in real time. After the course assignments are completed, educators and their industry partners can review the experience online.

The partnership aims to give faculty members new teaching tools to help increase student engagement, and to allow students to gain relevant, real-world experience while still in the classroom.

“These micro-experiential learning opportunities will give our students the skills they need to stand out to future employers,” Bhuiyan adds.

Professors who are interested in embedding project-based experiential learning opportunities in their courses can contact Riipen for a consultation.

Riipen is currently active on 150 campuses across North America and has seen close to 500 instructors using the platform.

Watch the short video to learn what students and faculty from other universities and industry partners have to say about Riipen.