Students at HSRW combine business management knowledge with teaching skills and are helping the ‘Red Dot Art’ student-run company at the Liebfrauenschule in Emmerich to develop further.
HSRW
How can economic concepts be explained in a way that is easy to understand, and how can entrepreneurial thinking be fostered as part of everyday school life? This question is the focus of the interdisciplinary collaborative project ‘Business Meets Education’, which was launched at Rhine-Waal University of Applied Sciences (HSRW) under the leadership of Prof. Dr Philipp Schorn. Together with the student-run company ‘Red Dot Art’ at the Liebfrauenschule in Emmerich, led by Sandra Limberg, students on the International Business and Management (BA) and Early Years Education (BA) degree programmes are working to combine economic knowledge with educational approaches in a practical way. The student-run company produces and sells creative handcrafted items, such as cards and linocut prints, candles, ceramics, scented sachets and soap.
The collaboration centres on the question of how the student-run company can be supported in its further development. The students take on the role of external advisers. They contribute their respective specialist perspectives, analyse business processes and, together with the pupils, develop ideas for future work.
Students on the Bachelor’s programme in International Business and Management contribute expertise particularly in the areas of marketing, public relations, product development and business analysis. This includes, for example, analysing income and expenditure, developing marketing ideas and planning sales campaigns.
Students on the Bachelor’s degree programme in Early Years Education complement this work with their educational perspective. They help to convey economic concepts in an age-appropriate manner, support learning processes and encourage teamwork, creativity and the children’s active participation. “The project offers the chance to combine economic issues with educational perspectives and to apply course content in a concrete practical setting. At the same time, students can experience how interdisciplinary collaboration opens up new approaches to problem-solving,” explains Schorn from the HSRW.
“This collaboration gives our pupils the opportunity to view their student-run company from new perspectives and to gain a practical understanding of economic interrelationships. We look forward to developing new ideas together with the students and further advancing the work of ‘Red Dot Art’,” says Limberg from the Liebfrauenschule.
The project also offers a wide range of learning opportunities for the students. They apply knowledge from their degree programme to a real-world context, gain experience in interdisciplinary collaboration and further develop their consultancy, communication and project management skills. At the same time, they learn to present economic concepts in a way that makes them understandable and tangible for children.
Over the coming months, the student-run company’s existing activities will be analysed and ideas for products, marketing and public relations will be further developed collaboratively. Planning and organising sales campaigns will also form part of the collaboration. The aim is to support ‘Red Dot Art’ in its development and to raise the profile of the student-run company.
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