Sustainicum Collection

Consus The aim of the project is to establish a regional science-society network for sustainability innovations in Albania and Kosovo in order to strengthen the connection and collaboration of institutions in the field of higher education, research and practice.

English Shqip

Resource facts

Work in pairs
Group work
Less than 5 students
up to 1 semester
English, Shqip

Learning from excellent students - Talent management for higher quality of education(Resource ID: 297)

This proposal is focused on talent management in the auditorium, and the main aim is to identify excellent students and positively use their capabilities, and develop their capabilities in the future. Good management skills during their university studies helps them to be more capable in the future and in this way, the knowledge transfer from this generation to the future one will be accomplished more effectively, which contributes positively to the sustainable development of a country. The method includes the involvement of the best students during the lectures, after their training process from specific stakeholders. The working group involves the best students in the role of team leader, lecturer and stakeholder (a representative from a company). This method can be used in specific modules or topics. I use it on the module 'Human Resources Management' (3 specific topics: HR recruitment and selection, HR evaluation, HR motivation).

Specifically, this proposal means the inclusion of excellent students as instructors in the teaching process. This involvement mainly refers to systematic consulates regarding the teaching methods that they would like to develop during the lessons and also giving their assistance to their lectures during the seminar hours and working groups. A specific stakeholder from a large company, such as Vodafone Albania, during a training process at their internal environment will help them to win some specific skills from practice for three specific topics: HR recruitment and selection, HR evaluation, HR motivation.

After this previous training process from stakeholders, being in the role of teaching-assistant, talented/excellent students will first of all be able to bring to the attention of their professors the main desires of their peers in terms of the seminars or lectures for each specific topic. Secondly, students who aspire to become lecturers in the future, have an excellent opportunity to somehow test not only their skills, but also their preferences for academic career or business career in the future. Thirdly, engaging these students as teaching-assistants, will (positively) promote competition and ambitions among their peers, which will improve their whole quality. Fourth, the inclusion of these students (depending on the roles that each of them could have) avoids the monotony of teaching (for lecturers) and the monotony of learning (for students). This technique has minimal costs because there is no need for additional financial investment or human recourses, is all about a better way of managing the existing resources and put together stakeholder from business actors and students/lecturers from education sector.

In more detail, the inclusion of these excellent students after their training process from business stakeholder means more or less a role playing game: For example, if a class (seminar one) has 3-5 Excellent Students (talents) then their roles in class can be as follows: lecturer consultants for the organization of the seminar hours, group leaders of group work projects in the classroom, classroom discussions moderator, (undeclared) promoter of debates, they critically evaluate other students work etc. In any case, their role is supervised by the lecturer. If this method is applied to the full cycle of BA and MSc studies, at the end of a 5-year cycle of studies, at least some of these talents (excellent students) benefit not only with a degree, but with meaningful work experience in knowledge transfer.

Integration of Social Stakeholders

Having a field of expertise focused on innovation management, helps me to consider societal stakeholders as an important factor in the auditorium. They will not simply be guests in the auditorium, but they will play the role of external evaluators. Social stakeholders will be the external evaluator of teaching hours and also act as trainers for excellent students, by teaching them practical methods of knowledge transfer, in order to avoid the classical method of lecturing. Taking into consideration the fact that for some professors it is difficult to accept any type of criticism by these stakeholders, so the role of these stakeholders consists of training all the talented and excellent students, which in this case will bridge the gap between the theories explained in the auditorium and the practical advice given by businesses/ social stakeholders.

In more details, the method and the way how stakeholders are going to be involved in this teaching material is described below:
Step 1: Definition and identification of the main stakeholder that will collaborate with us. It needs to be related and interested on our module/course objectives (Vodafone Albania).
Step 2: Information session: We need to inform the selected stakeholder about the module objectives and their role on it (HRM: HR recruitment and selection, HR evaluation, HR motivation).
Step 3: Ask stakeholder to give you a schedule/ timetable for your talented students (3-4) in order to train them in their company about specific parts of the module (HR from Vodafone Albania).
Step 4. Working groups in the auditorium, in which each talented student and trained one from the stakeholder, will be the team leader for each group.
Step 5. Brainstorming and discussion
In this way, the stakeholder (Vodafone Albania) will be in the role of practical trainers (on-job-training) for talented students and then these talented students will transmit this knowledge to the other students in auditorium.

Strength

- Motivation and competition in the auditorium
–There is no financial cost or extra cost for this project
- The possibility to apply it in most modules
– Student-stakeholder cooperation is a long term cooperation which helps especially new generations to be smart and successful in the future.

Weakness

–Difficult to convince stakeholders to trust and cooperate with excellent students.

Learning Outcomes

– To have better talent management in the auditorium, considering them as key factors of knowledge transfer in the future, as a precondition for sustainable development.

Relevance for Sustainability

– Sustainable management of human resources
– Sustainable knowledge transfer and sustainable development

Related Teaching Resources

1. Basic knowledge of talent management theories

Teaching Methods

Fieldwork

Preparation Efforts

Medium

Preparation Efforts Description

The preparation efforts required in advance to work with this teaching resource are: 1. Very good skills in the process of student evaluation 2. Very good skills in the process of talent identification in the auditorium

Access

Free

Assessment

There is not an individual assessment.

For each student in the class, there is a group evaluation between talented students and professor.

At the evaluation for talented students is individual.

Credit/Certification Description

No one.

Sources and Links

http://www.journalofleadershiped.org/attachments/article/392/2015_0332_rosch.pdf

http://greenleaf.edu/pdf/raida_al-awamleh.pdf

http://www.morassociates.com/sites/default/files/docs/MOR-State-of-Talent-Management-in-Higher-Ed.pdf

http://dupress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/GlobalHumanCapitalTrends_2014.pdf

file:///C:/Users/bvladi/Downloads/ksi%202015%20Marian%20Thunnissen_Talent%20Management%20in%20academia_ThesisDEF.pdf

http://www.cte.cornell.edu/teaching-ideas/engaging-students/collaborative-learning.html

http://www2.sfasu.edu/cte/michelle_files/hms_300_web_content/classroom_strat.pdf

http://web.stanford.edu/dept/CTL/Newsletter/cooperative.pdf

Funded by

This teaching resource, realised within the project ConSus, has been funded with the support of the TEMPUS of the European Union. The contents reflect the views of the authors, and the European Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.