A photo of Christina Terra and Noha El Attar

Learning Br.AI.n: Wisdom after Intelligence

By Noha El Attar, Professor of Management Practice in Organizational Behavior and Christina Terra, Professor, Department of Economics.

This project did not start in a corporate boardroom, or a formal strategic planning session. It began in a far more ordinary, and therefore more revealing, place: a shared lunch between colleagues. By the time dessert arrived, the talk drifted toward a question that had been rising in the background of all our work but had not yet been named directly: what is artificial intelligence doing to us?

Not only to our jobs, or to productivity, or to institutional efficiency, but to our minds. To our habits of attention. To the way we remember, judge, imagine, and decide. And, more quietly but more urgently, to our sense of what it means to be human in a world where thinking itself is increasingly shared with machines.

We invited learners directly into the uncertainty during a three day seminar for 800 bachelor learners across our campuses, deciding to co-create meaning rather than deliver conclusions. This initiative, which we came to call Learning Br.AI.n, expanded to nearly six hundred learners across three continents, supported by a committed team of thirty facilitators and professors.  

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ESSEC Students working together

Corporate Strategy Meets AI: Debating the Future of Moltiply

How a CEO digital twin turns corporate strategy into a live, high-stakes learning experience

By Ha Hoang, Associate Dean for Research at ESSEC Business School.

What happens when students stop reading cases and start talking to them? I developed a new AI-based case experience that invites learners to do exactly that with a digital twin of a real CEO to debate the future growth strategy of his company. 

Given the early state of AI adoption by educators, the format I describe below addresses two principal concerns. On the one hand, introducing AI into the classroom risks fueling students’ over-reliance on artificial intelligence. On the other, instructors are lamenting that students are less willing to engage with lengthy cases that are central to case-based strategy instruction. The CEO agreed to participate in the development of the case because he credited his business education with his success and saw an opportunity to help keep it relevant and engaging for new students.

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Les profs et staff réunis pour parler d'IA lors d'un atelier pédagogique

Pédagogie et IA 2025-2026 : une approche pour améliorer l’enseignement et l’apprentissage

English version below

Par Sophie Magnanou, directrice du K-lab.

L’ESSEC s’est engagée dans une démarche visant à intégrer l’Intelligence Artificielle (IA) dans ses pratiques d’enseignement, d’apprentissage et institutionnelles

Dès l’émergence de l’IA générative, l’ESSEC s’est emparé du sujet. Ainsi, dans le cadre de la première édition des ateliers pédagogiques, le travail mené collectivement en 2023 par les professeurs, les programmes, le K-lab et le Metalab avait abouti à la rédaction d’une liste de recommandations destinées aux enseignants. Dans un deuxième temps le K-lab a réalisé un guide intéractif également à l’attention de la communauté enseignante.
C’est dans ce contexte de croissance de la place de l’IA dans la pédagogie avec des enjeux toujours plus prégnants, que le Décanat, le K-lab et l’ESSEC Metalab lance “Pédagogie et IA 2025-2026”, une démarche dont l’objectif est de créer un environnement académique où l’IA enrichit, et non remplace, l’apprentissage ou l’enseignement.

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Le podium des articles les plus lus en 2024/2025

Top 3 of the most popular articles published in 2024-2025 on Pedagolab

Une version française est disponible plus bas.

By Madeleine Armanet, librarian at the K-lab, Pedagolab administrator.

The year 2024-2025 is coming to an end. And what a year it has been! Many of you have visited Pedagolab and taken an interest in the 16 articles published since September.

From the adoption of the lightboard and the opening of active learning rooms at ESSEC to the impact of AI on our classes, not to mention the teaching of statistics, or the use of imagination in business schools… These publications reflect the diversity of the projects undertaken this year. 
All these subjects, analysed by our experts, show the extent to which ESSEC is multiplying its initiatives to rethink teaching and support pedagogical transformation.

To conclude this academic season on a high note, we have prepared a ranking of the most popular articles.

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Le podium des articles les plus lus en 2024/2025

Top 3 of the most popular articles published in 2023-2024 on Pedagolab

By Pauline Delécaut, librarian at the K-lab, Pedagolab administrator.

The past year has seen the publication of 18 articles on the Pedagolab blog. Among the topics covered, we explored subjects as varied as diversity and inclusion, generative artificial intelligence, as well as K-lab initiatives focusing on the digitalization of courses, the development of information literacy and digital skills, and the new Sustainability Case Factory, designed to support the creation of case studies focusing on sustainability. (French version below)

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Short story collection covers

Creative narratives in the age of AI – The speculative future of short story writing at ESSEC and beyond

By Michael Kouklakis,  Director – Department of Languages & Cultures. 

On a sunny day in the first week of June, as the academic year of 2023 was coming to an end, several students, teachers and staff made their way to the Learning Center where they gathered for an awards ceremony to celebrate the 15th edition of the Short Story Contest – one of our most important and long-standing pedagogical initiatives. In nurturing the art of storytelling amongst our bright, talented students and encouraging the writing of original, creative fiction, this endeavour has carved out a unique space in higher education in general and in business schools and the Grandes Ecoles of France in particular. This much is stated proudly on the back cover of each copy of the short story book we publish every year and distribute during the end-of-the-year event we organize. The blurb on the back cover touts this initiative’s longevity and success and ends confidently with ‘There are many more tales to be told…’ However, with the sudden emergence of AI platforms in our daily lives and accelerated development of their capabilities, an unexpected question has arisen which never had to be asked before for the simple reason that the answer would have seemed so self-evident. Yes, there are many more tales to be told … but who will be telling them?

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Le podium des articles les plus lus en 2024/2025

Top 3 of the most popular articles published in 2022-2023 on Pedagolab

By Pauline Delécaut, librarian at the K-lab, Pedagolab administrator

In 2022-2023, the Pedagolab blog showed that it was in tune with the current issues by covering topics closely linked to the evolution of pedagogy at ESSEC and in higher education at large. This can be seen in the Top 3 most consulted articles published during the year.
The addressed topics include diversity, equity and inclusion, with an interview with Maylis Balyan, sign language teacher at ESSEC. The inauguration of ESSEC’s new gymnasium, a year ahead of the Paris Olympics, provided an opportunity to promote sport and pedagogy in “Lessons learned from sports“, written by Professor Karoline Strauss. Finally, Estefania Santacreu-Vasut, Deputy Dean of Pedagogy, reported on the ChatGPT advent, which fueled a wider reflection on the place of AI in pedagogy, bringing together all ESSEC’s teaching communities.

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