What is Riipen?
Riipen is the World’s leading project-based learning platform that empowers every student with employable skills. The platform enables students, educators, and organizations to connect through real-world industry experiences. Students acquire skills valuable in the workplace and get to build their employer network, organizations get to improve their talent pipelines and increase authentic engagement towards their brand, while educators provide better learning experiences for their students as well as grow their industry connections.
What is experiential project-based learning?
Experiential project-based learning is a teaching method that involves students designing, developing, and constructing hands-on solutions to a problem with a company or non-profit partner. Using project-based learning, students can build upon their creative capacity by working through real-world problems. The students typically work on these projects in small teams. Cambrian College completely agrees with the importance to implement experiential learning opportunities, has implemented Riipen, a software platform that connects educators, industry partners, and students together for course-based micro-experiences. Riipen gives instructors the opportunity to search for or submit desired real-world work-integrated experiences with industry partners that they can embed into the curriculum as in-class assignments, competitions, or longer-duration projects.
About the partnership:
We are excited to partner with Riipen, an experiential learning platform and marketplace for project-based learning. Riipen gives faculty the flexibility to embed experiential learning into courses and provides the tools for students to work as a team on real-world problems.
Riipen is available for all faculty, in all disciplines, working with all levels of students, in-class, online experiences, and remote internships. Riipen offers end-to-end support, including course project ideation and design, technical support and student onboarding, and matchmaking with industry partners globally.
Steps for Educators to Get Started on Riipen:
- Join the School Portal as an educator.
- Fill in this short Riipen interest form to share a few details about your goals for work-integrated learning in your course. This will provide Riipen, Account Manager, with an understanding of how to best support you.
- Based on the insight from you shared, the Account Manager will either set you up with a technical onboarding with their Onboarding Specialists to support you with creating a course posting to connect with employers; or sign you up to join him in a brief info session to provide you with more background knowledge of how Riipen could fit your courses.
- Once published to our marketplace, Riipen will get to work on matching your course with the best industry partners in our network of over 10K employers.
- You will approve the company projects that you want to pair with students.
- The students start working on the projects on a timeline you determine.
- You have a team of people who will monitor your course proactively and reach out to offer support if you need it. If you need to get a hold of Riipen with any questions or concerns you can email Riipen at academicsupport@riipen.com and a Customer Delight Specialist will be happy to help you.
Riipen Academy resources for educators, available here: Riipen Academy for Educators
RIIPEN for Students
Why is project-based learning more important than ever?
As a student, in order to be successful in the job market after graduation, you will need experience and contacts, but also employable skills. Here is where experiential learning, also known as project-based learning (PBL) comes into full force.
Through meaningful collaborations with employers on projects, you have the opportunity to apply your knowledge and develop valuable skills through project work, while creating lasting connections that could make all the difference at the end of your studies.
What can Riipen do for you as a student?
Build and Nurture your Professional Network – Access the Riipen network and connect with companies of all shapes and sizes through your courses or remote internships. Engage with large multinationals, local businesses, non-profits, governments, etc. in the Riipen marketplace and open yourself up to the possibilities of collaborating with companies outside of your network.
Gain Valuable Experience – Gain experience navigating a real workplace by working with actual employers on real-world projects embedded in your courses or provided as remote internships. These experiences will help you gain career clarity and find a job you love.
Build and Develop Employable Skills – Employers are looking for employees with technical knowledge, professional skills and soft skills, like communication and problem-solving. Learn and practice these skills that top employers value and look for to help you stand out.
Create and Build your Virtual Riipen Portfolio – Complete projects and receive valuable feedback from real companies on the skills and knowledge you demonstrated while completing your projects on Riipen. Easily link to your Riipen portfolio on job applications and LinkedIn to showcase your quality of work to future employers.
How to get started:
Get real experience in a way that works for you.
Step 1: Speak to your professor about bringing Riipen to your classroom, and create an account on Riipen using your email or LinkedIn account.
Step 2: Join a project for your course or discover approved remote internship opportunities. Your course or remote internship program will be matched with one or more industry partners looking for your fresh insights and skills.
- How do students start Projects on Riipen?
- How do students access projects for Remote Internships on Riipen?
Step 3: Work with the industry partner to complete a real-life project for their company. Use Riipen’s chat and milestones feature to communicate and track progress.
- How do students communicate with employers?
- How do students track their progress?
- How do students complete the project milestones and deliverables?
Step 4: Exchange feedback with your industry partner and build long-lasting connections. Prove your skills, and get verified feedback from real companies added to your virtual portfolio.
Riipen Academy for Students
To better understand the entire process for in-class project-based engagements and remote internships, Riipen created a learning resource called Riipen Academy. More than just help articles, Riipen Academy will explain what is expected of you based on best practices and our users’ experience. From connecting to producing high quality results, a host of topics are presented so that you can get the most out of the experience and the benefits of project-based learning.
