Hanken School of Economics: How Wooclap Transforms Student Engagement

We had the opportunity to speak with Carl Hobbs, Planner for Pedagogical Support and Teaching Technology at Hanken School of Economics, to learn more about the institution's approach to teaching and learning, as well as their use of Wooclap to enhance student engagement. In this article, Carl Hobbs shares his insights into how the tool has transformed their classroom experience and the impact it has had on both teachers and students.

1. Can you briefly introduce your institution and your role, including how you work with teaching and learning tools?

C.H.: Hanken School of Economics is a leading Nordic business school with an emphasis on offering students real-life context and application, focusing on experiential learning and campus-based teaching. My role is to support teachers and instructors in implementing our guidelines for teaching and support them with digital solutions such as Wooclap.

2. What challenges or needs led you to explore Wooclap, and how were you addressing these before?

C.H.: Hanken wanted to offer our teachers the opportunity to engage with students and have real-time interaction in the classroom. Wooclap is a creative and easy tool that puts learning and participation first, with easy setups and clear functions for teachers to create content to bring into the classroom. With the rise of gamification in higher education, Wooclap offers features that make learning fun and respond to students’ needs in today’s teaching environment.

3. How did you implement Wooclap in your context, and which features have been most useful for you?

C.H.: We’ve seen that smaller classes and groups are the ones using Wooclap the most. Our implementation strategy is based on finding champions within different faculties who support the tool's adoption through best practices. We offer short webinars about the tool every year and provide information on our university’s dedicated webpage.

4. What impact have you observed since using Wooclap, for the faculty, and for learners?

C.H. : We have seen a rapid increase in the number of users in the last year. Although we are a small university, this is by far the external digital tool that has spread the quickest among our teachers and instructors, not included in the Moodle catalogue. In line with Hanken’s pedagogical guidelines, we want to ensure students get an interactive experience when they come to class, and we see Wooclap as an important part of offering student-centric opportunities in the classroom.

5. What advice would you give to peers considering Wooclap, and is there anything you’d like to see improved?

C.H. :We are happy to see the development of AI features and gamification elements within Wooclap. However, the feedback we usually get from teachers is that they would appreciate a simpler "post-it" feature, like Padlet. As a small university, we do not have significant funding for digital tools, which is one of the reasons we recommend Wooclap so highly—it offers a wide variety of engagement opportunities for students compared to other providers. This is the one thing we hope Wooclap continues to be a leader in, especially in comparison to its competitors.