Body and Mind, Esprit de Corps : An Innovative Approach to Teaching

When Anne Vanet, professor of molecular biology at Université Paris Cité, developed the course “Body and Mind, Esprit de Corps“, she sought to answer several key questions: how to create a network of students from all disciplinary backgrounds, get them to work, interact in groups, teach them new interdisciplinary skills, and then develop transferable skills by learning to pass on what they have learned, through body movement, street theater, music and martial arts. Discover her story on video.

Anne Vanet then set out to capture what the students had learned, discover the interdisciplinarity based on disciplinary courses by highlighting a cross-curricular theme and by creating a body spirit through lessons in corporal expressions.

A European Network Fostering Pedagogical Innovation

Through close connections with colleagues involved in the InnovEd4TS project, initiated in 2019 as a stepping stone to the creation of the European alliance Circle U., Anne Vanet succeeded for the first time in bringing together students and professors from Circle U. partners for her course now re-titled “Body and Mind, Esprit de Corps”.

Five students from the Department of Musicology of the University of Oslo along with their Professor Peter Edwards, Professors Benoit Raucent and Yves Deville from UCLouvain, Professor Nadia Pisanti from the University of Pisa and Professors Nathalie Blanc, Dominique Vidal and Isabelle Blanc from Univervité Paris Cité, participated, all coming with their geographical and disciplinary prisms.

Disciplines, Bodywork and Transferable skills Cross Paths

Since January 2023, students at Université Paris Cité and the University of Oslo have been taking 8 disciplinary and 15 theater courses. The uniqueness of the organisation enabled the students who were not supposed to meet to do so, to debate, open up to new perspectives and develop transferable skills such as teamwork and creativity. On the last day, students creatively presented the work they had completed during the semester.

Watch more on video

Contact 

anne.vanet@u-paris.fr

For more information on “Body & Mind, Corps d’Espit”, read here

Download the course description