"I like the practical teaching approach."

"If it is just you and your screen, it is not that effective," says Dr Yuanita Handayati. Due to the pandemic, the guest lecturer from the Indonesian Institut Teknologi Bandung (ITB) taught online at ESB Business School for two semesters. This winter semester, she could finally accept the invitation to come to Reutlingen in person from September to December. For her two courses in "Distribution Retail and Logistics" and "International Transportation Logistics", she had reinforcement in her luggage.

"At the ITB, I am Head of the Laboratory of Educational Games. I am very involved with gamification and game based learning. In Reutlingen, we also played games during the sessions and discussed our learnings afterwards. That's what I love about game based learning: The lessons you learn while playing connect you better to the topic", Handayati says.

In the game "Business Empire", for example, her students had to choose a business sector, such as coffee or electronics and then run their own company depending on the circumstances of the specific sector. Handayati deliberately used this game in the very first lesson: "While managing their company, the students grasped the whole idea and concept of distribution and retail logistics and all of the things we were to talk about later on."

In Dr Handayati's eyes, game based learning fits in well with the practical teaching at ESB Business School: " I like the practical teaching approach at ESB. I collected many ideas to take back to Indonesia." She also discovered similarities between Germany and Indonesia in Reutlingen: "What is interesting is that the students are not that different after all. They are young people with lots of courses, lots of assignments and always busy."

For her stay at ESB Business School, Dr Yuanita Handayati was in Germany for the first time - with short detours to France and Switzerland. She took home two memories from her time in Reutlingen: "The Christmas market and general Christmas spirit were new to me. I enjoyed the experience very much. Also, I was a lot more active in Germany than in Indonesia. I went hiking on the Swabian Alb, I rode my bike - I certainly got a lot of daily steps in."

Shortly before Christmas, Dr Handayati returned to Indonesia to her family. She will complete her lectures at ESB Business School online. Thus, she has the best of both worlds: "I loved being in Reutlingen. I could experience the friendly and international environment first-hand. I wouldn't want to miss that. On the other hand, teaching online gives me the opportunity to connect with students and colleagues internationally while being with my family."

Thank you, Dr Yuanita Handayati, for enriching our curriculum this semester and for bringing truly Indonesian spirit on campus!

Dr Yuanita Handayati's teaching was carried out within the framework of the project "Global Partnerships Plus" from the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD)’s HAW.International funding line. The project is sponsored by the DAAD with funds from Germany’s Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).