Project-driven learning: the key to your success

What we care about most at OpenClassrooms is that you are fully prepared to start working and can find your ideal job easily. That’s why we’ve designed a hands-on approach based on projects, so our students can dive in quickly and get the experience employers are looking for. The projects can be tailored to adapt to your experience and preferences.

Key objective: learn skills fast

Our learning paths are created to enable you to learn skills fast with your ideal job in mind. How do we this?

1. We look for jobs with skills shortages

Demand is high for certain profiles. We identify them and decide which ones we should develop learning paths for. For example the tech sector is experiencing a genuine shortage of skilled, tech savvy workers; in the USA demand for developers is increasing by roughly 32%, and there is a real need for high-quality vocational qualifications.

2. We extract the key skills required

In order to determine which core skills are needed we analyse the trends of the job market and the needs of employers to identify a pattern. This gives us insights into which skills are the most sought-after and which are the most important to land you those top jobs.

3. We create projects that require those skills

Our education team then create projects that will require core skills. To complete a project, students need look at all the possibilities and then choose the best solutions. They’ll need to be creative. These projects are the proof that a student has acquired the new skills they’ll need to get a job in their new sector.

4. We create courses to prepare for the projects

Only after we’ve created projects do we go on to design the courses. Each project has several recommended courses associated with it. The purpose of the courses is to help the students complete their projects, and to teach the skills they’ll need, so none of the courses are mandatory.

 

How do projects help with learning?

Our project-driven approach is quite unique. It’s at the core of our educational concept at OpenClassrooms.

Marion, IT Development mentor at OpenClassrooms, explains,
“A good developer knows how to find the best and most reliable solution to a given project at a given time. To design a project, you need to understand a range of concepts. You’ll learn these through our courses, and once you have the ideas at your fingertips you can choose the best-adapted solution. For an employer, a person who can find the right information to build the best solution brings added value to the workplace!”

Emily, teaching manager at OpenClassrooms, highlights that “preparing our students for the workplace is a crucial part of being a teacher at OpenClassrooms. In the Frontend Web Development path, students learn and integrate HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and more in hands-on projects they can add to their portfolios and show to future employers!”

Emma is a Student Advisor at OpenClassrooms. She agrees that projects make all the difference in our students’ learning: “As a student advisor, I often get asked on the phone about how projects are the best way to learn new skills and whether this path is right for them. Well, the good news is that our path is open to anyone, no previous experience is required! Projects put the student in control and are a very effective way to master new skills. Students learn the theory and develop the skills in order to complete their work.”