From Tensions to Transitions: a six-week course on Entrepreneurial Education
Supporting KIC's
Domain: Domain 4 – Enhancing the quality of innovation and entrepreneurial education.
Action: Develop innovation and entrepreneurial training programmes and mentoring scheme
Through C-ACCELERATE, the course which was originally developed and run at Aalto University was modularized and disseminated further to partner university students in Belgium, Estonia, Ireland, and Portugal. As such, the course and its contents on entrepreneurial education were transferred and taught to students from the film, media, and creative industries – resulting in the true propogation of educational practices across the consortium.
Pedagogical and teaching approach within the course: this course uses a flat, studio like teaching approach that is commonly utilized within design studies and art schools. Lectures within the course were either 1) keynotes/more traditional guest lectures, 2) workshops and active working times for the students, and 3) mentoring and teamwork oriented activities. The approach is shaped by the works of prominent scholars such as Dewey (1958), Schön (1987), and Kolb (1984), connecting to their core principles pertaining towards reflection, observation, concrete experiences, and experimentation. In practice, this means providing the students with ample space, time, and opportunities to take responsibility for their own learning, reflecting upon their own experiences, developing their own sense of agency, and then providing, when necessary, the “meta-cognitive scaffolding” for critical reflection and deep learning (Hmelo-Silver, 2004, p.239).
Course learning outcomes:
- identify and analyze the dynamics between the individual, the team, and the community in the context of interdisciplinary, creative problem solving
- identify and analyze the reasoning and practice of design-driven ways to solving ill-defined problems
- as a team, apply the problem-solving methods to real-life societal and business challenges
- as a team, create a solution to the challenge
- individually and collectively reflect the design outcomes and the learning progress
The original course lasts for 6 weeks:
Week 1 Overview: Working in Interdisciplinary Teams
- The focus: setting the context for the students to work with and to provide the students with knowledge on interdisciplinary teamwork
- Organize guest lectures, keynotes, and various team-based activities for the students and their respective teams to get started with the Challenge course
- On the first day we also went through all of the necessary course-related practicalities like grading, absences, team assignments, and evaluation criteria.
Week 2 Overview: Design thinking for transitions
- The focus: providing the students with an overview into the world of design thinking – going through its history, showcasing various examples, and what are the key drivers of design thinking methods and for the students to view tensions as the engine for design
- Providing the students with various tools and methods for putting design thinking into practice, as well as various ethnographic methods to encourage the students to “go to field”
- Organize guest lectures, keynotes, and various team-based activities for the students and their respective teams to work on design-oriented frameworks and tools to get a grasp on the various problems the teams have chosen to focus upon during the week
Week 3 Overview: Advancing our Epistemic Fluency
- The focus: to continue their journey within design thinking – adding in a focus on adopting a prototyping mindset (experimentation as a way for designing) and providing students with the time to start ideating and developing their own perspectives on the challenge topics they have chosen
- Organize keynote speakers and an arts workshop for students to take them completely out of the context of their briefs & explore creativity in a unique setting.
- Students visited startup accelerator, to showcase one approach for the students when thinking of their solutions and how to validate their ideas with their potential users and customers.
Week 4 Overview: Developing our ideas and bringing them to the stage
- Communications and presenting skills rehearsal, with a special emphasis on delivering actionable insights without sacrificing the beauty of complex ideas!
Week 5 and 6: Time dedicated for mentoring and event planning
- Mentoring & support: students are working on their cases and challenges .
- Designing the final event.
Some of the course Readings/relevant literature:
- Micheli, P., Wilner, S. J., Bhatti, S. H., Mura, M., & Beverland, M. B. (2019). Doing design thinking: Conceptual review, synthesis, and research agenda. Journal of Product Innovation Management, 36(2), 124-148.
- Irwin, T. (2015). Transition design: A proposal for a new area of design practice, study, and research. Design and Culture, 7(2), 229-246.
- Dorst, K. (2011). The core of ‘design thinking’ and its application. Design studies, 32(6), 521-532.
- Zidulka, A., & Kajzer Mitchell, I. (2018). Creativity or cooptation? Thinking beyond instrumentalism when teaching design thinking. Journal of Management Education, 42(6), 749-760
- Elsbach, K. D., & Stigliani, I. (2018). Design thinking and organizational culture: A review and framework for future research. Journal of Management, 44(6), 2274-2306.
Context
Using wicked problems as the “engine” for developing their design thinking and entrepreneurial skills, students are provided with the tools, skills, and mindset to work in interdisciplinary teams on developing transitions and solutions in a safe, creative environment.
Audiences
Apart from the students, who take the course itself, the modularization of the course also allowed us to share best practices within teaching and education across the consortium and embed elements of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial education within film school teaching and curricula.
Key outcomes
In this master’s level course, students learn about the fundamentals of interdisciplinary teamwork, design thinking, and adopting a design-driven approach towards working with megatrends, tensions, and other wicked challenges. Through the six weeks, the students are provided with different tools, lectures, workshops, and mentoring to utilize the wicked problems as the starting point for their ideation and entrepreneurial devleopment. Combining theoretical explorations and practical experiences (industry talks, guest keynotes), students acquire the skills to conceptualize, develop, and introduce ethically and commercially sustainable approaches to complex societal challenges.
Key success factors / How to replicate / Sustainability mechanism
To ensure that the course materials and teaching mechanisms were transferred successfully, we included various steps and action points such as:
- Introducing the course philosophy and vision to our C-ACCELERATE consortium partners during the project management meeting and visit to Aalto University
- Full day of training on entrepreneurial edcuation and the passion-based learning approach advocated for by Aalto Design Factory was also included to further provide insights into the teaching philosophy and mechanisms
- For each week’s lectures, materials, and readings: a “cheat-sheet” or teaching notes were created and shared with the responsible teachers from the partner HEIs together with the slides, lecture recordings, and readings.
- The original teacher(s) from Aalto university were also available on an ad-hoc basis for additional feedback, mentoring, and teaching guidance for the partner institutions.
- After the pilot sessions partner HEIs had the possibility to adopt & adjust the teaching materials based on their needs and experience. Their own version of the course was locally developed.