DEVELOPING AN INTERDISCIPLINARY EXPERIENTIAL INNOVATION & ENTREPRENEURSHIP COURSE

MO State PLTW Conference November 1, 2015 Wentzville MO

Bonnie Bachman, PhDJohn Lovitt, EIR*Sajal Das, PhD

Gregory Gelles, PhDIan Ferguson, PhD

EIR: Entrepreneur in Residence

The Journey

• Why experiential learning (EL)?• Why innovation?• Why entrepreneurship (Eship)?• How S&T is integrating EL and E-ship

How do engineering students learn?

• After 10-20 min attention starts to drift

• By end of class boredom is rampant

• Research shows immediately after a full lecture class students:– recall about 70% of content

presented in first 10 min– Recall about 20% of content

presented in last 10 minActive learning methods make classes more enjoyable

for both students and instructors.R. M. Felder, D. R. Woods, J. E. Stice, A. Rugarcia. The future of engineering education II. Teaching methiods that work. Chem. Engr. Education, 34 (1), 26–39 (2000)

http://www.michaelmccurry.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/boring-lecture.jpg

• Lecture format offers little opportunity for dialogue between lecturer and student

• Passive nature of lecture, it falls short:– Difficult to understand if students

are learning in real time– Skills training is not facilitated in

this mode

How do engineering students learn?

Active learning affords the opportunity for application and practice, and the asking of questions.

It makes it possible to assess and remediate student understanding in real time.

5

Active learning continuum

Clarification Pauses

Cooperative Groups Peer Review Jigsaw

DiscussionExperiential

Learning

Figure: Adapted from University of Michigan’s Chris O’Neal and Tersia Pinder-Grover’s, “How can you incorporate active learning into the classroom?” http://bit.ly/active_learning.Lewis, L.H. & Williams, C.J. (1994). In Jackson, L. & Caffarella, R.S. (Eds.). Experiential Learning: A New Approach (pp. 5-16). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Felicia, Patrick (2011). Handbook of Research on Improving Learning and Motivation. p. 1003. ISBN 1609604962.

What is experiential learning?• Lewis and Williams: “In its simplest form, experiential learning

means learning from experience or learning by doing. Experiential education first immerses learners in an experience and then encourages reflection about the experience to develop new skills, new attitudes or new ways of thinking.”

• Felicia: “Learning through reflection on doing.”

Who benefits fromexperiential learning?

• Students– Mature learner– Applied learner– Non traditional classroom learner– Kinesthetic learner

• University– Stay relevant by providing necessary skills for

students to transition into the workforce– Develops relationship with business to promote

economic development

Cantor, J.A. (1995). Experiential Learning in Higher Education. Washington, D.C.: ASHEERIC Higher Education Report No. 7.

Why innovation?

 40 MILLION JOBSIntellectual property-intensive industries support at least 40 million jobs and contribute 34.8 percent ($5 trillion) of U.S. gross domestic product, the exports of those industries accounted for 60.7 percent of total U.S. merchandise exports in 2010.

US Commerce Department Study March 2012

New skills needed for changing work

8Autor, D., Levy, F., & Murnane, R. J. (2003). The skill content of recent technological change: An empirical exploration. Quarterly Journal of Economics 188, 4. [updated, D. Autor, 2008]

Abstract

Routine

Manual

Percentile change in importance of task type in US economy

Innovation requires a complex skill set

Ferguson and Ohland, Journal of Engineering Education, V.28-2, 2012

Entrepreneurship education is still the exception, not the rule

University Students who have taken at

least 1 entrepreneur-

ship course (outside of

engineering)

Students who have participated

in an academic entrepreneurship

program

Students who have taken at

least 1 entrepreneurship

course (within engineering)

Students who have had 1 or more of the 3

previous experiences

NCSU 10 (10%) 3 (3%) 32 (33%) 38 (39%)

PSU 14 (14%) 10 (10%) 14 (14%) 26 (26%)

Purdue 31 (22%) 38 (26%) 18 (13%) 43 (30%)

Total 55 (16%) 51 (15%) 64 (19%) 107 (31%)

Entrepreneurial mindsetAn entrepreneurial mindset is our whole outlook on life, a curiosity level that leads us to understand what is taking place outside of the world we’re living in—because ideas can come from anywhere. …wraps itself up to developing an entrepreneurial spirit.

- Robert Kerns, Kerns Foundation

Not all engineers will be entrepreneurs or intrapreneurs (corporate entrepreneurs), but all engineers need to

develop an entrepreneurial mindset.

What is S&T doing?Developing entrepreneurially minded

students that…

• know what's possible and can see what's needed • collaborate with colleagues across technical domains, and in the

application context • are keen observers and listeners with respect for all perspectives • are trusted team players who can give and receive feedback • know what tools and techniques are available, and have the

ability to quickly learn how to use them, or find someone who can • are proactive, and take ideas to completion • are resilient in dealing with setbacks, failures and crises • are confident in the abundance of opportunity, and in their ability

to deliver solutions • will create entrepreneurial teams to attack today’s problemsBuilding Collaborative Learning and Doing Community

S&T’s Experiential Entrepreneurship Course• Developed originally by Steve Blank at Stanford (NSF I-Corps)• S&T first offered fall 2014 semester (Comp Sci 5001)• Students are interviewed before being accepted into the class• Interdisciplinary teams of undergraduate and graduate students • Flipped classroom (Udacity videos + others) • Peer mentors (previous students)• Mentors-external and internal (weekly discussions)

https://www.google.com/search?q=steve+blank+classroom&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0CAgQ_AUoAmoVChMIu_XbyrDtyAIVyhUeCh3LTwBR&biw=1704&bih=1080#imgrc=FQ4OoR4o66bvIM%3A

Experiential Entrepreneurship Course (Con’t)• Team (Founder) focus:

– Explore a business idea– Develop a business model and key technical components– Test and validate these concepts through extensive customer discovery

• Business ideas are solicited as the students express interest or select a topic proposed by class

• Preference is given to socially impactful business ideas• Teams present weekly (were hypotheses validated or invalidated-

what they will do next-core concepts)• Collaborative learning:

– In teams - provide feedback to each other (technical, interviewing, listening, analysis, pattern recognition or opportunity identification)

– In class - provide feedback to other teams (including peer mentors and other mentors)

– Outside class• Weekly teaching team discussions• Weekly external mentor discussions

Course goalsClass combines theory with substantial hands-on practice.

Goals: • Understand and apply a framework to develop and test the

business model of a startup through extensive customer discovery and analysis.

• Develop skills in team operation, questioning and listening, and critical analysis required through real world use and feedback.

• Experience uncovering key issues and problems early, and adapting a different approach quickly (pivoting).

• Gain understanding of issues faced in organizations to further develop ideas, and where and how to secure outside help.

• Contribute to and accelerate development of a community of entrepreneurial minded students at S&T.

Evidence-based entrepreneurship (EBE)The ideas of economists and political philosophers, both when they are right and when they are wrong are more powerful than is commonly understood... Indeed the world is run by little else. Practical men, who believe themselves to be quite exempt from any intellectual influences are usually the slaves of some defunct economist.... It is ideas, not vested interests, which are dangerous for good or evil. -M. Keynes

• The function of science is to produce evidence for propositions and to integrate this evidence into some kind of systematic theory or model.

• Traditional business entrepreneurship textbooks do not teach EBE.• Encouraging experimentation “getting out of the building” and

doing customer discovery, leads to evidence that can be used to make decisions for a potential start up.

Business model canvas =Business model experimentation

Who is a Customer?• Buyers• Users• Influencers• Decision makers• Approvers• Saboteurs• Key partners• Distributors• Venture caps, bankers, or other investors• IP specialists• Competitors• ……

Entrepreneurship Education Starts with theSearch for Valid Business Models

Putting Search First is aradical change

It’s not just one more methodology

Hypotheses About The Business Model

guessguess

guess

guess

guess

guess

guess

guessguess

Ask Lots of Questions• Why does someone want this? Pain/Gain• Who is the customer? Who wants it? Who needs it?• 9 Whys?• Who uses it? Who pays for it? Who else is involved?• What’s the job to be done?• How do we deliver it to them?• How do we get them and keep them?• How much will they pay? Why? When?• What ‘things’ do we need to be successful?• Who can help us with those things?• What do we have to do first? Second? Third?• How much does it all cost?

Use Canvas As a Weekly Scorecard

Week 2

Week 3

Week 1

https://www.launchpadcentral.com/

What is Developed Becomes Very Useful

DATADATA

DATA

DATA

DATA

DATA

DATA

DATADATA

In a nutshell…developing skills through

• New methodology for entrepreneurship education• Open ended problem as basis• Experiential learning -”Out of the Building” discovery• Flipped classroom• Teaching team• Peer mentoring/Mentor network• Collaborative learning and doing• Evidence-based eship• Skill building integrated into fabric (leadership, team

building, communication, tech, etc.) • Teaching team evaluation: 4.0/4.0

I&E Curriculum and Program• Econ/CS 5001: Experiential Entrepreneurship-Fall 2014/2015• Econ/CS 2001: Domain Analysis and Innovation Methods-Fall

2015• Econ/CS 3001: Skill Development for Innovators &

Entrepreneurs-Fall 2015• Econ/CS 4001a: Advanced Domain Analysis and Innovation• Methods-Spring 2016• Econ/CS 4001b: Interpersonal Dynamics-Spring 2016

Campus Minor: Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship

Thanks to Pathways to InnovationNSF funded program at Stanford Epicenter (administered by VentureWell)

Mission: to unleash the entrepreneurial potential of undergraduate engineering students across the United States to create bold innovators with the knowledge, skills and attitudes to contribute to economic and societal prosperity.”

COHORT II-2015

THANK YOU

QUESTIONS?