This case is anchored around the course ‘Entrepreneurship and Understanding Business” on the B.Sc Merc programme (‘HA’ in Danish).
The course is 10 ECTS, and it is placed on the first semester of the B.Sc programme.
Link to the course description
This is a mandatory and integrated part of the programme, and approx. 550 business (SAMF) students are enrolled across all five campuses each year.
The case challenge:
The challenge in this case is how to use technology/digital means to create learning modules, cases, learning situations and/or exercises for enhancing students’ learning and competencies in Entrepreneurship teaching. If possible, specifically for the course ‘Entrepreneurship and Understanding Business’.
How to design, use or develop learning through technological/IT tools, options and solutions?
Below please find a brief description of the course as well as an explanation for why this task may be seen as both important and relevant.
The Entrepreneurship and Innovation related goals for the course:
This is a course about entrepreneurship, business and management. The tittle of this course is ‘Entrepreneurship and Understanding Business’, and this is exactly what this course is all about. In more detail: The purpose of this course is to acquire knowledge about concepts, theories and methods that can used for describing, analysing and solving complex managerial and marketing issues from an entrepreneurial point of view in a global business context.
Teaching and learning in the course:
The course consists of a combination of lectures, cases, exercises, assignments, workshops, student projects, dialogue, discussions and questions. In short, we apply an array of the ‘usual’ tools and learning approaches in a normal, modern, interactive and student-oriented course.
Through a number of real-life business challenges throughout the course the students are encouraged to think and act entrepreneurial. The course contains a number of writing workshops, business idea development exercises and an extensive exam project (written group project, approx. 4 students pr. group, 20 pages). Please see the course description for further details.
The course, however, is mainly taught in large classes primarily in our auditoriums: In Odense approx. 200 students; in Slagelse approx. 160 students; in Kolding approx. 140 students; in Esbjerg approx. 40 students; and in Sønderborg approx. 40-50 students. This causes some potential natural limitations as to how interactive, individual and differentiated the teaching and learning in real life can be across the large groups of students.
At the same time the resources for running the courses are scarce and increasingly under pressure due to financial constraints and tight budgets. Thus, we need to provide and deliver the same or preferably enhanced learning and competencies – using slightly fewer resources in future. How can we do this?
In addition, we experience that a part of the students do not spend a sufficient amount of time and energy in their studies. This is not particular for his course – actually most of the students really like Entrepreneurship! 🙂 However, it is a factor worth taking into consideration: How can we engage and ‘activate’ our students more?
The digitalization challenge – or Mission Impossible?
How can we activate our students to study hard(er) and thus achieve more learning and better results?How can an increasing and better use of digitalisation help us in (some parts of) this quest?
This is the digitalization challenge – or is it Mission Impossible?
We have to date experimented with some digital tools such as: ‘Peer grade’ in group-projects, where the students should give group-based feedback to each other through an IT-system. We have used Poll-everywhere, Kahoot-quizzes, MCQs and of cause the general use of Blackboard/e-learn for course materials etc.
However, I do not feel that we are there yet – at all! I don’t think that we are seeing and exploiting the opportunities – we are not utilizing the potential of digitalized teaching and learning.
What tools and options could be used? How should it be designed?
How can we create learning modules, learning situations or exercises through the available technological tools, options and solutions? Should we try e.g. more ‘gamification’? You-tube tutorials? Peer-grade exercises? IT based cases? Exercises? Or something else? And how!? Developing customized solutions, or applying any pre-made stuff that we can plug-and-play? What exists out there?
Thank you for your help with ideas, inspiration, opportunities, solutions and advise that we could use in this course – and potentially use in your own or other courses around SDU as well.
Thanks and best regards,
Martin Senderovitz