In June Donald Carpenter and Andrew Gerhart visited the universities of Delft, Eindhoven and Twente to inspire teaching staff and support staff with workshops on the entrepreneurial thinking mind set and active class room techniques. Carpenter and Gerhart both lecture at Lawrence Technological University (Detroit) where they aim to bring entrepreneurial thinking and creative problem solving into the engineering curriculum.
The workshops were highly appreciated by participants: “Two American engineers/lecturers made us experience the effects of some of their favourite Classroom Techniques as a student. Instructive and inspiring. I will certainly try these out in my own education!” (Rom Langerak, EWI, UT).
Effectual approach stimulates entrepreneurial mind set
The workshop in Delft actively engaged participants in how to make learning more adept to experiencing the entrepreneurial thinking mind-set and how to transfer this to other learning activities. Gerhart showed us that the entrepreneurial mind-set consists of three key characteristics that need to be practiced: curiosity, connection and context. Embedding these into our learning assignments may create students with an entrepreneurial mind set or enhance Entrepreneurially minded learning (EML). Changing our Causal assignment approach into an Effectual approach will help acquiring integrated skills for learning purposes and value creation.
Active Collaborative Learning
In a highly engaging workshop in Eindhoven and Twente participants experienced different techniques for active collaborative learning themselves: “The workshop introduced some powerful techniques: jigsaw teamwork, gallery walk and interactive quizzes and rankings. Showing convincingly that collaboration works and that activating students pays off, not just for the fun of it but also for deeper learning.”(Hajo Schilperoort, lecturer & researcher Architecture & Building technology, TU/e).
Background information on Active Collaborative Working can be found here: Introductory presentation and Jigsaw Method; Active Learning Map; Instant feedback assessment technique; Decision making and ranking; Teams & teamwork.
