2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Instilling an Entrepreneurial Mindset through IDEAS Studio Courses

Presented at Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation Division Technical Session 10

Over the last three years, we have developed 5 elective courses called IDEAS studios to instill an entrepreneurial mindset in our students. The IDEAS studios focus on practical engagement with topics that include opportunity recognition, customer engagement, design thinking, ideation, fabrication, and scaling. In designing the IDEAS studio courses, we have recognized 7 characteristics that we suspect facilitate student growth in non-cognitive attributes related to an entrepreneurial mindset. The non-cognitive attributes include curiosity, intrinsic motivation, persistence, and a growth mindset. In this paper we describe these 7 characteristics, their specific implementation, and why we believe they have an influence on an entrepreneurial mindset. The 7 characteristics are briefly described here.

• Each IDEAS studio is voluntary. All students enrolled in the IDEAS studios have elected to be in the course, and for most students, the course does not contribute to degree requirements outside of serving as a free elective.

• Most IDEAS studios result in a physical artifact. The artifacts are typically still in rough form and a pedagogical emphasis is placed on “prototyping-to-think.”

• Students in IDEAS studios are motivated by a real problem. Many times the problems are provided by industrial sponsors, but there is also space for independent student ideas developed from recognized opportunities.

• Students apply broad perspectives to their work. In addition to the technical feasibility of their ideas, students must explore social impact, value, market viability, and others.

• Students are encouraged to utilize an open process to their work. In many cases, students explore the process as an outcome for the course, and it is made clear to students that neither the resulting solutions nor the process are deterministic.

• IDEAS studios are open to all disciplines in engineering, and some cases, to all majors throughout the University. The mix of students working together is interdisciplinary.

• The number of students in the IDEAS studios is small. In most cases, enrollment is limited to 16 students.

We conducted a pilot assessment study to determine the effect of these courses and the 7 characteristics on intrinsic motivation and curiosity. We provide brief results of the study in this paper, which show that the IDEAS courses positively affect both curiosity and intrinsic motivation.

Authors

Prof. Charles Kim Bucknell University [biography]

Charles Kim is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at Bucknell University. He received Ph.D. and M.S.E. degrees from the University of Michigan and B.S. from Caltech. Prof. Kim teaches courses in design and innovation and is currently director of the Innovation, Design, Entrepreneurship, Applications, and Systems program at Bucknell.
Dr. R. Alan Cheville Bucknell University [biography]

Alan Cheville studied optoelectronics and ultrafast optics at Rice University, followed by 14 years as a faculty member at Oklahoma State University working on terahertz frequencies and engineering education. While at Oklahoma State, he developed courses
Dr. Erin Jablonski Bucknell University [biography]

Erin received her PhD at Iowa State University with funding from a NSF graduate fellowship before taking a NRC postdoctoral position at NIST. She joined the faculty at Bucknell in 2004 and has taught courses across the curriculum.
Dr. Michael J. Prince Bucknell University [biography]

Dr. Michael Prince is a professor of chemical engineering at Bucknell University and co-director of the National Effective Teaching Institute. His research examines a range of engineering education topics, including how to assess and repair student misco
Dr. Katharyn E. K. Nottis Bucknell University [biography]

Dr. Nottis is an Educational Psychologist and Professor Emeritus of Education at Bucknell University. Her research has focused on meaningful learning in science and engineering education, approached from the perspective of Human Constructivism. She has authored several publications and given numerous presentations on the generation of analogies, misconceptions, and facilitating learning in science and engineering education. She has been involved in collaborative research projects focused on conceptual learning in chemistry, chemical engineering, seismology, and astronomy.
Dr. Nathan P. Siegel P.E. Bucknell University
Dr. Margot A. Vigeant Bucknell University [biography]

Margot Vigeant is a professor of chemical engineering at Bucknell University. She earned her B.S. in chemical engineering from Cornell University, and her M.S. and Ph.D., also in chemical engineering, from the University of Virginia. Her primary researc
Prof. Joe Tranquillo Bucknell University [biography]

Joe Tranquillo is a professor at Bucknell University where he currently serves as the Director of the Teaching and Learning Center. He was the second hire in a new biomedical engineering program, which has since grown to 7 faculty, 70 students, gained acc

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