TY - GEN
T1 - Cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset in an undergraduate engineering statistics course using project-based learning
AU - Vignola, Cladio
AU - London, Jeremi
AU - Ayala, Richard
AU - Huang, Wen
N1 - Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENT This project was supported by the KERN Family Foundation grant that was awarded to researchers at Arizona State University, and entitled, “Transforming Engineering Education through Student & Faculty Mindset Development: Establishing a National Engineering Faculty Training Collaborative and model EM University”.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 IEEE.
PY - 2017/12/12
Y1 - 2017/12/12
N2 - There is resurging interest in the engineering education community in entrepreneurial activities and the development of an entrepreneurial mindset (EM). According to the KERN Entrepreneurship Education Network, facets of an EM include curiosity, an emphasis on creating value, and the ability to make connections. While extracurricular activities are the primary mechanism by which this topic has been introduced to engineering students in the past, it is beginning to show up in more formal ways. The literature includes examples many of how to promote entrepreneurship and an EM in traditional project-based courses engineering students take (senior design, etc.); but there are fewer examples and best practices for cultivating an EM in a fundamental engineering course-namely engineering statistics. Project-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach that involves active learning directed at investigating and solving complex, real-world problems- and it is an approach that is underutilized in math-intensive engineering courses. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how PBL can be integrated into an undergraduate engineering statistics course to promote an entrepreneurial mindset and investigate its impact on student learning. Six teams of engineering students in a 200-level engineering statistics courses responded to the challenge of presenting "A World Without Statistics". Teams were given liberty to choose any topic of interest and received funding to support their idea. The resulting projects creatively conveyed what the world would be like without statistics using a myriad of topics: sports, resilient infrastructure, online data, robotics, artificial intelligence, and manufacturing. Evidence suggest that curiosity, an emphasis on understanding the value of statistics, and the ability to make connections were critical to each team's success. This paper provides an overview of the assignment, and examples of students' work. Such insights have the potential to not only influence the way we cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset in fundamental engineering courses, but also shed light on innovative ways to integrate other multi-faceted topics in engineering education.
AB - There is resurging interest in the engineering education community in entrepreneurial activities and the development of an entrepreneurial mindset (EM). According to the KERN Entrepreneurship Education Network, facets of an EM include curiosity, an emphasis on creating value, and the ability to make connections. While extracurricular activities are the primary mechanism by which this topic has been introduced to engineering students in the past, it is beginning to show up in more formal ways. The literature includes examples many of how to promote entrepreneurship and an EM in traditional project-based courses engineering students take (senior design, etc.); but there are fewer examples and best practices for cultivating an EM in a fundamental engineering course-namely engineering statistics. Project-based learning (PBL) is a pedagogical approach that involves active learning directed at investigating and solving complex, real-world problems- and it is an approach that is underutilized in math-intensive engineering courses. The purpose of this study is to demonstrate how PBL can be integrated into an undergraduate engineering statistics course to promote an entrepreneurial mindset and investigate its impact on student learning. Six teams of engineering students in a 200-level engineering statistics courses responded to the challenge of presenting "A World Without Statistics". Teams were given liberty to choose any topic of interest and received funding to support their idea. The resulting projects creatively conveyed what the world would be like without statistics using a myriad of topics: sports, resilient infrastructure, online data, robotics, artificial intelligence, and manufacturing. Evidence suggest that curiosity, an emphasis on understanding the value of statistics, and the ability to make connections were critical to each team's success. This paper provides an overview of the assignment, and examples of students' work. Such insights have the potential to not only influence the way we cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset in fundamental engineering courses, but also shed light on innovative ways to integrate other multi-faceted topics in engineering education.
KW - Engineering statistics
KW - Entrepreneurial mindset
KW - Project-based learning
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85043274169&partnerID=8YFLogxK
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U2 - 10.1109/FIE.2017.8190663
DO - 10.1109/FIE.2017.8190663
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:85043274169
T3 - Proceedings - Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE
SP - 1
EP - 4
BT - FIE 2017 - Frontiers in Education, Conference Proceedings
PB - Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
T2 - 47th IEEE Frontiers in Education Conference, FIE 2017
Y2 - 18 October 2017 through 21 October 2017
ER -