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Using Online Game-based Business Simulation to teach Entrepreneurship effectively to Engineering students – A Case Study

Bidyut Baruah; Electronic Engineering

Abstract

The landscape of engineering is constantly evolving and today, engineers are expected to have an understanding of not only science and technology but also certain aspects of business acumen such as the ability to understand market trends and customers’ demands, identify business opportunities and commercialization of new innovation and products. So, there is a growing emphasis in Higher Education to teach such entrepreneurship skills to engineering students. However, there are no clear guidelines on effective teaching strategies for entrepreneurship within the engineering discipline. Currently with COVID-19 limiting teaching options, addressing some of the complex attributes of entrepreneurship education has been a challenge. Given current and potentially future limitations, what can be an effective way to teach entrepreneurship to engineering students? This presentation will highlight the case study of an interdisciplinary programme MSc Engineering Management in the Department of Electronic Engineering where a 10 credit module ‘Enterprise’ focuses solely on the development of entrepreneurial skills among students. An Online Game-based Business Simulation was utilized to give students an authentic experience of running a business and validating their innovative ideas. A survey was conducted among the current cohort of 104 students to measure their confidence with creativity and problem solving within a business set up before and after undertaking this module. Can such experiential technologies facilitate the development of a wide range of skills needed to stimulate students’ entrepreneurial competences? The presentation will discuss the findings of this study and also highlight if such approaches can transform the educational setting in entrepreneurship education for non-business students.

Recording: Link to presentation start

Moocing an impact: What lessons can we learn from massive online courses?

Andy Parsons and Iain Barr; Chemistry and Centre for Lifelong Learning

Abstract

The ‘Exploring Everyday Chemistry’ (or eeDc) course is a pioneering University of York free online course, or Mooc, launched in 2017 in response to a national drop in undergraduate chemistry applications. Over five runs of the course, over 21,000 learners from 150 countries have participated and they have completed over 294,000 steps and posted almost 17,000 comments. Targeted at pre-university students, the course allows learners to build on their subject knowledge, develop independent learning skills and gain an insight into York teaching and research. The success of eeDc as a recruitment tool led to it being used as a model by the University for establishing a suite of over 20 free Moocs, in different subject areas. These courses are targeted at pre-university students and over 170,000 learners have participated. 

The York Moocs have utilised good practice in the sector and also introduced distinctive features. With the move to online learning within the university sector, what lessons can we learn from Moocs? This presentation will start with an overview of York Moocs, including why these courses were developed and how they are presented on the FutureLearn platform. We will then give an overview of course design, noting some distinctive features of eeDc. Finally, we will look at how eeDc has influenced how the author has adapted his own teaching, including online delivery of chemistry lectures, to facilitate active learning. 

We hope that this talk will inspire others to explore what Moocs have to offer in creating engaging digital learning experiences.

Recording: Link to presentation start

Developing research skills in medical students online using an active research study

Heidi Baseler, Murat Aksoy, Alison Graham, Aziz Asghar; Hull York Medical School

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic and the shift to online learning presented a challenge to deliver laboratory-based teaching for medical students. Capitalising on this opportunity, we designed an innovative online teaching unit in which students became active researchers in an ongoing study on the effects of COVID-19 on memory function. 

The ‘COVID-19 Online Rapid Objective Neuro-Memory Assessment’ (CORONA) study is a collaboration between academics in the Hull York Medical School and NHS clinical colleagues which went live in December 2020. As part of the Scholarship and Special Interest Programme for first-year medical students, tutors delivered live interactive online teaching exposing students to the entire process of conducting a research study, including experimental design and ethics, data analysis and scientific presentation and writing. Students researched the effects of COVID-19 on the nervous system, delivered online individual oral presentations, participated in data collection/analysis and wrote scientific reports on their findings. 

Student feedback collected via an anonymous survey was overwhelmingly positive. Although students expressed a preference for acquiring laboratory skills in person, they found the online sessions engaging, informative and convenient, and advocated a blended learning approach in the future. Involving students in a live research study helped to facilitate online learning and successfully meet learning objectives to train medical students in the research process. This presentation would be of interest to educators seeking to engage students with research-led online teaching and learning.

Recording: Link to presentation start