Entrepreneurship Learning Across the Curriculum Paul Lane Seidman College of Business Grand Valley State University 401 West Fulton Grand Rapids, Michigan 49504 [email protected] Phone: 616 331-7470 Fax: 616 331-7215 John Farris Padnos College of Engineering and Computing [email protected] Phone: 616 331-7267 Fax: 616 331-7215 Gayla Jewel Kirkhof College of Nursing Nursing Center for Global Health [email protected] Phone: 616-331-7174

Eduardo Sanchez-Rojas

Multicultural Affairs [email protected] Phone: 616-331-2177 Beverly Seley College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Art and Design Department [email protected] ABSTRACT Four faculty members, an artist, a business person, a nurse practitioner, and engineer and a specialist in multicultural affairs, provide ideas on improving learning in Entrepreneurship. This paper offers three examples of things that can be borrowed from other disciplines to use in Entrepreneurial Courses. The Professional Presentation Board, which incorporates visual learning styles; the Source Book which incorporates hands on, visual, and analytical learning styles; and the exciting Reality Opportunity Identification exercise in aging. Here are three tools that can enliven the entrepreneurship learning environment and help it to be more inclusive of people from multiple learning styles and disciplines of study. INTRODUCTION Entrepreneruship is an inclusive field of study. This is what makes it so rich as a learning tool for interdisciplinary and multicultural work. In the process of preparing two entrepreneurship courses to be taught to non-engineering and non business students, many new concepts were learned from other disciplines. These concepts were reworked 1

into tools and techniques to teach the entrepreneurial process. This paper describes three specific concepts and how the concepts are applied to the teaching of entrepreneurship. The university is committed to offering an Entrepreneurship program to students from any discipline. This commitment arises from the results of a student survey. (1) The results showed that students outside of business and engineering were more likely to have entrepreneurial ideas and ambitions than business and engineering students. In response the survey an entrepreneurship minor was created and marketed to students outside of business and engineering. This paper describes teaching methods that appear in the first two courses in the minor. In the first course entitled “The Entrepreneurial Quest,” students explore the entrepreneurial journey beginning with the myths and realities of entrepreneurs, student self-analysis, creativity and idea generation through to the recognition of a business opportunity as indicated by a customer feedback and the introduction of the concept of a business plan. The second course entitled “New Venture Feasibility”, focuses on the design and development of a product and a preliminary assessment of market entry feasibility. Two of the authors’ team taught the initial offering of these courses and create reusable teaching modules to aid in scaling up the entrepreneurship program. Unfortunately the professors’ backgrounds in business and engineering are not sufficient to develop an effective interdisciplinary course in entrepreneurship. You may ask why? At 2003 the national conferences of the United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship (USASBE) and the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA) the authors learned two important lessons about teaching entrepreneurship. First leading schools in this area draw upon the expertise of many different disciplines to teach the knowledge and skills required to be a successful entrepreneur. Not only did these educators believe that this strategy was successful, they also believed that the approach showed students the value of disciplines other than their own. Second the authors learned that entrepreneurship education could be used to motivate at risk or marginalized students to stay in school by addressing multiple learning styles and tapping into students’ passion for their own ideas. Background The lead two authors received a grant which enabled the authors to work with faculty from eight different disciplines outside their own professional areas. Creating a series of week long modules for the entrepreneurship class was the goal of this collaborative effort. The lead two authors spent at least two days with each outside faculty consultant to develop each module. The modules have been documented so that the authors and other faculty who will teach the courses in the future can deliver the modules effectively. During the development of the modules faculty from different fields shared their teaching philosophies, strategies and tactics. This exchange of ideas will not only benefit students in the Entrepreneurship program but also benefit students in other classes taught by participating faculty. The objective of this grant was to develop eight interdisciplinary learning modules to teach the students how to take an idea from conception to market.

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Each learning module consists of the following: 1. Pre-class meeting reading assignment. 2. Blackboard class preparedness assessment. 3. Class presentation material. 4. In class active learning exercise. 5. Out of class assignment. 6. Grading criteria for the out of class assignment. 7. Sample test questions. Two days of face to face meetings were allotted for the development of each module THREE BORROWED IDEAS In the course of this work many things were learned. For the purpose of this paper three borrowed ideas from three disciplines will be shared. Many papers would be required to describe all of the ideas generated with the faculty consultants. The project presentation board, the source book and the exercise in opportunity identification are presented in this paper. The idea of the project presentation board was embraced and modified by the faculty consultant from the office Multi Cultural Affairs. The source book technique was presented by the faculty consultant form the art department and the exercise on opportunity identification was developed with the faculty consultant from the College of Nursing. Project Presentation Board The faculty consultant from the office of Multi Cultural Affairs insisted that the courses address multiple learning styles. This was reinforced by the presentations at the 2004 USASBE meeting and some luncheon table conversations where two of the authors were challenged to think about how to help African American students learn about entrepreneurship. As a direct result the lead authors had developed a visual tool for tracking project progress on a Display Board. The foam core Board has areas devoted to each section of the course and is referred to as a project presentation board (PPD). The PPD contains a sketch of the product, a written description of the product, a description of potential customers, results efforts to gather customer feedback and a place for the student’s vision, and mission statements. The PPD board is shown in Exhibit 1. The PPD allows students and faculty to quickly determine the status of a project and what needs to be done next. __________ Figure 1 about here __________ The staff of the university Multicultural Office enthusiastically embraced the idea of the project presentation board. They believed that the PPB could be a valuable teaching tool but they had two caveats. First the board would have to be reviewed multiple times during the semester to help the students perceive the value of the tool. Second the faculty would have to be willing to let students improve any part of the board each time it was reviewed. Both suggestions have been incorporated into the syllabus for the class.

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The PPB has become one of the structural supports for the entire first course and the link to the second course. The second course in the program entitled “New Product Feasibility” and is built around determining what potential customers think about the entrepreneurial idea and whether the product can be made for a price the customers are willing to pay. Here the board continues to fill critical need. It serves as a visual tie throughout both semesters, growing changing, being refined but always reflecting the status of the project. If you track the development of a representation of the product through the semesters, it may start as a rough pencil sketch, or a collage of design pieces. It may progress to a more refined sketch, or a sketch produced on a computer. Then the representation may be further refined to a picture of a foam model or a solid model produced with Computer Aided Design (CAD) software. Visual learning and other types of learning styles have been integrated into the courses. While those who will guide the entrepreneurship courses are not experts in learning styles, assistance was received from many faculty members who have experience in his area. The growth of the board concept has helped build visual learning as an integral learning style into the new program. Source Book The source book idea combines hands-on and visual learning style. The concept was borrowed from field of art. The creative processes and techniques used by artists can be harnessed to generate and improve entrepreneurial ideas. The professor of art who specializes in jewelry design introduced the concept of a source book. Some creative people record ideas related to their project in a source book. These related but different ideas are used to stimulate and refine new ideas. This simple concept grew and grew until it became the creative backbone for the courses in Entrepreneruship. The idea behind the source book is to use a sketch book (blank pages) to collect anything that might be related to the design of your product, store, website, logo and so forth. It might be as simple as a color. It might be as complex as a technology. It could be a swatch of material, it could be an advertisement from a magazine, or it could be a photograph that you have taken in your travels. It could be something off a competitive website, it could be sketch or tracing, in fact the source book entries are only limited by your imagination. This is a valuable tool for the hands on learner as well as the visual learners. The hands-on learner can get involved in the touch and feel of materials, even physical shapes can be translated by photography, or sketch into the source book. The power in the source book is that students are constantly thinking about the new product they are trying to develop. At first they are collecting anything they like. After the first review of the source book, the faculty led a discussion about how to synthesize and combine ideas from different sources. While any idea is welcome in the source book as the students move through the entrepreneurial process, they see the benefit of reviewing the source book and begin to focus on their final choices. This review of the source book provides an opportunity to learn its real power. It is far easier to work from a sketchbook full of ideas then to stare a blank paper when thinking about a new idea.

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Frequently in the process of developing products, services, or revitalizing organizations customers are consulted. The lucky entrepreneur will find immediate total customer acceptance. Most however will be forced to go through and iterative process. In these cases the source book can be a tremendous asset. When the customer has made it clear they do not like an idea or design, a sourcebook can be consulted to generate new ideas to overcome customer’s resistance. Opportunity Identification One of the most difficult areas of entrepreneurship to teach is opportunity identification. It became more puzzling when thinking about Entrepreneruship class where the students were supposed to enroll with a product idea. Experience has taught faculty that student’s ideas have a marginal success rate. Some excited and passionate students knock you down to get help in going to the next step. Other students have ideas that are clearly not feasible. The problem faced is how to get students to think beyond their product or reevaluate their idea. How can students learn to question their product on their own? How can this be taught without forcing students to move away from their idea? The answer that has been developed requires students to learn about opportunity identification by thinking about products the baby boom generation may need. There are 77 million people in this category and they are quickly approaching their sixties. What will they need in the way of products? The baby boomers have changed almost everything else how will they change aging? How will they change products? What are their unmet needs? Almost all products can be redesigned to better serve the needs of the aging population. When students think about this scenario, one of three things might happen: 1. Students might see even more benefits of their own product. 2. Students might have an entirely new product idea. 3. Students might learn how to go about thinking about the opportunities for products provided by a macro event. How can 18-22 year old students learn about developing products design for older people? The nursing professor who was a faculty consultant suggested an in-class aging exercise that would allow students to experience the effects of aging. This hopefully will lead students to think about new products, product modifications, and the ramifications to their own products. Aging in Class – a Reality Exercise The exercise simulates the effects of aging and then the students try to perform everyday tasks with familiar tools. This exercise is derived from exercises commonly used in nursing and the health professions to develop a student’s empathy toward older patients. Upon entering the class students are asked to take a pair of heavy gloves and keep them on all the time for the class period. While class is starting a bowl of candies is passed around the room. Unwrapping the candy requires fine motor skills which many older people have lost or are losing. After some more discussion about the difficulty encountered, students are equipped with industrial safety glasses previously sprayed with soap and sawdust. The glasses simulate

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impaired vision experienced by older people. Then students are asked to use computers located in the classroom to find and record information from the internet. After the exercise a discussion of the difficulties is lead by the faculty. Students are asked to think about what could be done to make the task easier. Students may learn why older people do not like small gadgets and find surfing the internet frustrating not fun. Next students are provided with industrial ear protection. The students are asked to complete a task requiring communication and cooperation. The one that worked well for students was having them use their cell phone and attempt to email their faculty members. On the second day of class the students are fitted with the equipment listed above and given several in class projects to complete. The one that seemed to be the most eye opening was sending them across the campus in pairs with walkers, wheel chairs, crutches and other mobility aids to get a cup a drink at the café. It is important to point out that participation in all activities is voluntary. The goal is to allow students to experience what aging might be like. Students were encouraged to take their own gloves, glasses, and ear plugs, home so that they can experiment safely trying all kinds of things. Some of the things that students are encouraged to try at home are: Buttoning Buttons Flossing your teeth (heart health) Putting pills in boxes Fastening and unfastening jewelry clasp Lacing shoes Zipping garments Eating a meal with family (safety) In class students will try and develop a longer list. This is added to by conversations with older family members. In fact, students are invited to bring people of their grand parent’s generation. These activities are fun and intended to open students’ minds to the many unmet needs of a large population. In the next class students brainstorm product ideas to meet the unmet needs identified. Opening the Opportunity Box The fun begins when class resumes and the students begin an ideation process to develop product ideas. Students are encouraged to bring friends and family to the ideation session. The authors have found in other classes that diverse participants improve the number, quality and diversity of the ideas generated. What would it be like to have some grandparents or great grandparents join in the educational process? How many ideas would they help generate? What would the internal reward be to the student who would bring a grand parent? In the ideation session students will be encouraged to freely think up ideas no matter how simple, how seemingly ridiculous. It does not matter. The class starts the process with some of the things learned directly from the aging experience. Then it will progress into ideas for product modifications focusing on some products, for example, cell phones, stoves, automobile sound systems, and so forth.

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After the ideation is well underway and many opportunities have been considered then the faculty leader will take volunteers from the class to expose their product idea to the active minds and see what happens. SO WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN? These three ideas are small set of many that the authors developed working across the disciplines in entrepreneurship. There must be many more ideas to be borrowed and shared at every school. Are you ready to let entrepreneurship be the catalyst? The Product Presentation Board is a class tool that can bring to life the product or the project. Power points are nice and living without today’s amazing technologies would be difficult. These classes reside basically on the web. However, are multicultural consultants and our colleagues with expertise in learning styles have persuasive arguments that the visual learner needs a tool where they can see and grasp the whole product. The Product Presentation Board is an attempt to fill that need. Do you have students who could learn more if they were provided such a visual aid? Do you have employees who would understand more or make better presentations if they had a visual tool like the Product Presentation Board? The Source Book is a creative tool for everyone. It is of particular help to the hands-on and the visual learners but it is good for everyone to use for collecting ideas. Could you use a shot in the arm in the creativity department? Could your students use a way of collecting all their ideas so they could later go back and sort through them? Would you like to increase the creative productivity of your staff, or of your product design group? The art professor was extremely innovative and full of thought when she handed the faculty team sketch books, and showed them how to go forth and collect ideas. She recognized a way to give us results. Would the source book give your students or workers better results? Would it help you? When a student is stuck paging through the source book can help faculty ignite the fire again. Opportunity Identification is such an important area. The faculty was stumped as to how to gently work with students and their ideas. How do you encourage them to evaluate their opportunity with their product by comparing to some other ideas? How do you gracefully allow them to change without negative connotation? How do you keep the passion for the new product process and entrepreneurship while changing the product? The answer of all places was in the College of Nursing. The exercises developed allow for a wide range of products, product modifications and evaluations. Could this contextual experience help your students develop better products? Could your work force develop products to meet the needs faster and better with contextualized situations like this? Entrepreneruship does span the curriculum and there is synergy to be had. Thank you USASBE and other organizations that pull people together who are pioneers in looking beyond their disciplines. Thank you to nameless meal companions at USASBE 2004 who challenged us to look at our colleagues in Nursing, Art, Multi

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Cultural Affairs, Writing, Psychology, Communications, Law, and so many more areas. You set us out on a course that has taken on its own life. Entrepreneurship does have the ability to span the curriculums of many areas. There is much to be learned in an entrepreneurial spirit by consulting those in other disciplines. There is much that can help to guide the wonderful excitement and passion of young entrepreneurs to be found outside the business and engineering schools. Some of this can be imported back for regular use in other courses. With one small grant and sixteen days with colleagues the authors are overwhelmed with ideas and materials. What would happen if this was repeated with more disciplines at more schools? Imagine the inclusiveness that could be Entrepreneruship. References 1. Farris, John, Nancy Levenburg, and Paul Lane, “Are We Teaching Entrepreneurship to the Best Audience,” Presented at ASEE, Salt Lake City, and June 22, 2004.

Exhibit 1. The Project Presentation Board

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