Finalist

Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Award

Oscarina Conceição

Finalist of the Entrepreneurship Educator of the Year Award

Polytechnic Institute of Cavado and Ave - Portugal

"Creating value through "funny" education!"


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@ipca
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@esg_ipca
(School of Management account)
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(IPCA Student Association account)
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(RUN-EU Alliance (Regional University Network.EU) account)
@ahjmoreira
(IPCA Pro-President for Pedagogical Innovation and Educational Projects personal account)
@OscarinaConc
(Oscarina Conceição personal account)

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Summary

In a VUCA world the Higher Education Institutions have been taking on different missions and “rethinking” their academic curricula. The strong emphasis on economic success and job creation has indeed propelled entrepreneurial education to a prominent position on higher education level. The Entrepreneurship Teaching presents several challenges such as the necessary interaction of students, an environment conducive to creativity, teamwork and students’ enhanced engagement.

Faced with the extra challenge of teaching a class of ERASMUS students composed of different nationalities/cultures and different scientific areas, I decided to adopt a game-based learning strategy for my classes.

According to literature, the game-based learning can improve students’ performance; commit and take responsibility for learning; achieve and sustain engagement; promote transformational mind-sets; and open the mind to creative thinking and innovation.

Facing these multiple and complex challenges, I divided the syllabus into modules and developed/adapted games to explain and consolidate concepts. This creative work of adapting the games to the syllabus was sustained by a lot of research and called forth a high "risk margin" - the students’ reactions were initially an unknown variable.
When implementing this game-based-learning approach, I realized that the students were motivated and that the learning process was successful. But what is the perception of students?
In a voxvote conducted on June 3rd, 2022 to my current Master class, 26 students displayed a 6.67 average of concurrence, on a 7-point Likert scale, that the use of “games” effectively beneficiated the learning process. This buoyant feedback made it all worthwhile!!

Key People


Prof. Oscarina Conceição
Auxiliar Professor
School of Management,  Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave


Acknowledgements

I thank the Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave for the motivation and support given to the implementation of pedagogical innovation methodologies.

Images

"Serafim solution"

Game 1_team work

Game 2_Presentation

Game 2_Team work

Game 6_team work

Game 8 _Pitch

Team work

IMPACT STORY

Impacting lifes

Serafim Máximo, a working student and finalist of the degree in Business Management, was singularly attuned to the concepts of entrepreneurial competences and intrapreneurship that were approached in the Entrepreneurship Course. Realizing that he could use and enhance his entrepreneurial skills in the textile factory he worked for, Serafim sought to identify an objective problem susceptible of being solved by a value-creating, innovative project he could undertake!!

Serafim worked in the yarn warehouse and noticed that the factory wasted a lot of time unloading yarn in the warehouse as the yarn was stored in cardboard boxes but each yarn cone was individually wrapped with plastic - both a real time-wasting problem and environmental waste. Once the problem was identified, Serafim went on to generate solutions. And discovered the solution by opening the fridge and looking at an egg carton! He noticed that the wire cones could stay intact inside the Box if they had 2 punched cards holding them (see attached photo).

After exposing the problem and the solution to the factory management, he was authorized to test his innovative idea. He contacted the supplier in the India and arranged for a box to be sent without plastics but with the protective cards. As soon as the order arrived, Serafim verified that in his “Test Box” the wire cones were practically intact, requiring only minor adjustments. After the final adjustments, the Indian supplier transversally adopted the “Serafim solution” for all its customers around the world, revealing the importance of intrapreneurship.

LEARNINGS

Lessons learned

The greatest challenge as a teacher is to motivate students towards the learning process. If we add variables to this already complex challenge (classes composed of students from different scientific areas; with different nationalities/cultures; large classes), this task can become overwhelming.

In order to motivate these students, I decided to divide the syllabus into modules and use games in my classes to introduce and/or consolidate concepts. Thus, in most lectures, I include an “innocent” game with the aim of facilitating the learning process.

Decide which games are best suited for each syllabus was a creative process, sometimes complicated, that often goes through experimentation in the classes.

For students to be able to identify the game played with the syllabus in question, I created a class Padlet where I put the modules on a wall and inserted photos of the respective games. I also created a Padlet per group to be able to list the tasks developed and give my feedback group by group.

By adopting a game-based-learning approach with the support of a Padlet, I perceived that the students were motivated and that the learning process was successful. But what about the actual perception of the students?

Aiming to assess the perception of the current class, I carried out, on June 3rd, 2022, a voxvote: 26 Master students displayed a 6.67 average of concurrence, on a 7-point Likert scale, that the use of “games” with Padlet support effectively improved the learning process.

With this feedback it was all worth it!!

FUTURE PLANS

What's coming?

I am currently applying the game-based learning approach in the Entrepreneurship Course of the Organizational Management Master, a program attended by students from different scientific areas, namely management, pharmacy, languages, secretarial, nutrition and engineering. The use of game-based learning in a multidisciplinary environment seemingly potentiates interaction and the learning process.

Considering the excellent feedback from students on the use of game-based learning in multidisciplinary classes, my goal for the future is to replicate these experiences in regular classes.

The Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave has five Schools in the following fields: Design, Management, Technology, and Hospitality & Tourism, offering a broad range of Bachelor, Master and Professional Short-cycle Courses, and in all these schools the discipline of Entrepreneurship is taught. Thus, my goal is to henceforth create transversal classes for the discipline of Entrepreneurship, promoting the teaching of the aforementioned course to classes with students from the five schools and benefiting from the advantages this multidisciplinary environment brings to a game-based learning approach.

This is a project that involves the coordination of the Board of the five IPCA Schools and requires changes in the “normal” functioning of the degrees. However, it seems fairly evident that, once the initial constraints are overcome, this approach would be highly beneficial for students, both in terms of learning as in terms of expanding student's transversal competencies, thus preparing students for the labour market reality in a much more comprehensive fashion – arguably the end goal of higher education institutions.


KEY STATISTICS

13 students

ERASMUS Class 2017_18

2 Schools

ERASMUS Class 2017_18

6 countries

ERASMUS Class 2017_18

12 students

ERASMUS Class 2018_19

3 Schools

ERASMUS Class 2018_19

4 countries

ERASMUS Class 2018_19

6.43

25 ERASMUS students' perception of entrepreneurship education outcomes (7-point Likert scale)

46 students

Actual class 2021_22_ Degree in Business Management

6.36

46 Actual Degree students' perception of “games”, with Padlet support, improves the learning process (7-point Likert scale)

26 students

Actual class 2021_22_ Master in Business Management

6

Actual Master Students _Scientic areas Backgroung

6.67

26 Actual Master students' perception of “games”, with Padlet support, improves the learning process (7-point Likert scale)

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