Entrepreneurship in a Graduate Engineering Program*

The paper will describe three courses that emphasize the entrepreneurship of new, joint projects between engineering and business students. The courses were co‐taught among engineering, business and applied psychology. The graduate student teams developed a marketing plan, conceived a design, built a prototype, and wrote a business plan. The teams were formed into companies with roles and responsibilities, had a budget, and were given the ability to fire “free‐loaders.” The teams were expected to develop innovative, high risk, high reward products. The students learned to take risks, accept failure, be creative, and work in a self‐directed team. A stress‐free classroom environment fostered creativity.     

Developing Aspiring Engineers into Budding Entrepreneurs: An Invention and Innovation Course*

Our invention and innovation course for engineering students cultivates an understanding of the entrepreneurship and invention world through a hands‐on introduction to product design and development. A pervasive emphasis on team dynamics as well as on the processes of design, invention and innovation fosters an environment that produces successful teams and inventions. This paper describes objectives and components of the elective course, development of high‐performance invention teams, course evaluation, assessment tools and results, and lessons learned. Students working in teams design and build an invention of their choice, and explore entrepreneurial topics such as profitability, marketing, sources for capital, and patenting. Creating business feasibility studies leads each team to estimate the manufacturing cost of their product and forecast potential sales revenues and profits. A two‐week, low‐risk introductory creativity and design project provides an early opportunity for creative expression, as well as insight into individuals' contribution and effectiveness in a team environment. Our course was inspired and initially supported by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance (NCIIA). Some student teams have subsequently received NCIIA product development funding.     

The Effectiveness of the E‐Team Approach to Invention and Innovation*

Within the last decade, teamwork has become a well‐known phenomenon in U.S. industry. Effective teamwork has led to an increase in productivity, a reduction in costs, a rise in employee involvement, and flattening of the organizational structure.¹ This study examines students' attitudes and experiences towards working in teams, with particular attention paid to engineering students participating in entrepreneurial teams. The results of the study suggest that the students' attitudes and experiences were positive about working in teams. The majority of the students felt they were able to perform effectively in teams and thought that working in teams will be beneficial for preparing them for the workplace. Although students responded positively about their teamwork experience, only half of the students received team training. Some of the students felt indifferent about the usefulness of the team training sessions, which suggests that teamwork training needs to be improved.     

Introduction: Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Growth

Innovative activity is a central element shaping both the competitiveness and the economic development of nations and regions. The capacity to innovate has been shown to serve as the driving engine of economic growth and job creation. Today start-up firms and SMEs are seen as one channel of technology transfer from science to commercialised ideas or knowledge. The purpose of this introductory paper is to provide a roadmap to the articles and to summarize the most important issues raised.     

工程教育实践教学改革探析

实践教学环节在高等工程教育中有着特别的重要性。工程专业最主要的实践教学环节在实验,作者从实践教学改革的关键,核心及深化实践教学改革的保证等方面进行了探析。结合本单位的实践教学改革,阐述了“三个四”的实践教学创新体系与“3＋1”的实践教学新模式。     

《工程制图》多维教学资源建设与教学实践创新

阐述了《工程制图》教学改革的创新理念,介绍了从纸质教材到与教学全程配套的助教型、助学型CAI课件,进而到自主式专题学习网站的多维的立体化教学资源的创建、完善和利用.创新教学模式的特色在于利用多维教学资源开展自主探究学习活动,以优势资源为媒介开展双语教学和广泛的国际合作.     

Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Schumpeter Revisited

In a large part of the literature on Scbumpeter one finds thatattention is paid to either his early contributions, with referenceto the role of the entrepreneur as the personification of innovation,or to his later contributions, stressing the role of large companiesas main drivers of innovation. This paper complements some recentcontributions to the assessment of the influence of Schumpeteron economics and social sciences in general. It demonstratesthat a careful reading of his writings reveals that there isno simple dichotomy between the ‘old’ and the ‘young’.Entrepreneurial activities play an active role in understandingthe dynamics of innovation throughout Schumpeter's theory.     

基于问卷调查的“工程制图”课程教学实践创新

基于以学生为主体、教师为主导的问卷调查和师生座谈的方法,了解学生在运用现代计算机多媒体技术进行＂工程制图＂课程学习中遇到的问题,在教师积极引导和学生主动参与的基础上分析产生问题的原因,提出改进＂工程制图＂课程教学的新方法,并在教学实践中不断创新。该方法充分体现了＂教师是主导,学生是主体＂这一现代教学理念,使现代教育思想与先进教育观念在＂工程制图＂课程教学实践中成功实施。     

Teaching Invention and Design: Multi-Disciplinary Learning Modules

This paper outlines an approach to teaching invention and design that combines engineering, social sciences and humanities. We created an experimental course with a collaborative learning environment in which students from a wide range of majors worked in teams on modules, each of which lasted for several weeks and included strong written and oral components. Standard university curricula tend to compartmentalize engineering, humanities and social sciences. But real world engineering decisions defy such compartmentalization, as students discover when they take this course. Four active learning modules from the course are described in this paper: a hands-on project based on the invention of the telephone, a computer simulator to teach driving, an energy-efficient house and a medical decision support system based on a client's needs. A thorough evaluation of the course and modules is included, as are suggestions for future improvements.     

Learning Engineering: Design,Languages, and Experiences*

This paper reviews current concerns about engineering education. Paying special attention to the role of design, constructs and themes are offered as enabling perceptions of how students can learn engineering. The constructs view the curriculum as a sum of skills to be mastered and experiences in which to be involved. The themes capture three attitudinal paradigm shifts: changing the balance between design and analysis; more explicitly recognizing that many languages are used in engineering; and considering whether the BS degree in engineering might be uncoupled from its role as the entry-level certification for the profession.     

谈工程图学教学中学生创新能力的培养

综述了20多年来关于图学思维的理论研究情况,指出创新能力培养必须要有教学理论和方法的指导。叙述了当前培养创新能力教学中存在的4个问题。将创新能力培养具体归纳为5种能力的培养,即思维能力、工程意识与简单设计能力、构型设计能力、实践能力和工程图形表达能力的培养,给出了相应的教学实践案例。最后,对进一步加强创新能力培养提出了三点建议。     

Engineering Entrepreneurship: An Example of A Paradigm Shift in Engineering Education

This paper describes a course on technology‐based entrepreneurship. Brown University's Division of Engineering has created a two‐semester course sequence designed to introduce students to entrepreneurship through a unique merger of classroom learning and industry participation. The course is open to advanced undergraduates from all engineering disciplines, and emphasis is placed upon recruiting almost half of the student participants from outside of engineering in order to develop “team building” skills. Local “parent companies” provide seed ideas or concepts to student groups who use skills learned in the classroom (both in this course as well as other courses) to develop and refine the parent company's idea and turn it into a viable simulated spin‐off business or new start‐up. Managers from the parent companies serve in an evolving role over the two‐semester sequence beginning as a “board of directors” for the spin‐off and eventually evolving into a potential source of start‐up capital (or possibly a customer for the products of the company). The faculty carefully manage the student‐company interface. Deliverables at the end of the two‐semester sequence include a business plan and a prototype product.     

Engineering Design Thinking,Teaching, and Learning

This paper is based on the premises that the purpose of engineering education is to graduate engineers who can design, and that design thinking is complex. The paper begins by briefly reviewing the history and role of design in the engineering curriculum. Several dimensions of design thinking are then detailed, explaining why design is hard to learn and harder still to teach, and outlining the research available on how well design thinking skills are learned. The currently most‐favored pedagogical model for teaching design, project‐based learning (PBL), is explored next, along with available assessment data on its success. Two contexts for PBL are emphasized: first‐year cornerstone courses and globally dispersed PBL courses. Finally, the paper lists some of the open research questions that must be answered to identify the best pedagogical practices of improving design learning, after which it closes by making recommendations for research aimed at enhancing design learning.     

Enabling Effective Engineering Teams: A Program for Teaching Interaction Skills*

A program for teaching interaction skills to engineers and engineering students has been developed. Based on cognitive style theory, this customized program uses the typical engineer's problem solving strengths to teach skills of interviewing, questioning, exchanging ideas, and managing conflict. The goal of this program is to enable these problem solvers to apply their technical skills more effectively by improving interpersonal interactions. The modular nature of the training program makes it easily transportable, and all or part of it can be used in courses that require students to work in teams. This paper discusses what makes this training “a good fit” with engineering students, the background for its content, and the program's six modules. Personal experiences with teaching this material and recommendations for implementation are discussed. Similarities and differences between teaching the engineering professional and student, themes of student perceptions about the training, and future directions are also addressed.     

Holacratic Engineering Management and Innovation

Innovation in its many forms, disruptive, revolutionary, or evolutionary, is essential for companies to remain competitive in new markets and value networks. While companies apply a variety of traditional engineering management (EM) approaches to create new products, some advocate holacracy, a self-managed and self-engineered organizational structure where each individual creates and develops ideas without regard or conformance to established processes. It is believed that this new holacratic engineering management approach, adding a new process model to the EM body of knowledge, significantly enhances innovation in these socio-technical systems. Using soft systems methodology, multiple linear regression is performed on 18 companies that design, develop, and deliver prepackaged software. This model was created with five component values comprising the holacracy measurements. It was found that companies embracing this new process model have significantly improved innovation performance, although revenue generation did not correlate with the holocratic process.     

Sustaining Innovation and Growth: Public Policy Support for Entrepreneurship

This paper seeks to provide a link between the role of SMEs on the one hand and economic performance, in terms of innovation and growth, on the other hand. It illuminates in which ways the view of the dynamic contributions of SMEs have changed since Schumpeter formulated his entrepreneurship-driven framework. In doing so, the paper proposes a theoretical framework for linking SMEs to innovation and growth. Implications for public policy are outlined.     

The Effect of an Entrepreneurship Program on GPA and Retention*

There is a small but growing body of evidence that entrepreneurship programs add value to students, the degree programs in which they are housed, and the institutions that host them. The Engineering Entrepreneurs Program at North Carolina State University, a program in which undergraduate students participate in design teams formed around technology start‐up company themes, was started with funding from the NSF‐sponsored SUCCEED (Southeastern Universities and Colleges Coalition for Engineering Education) Coalition primarily to improve the confidence and retention of engineering students. Multiple assessment approaches including surveys, focus groups, interviews, longitudinal assessment of retention and academic performance, and anecdotal evidence triangulate on the success of this program at meeting its primary objectives and others. Particularly, the longitudinal study revealed that program participants had higher engineering retention rates (70 percent vs. 51 percent) and GPAs (3.08 vs. 2.83) than a matched set of non‐participants. The program and its rigorous assessment serve as models for the engineering entrepreneurship community.     

Student Perceptions of Engineering Entrepreneurship: An Exploratory Study

This study examines students' overall perceptions of the engineering profession in a first‐year course in engineering, and the effect of a pedagogical approach aimed at exposing students to engineering entrepreneurship and their perceptions of engineering entrepreneurship. The approach featured a market game that engaged a pilot group of 20 students in forming IT companies and competing for the best design of a travel agent system. The rest of the students in the course completed the traditional class project, which involved designing and building a land sailer. A pre‐post Likert‐type survey designed to measure students' perceptions of the engineering profession was administered to all students enrolled in this course. In addition, a short answer questionnaire seeking students' pedagogical perceptions of the market game and the land sailer project was administered at the end of the course. Results indicated that students' overall perceptions of the engineering profession significantly improved by the end of the course. More importantly, the results indicated that students who participated in the market game had significantly better perceptions of engineering entrepreneurship, specifically professional skills, than students who participated in the land sailer project. These findings are of considerable interest to engineering schools that want to increase student retention and are looking for novel approaches to assist freshmen in choosing their majors.