Experiencing playing in entrepreneurship education

Dr Caroline Verzat

Advancia, Paris, France

cverzat@advancia-negocia.fr

Benevento,september10th 2009

Experiencing playing in entrepreneurship education…

• Action-research at Ecole Centrale de Lille in 2006, 2007, 2008

• Today’s playing rules :– Form groups of 3-4 people sitting next to you– Winner team = maximum points– 15 Questions with an undefined number of

correct / incorrect answers1 correct assumption is ticked = + 1 point1 incorrect assumption is ticked = - 1 point

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Who said : “Education has no more serious responsibility than making provision for enjoyment of re-creative leisure; not only for the sake of immediate health but still more, if possible, for its lasting effect upon habits of mind “a) A canadian games fanatic teacherb) An american philosopher of educationc) An italian doctor who founded an

alternative education movement

Question 1

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John DEWEY, 1916, An Introduction to the Philosophy of Education

What are these engineering students doing ?a) Playing b) Preparing a spaghetti party c) Entering university and getting to know each other d) Learning creativitye) Learning teamworkf) Learning material resistanceg) Learning engineering design h) Learning how to learni) Starting a 2 year-long innovation project

Question 2

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Busk-Kofed L & Rosenorm T. 2003experimentation and reflection in the learning process

There is an imbalance between what industry expects from engineering graduates and what educational institutions provide, why ?a) Engineering Education institutions take little account of

industry demandsb) Industry and educational experts hold differing views of key

competencies for today’s engineering graduatesc) Today’s corporations and employers frequently complain

about the low levels of communication and teamwork skills in engineering graduates

d) When engineering graduates enter industry, they are often perceived as being unable to practice

Question 3

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What are the main characteristics of Frenchengineering studies ?a) The system is not very selective b)The focus is on individual rather than teamworkc) There is a heavy emphasis on scientific

and mathematic principles d)There is much effort on experimental work

and innovation culture

Question 4

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Barsoux & Lawrence, 1991The making of a French manager.Harvard Business Review

Veltz P. 2007. Faut-il sauver les Grandes Ecoles ? De la culture de la sélection à la culture de l’innovation

Why does pedagogy in engineering faculties need research effort ?a) Pedagogy in engineering faculties is still very

conventional b) Current pedagogies in engineering education are

insufficiently adapted to student learning style needsc) Even if innovative teaching efforts may be in place,

research into their use and outcomes is rare

Question 5

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Felder & Silverman, 1988Learning and Teaching Styles in Engineering Education, Engineering Education

Previous studies about games in higher education :a) are very much developedb) are mostly descriptive in naturec) focus on hands-on activities like LEGO and

computer simulations

Question 6

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Games can be defined as :a) An artificial situation in which players are put

into a position of conflict, one against the other or all together against other forces.

b) An activity that is regulated by rules c) A free and uncertain activity d) An activity that is separate from the real world

Question 7

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Caillois R. 1958, Les jeux et les hommes

Games in education are useful to :a) Challenge skills, knowledge and beliefs of

participantsb) Test new ideas and behaviorsc) Promote collaboration and peer learningd) Motivate today’s students

Question 8

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The spaghetti game

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1st round : The bridge

2nd round : The tower

Teams of 6-7 studentsIncluding 1 foreign student(imposed by teacher)

45 mn challenge : build a bridge15 mn measuring resistance 30 mn debriefing (open ended questions)

5 mn design (without material)40 mn building the tower15 mn measuring resistance 30 mn debriefing

Material

PAUSE

To assess teamwork learning, which skills should we look at ? To be able to :

a) interpret and formulate the team missionb) specify goalsc) formulate a strategyd) monitor progress towards goalse) track team ressources and environmental conditionsf) assist team members to perform their tasksg) orchestrate interpendent tasksh) prevent (or react to) conflictsi) motivate and build confidencej) regulate member’s emotions

Question 9

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Transition Processes

Action Processes

Interpersonal Processes

Marks, Mathieu & Zaccaro (2001) A Temporally Based Framework and Taxonomy of Team Processes, Academy of Management Review

What should we look at to assess this game as a relevant pedagogical tool to learn teamwork ?a) the immediate reactions of students b) their understanding of concepts linked to

teamwork processesc) their effective skills in actiond) the transfer of skills in another context

Question 10

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Kirkpatrick, 1959. Techniques for Evaluating Training Programs, Journal of American Society for Training and Development

Reaction

Learning

Behaviour

Results

Can you guess how we assessed this game as a relevant pedagogical tool to learn teamwork ?a) We Analyzed the group written feedbacks of the

bridge and tower roundsb) We made films of each group’s progression and

analyzed their behavioursc) We interviewed students a few months after

starting real project workd) We observed behaviours in real project teams

Question 11

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111 groups2006,07 & 08

11 students2008 cohort4 different teams

How do you think students reacted to the game ? a) A majority of feedbacks say it was great funb) Some groups expressed a serious or competitive side to the func) A majority of groups had negative emotions of stress, feeling

hurried or too serious

Question 12

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93 groups = only positive aspects

64 = fun & enjoyable game 29 = nice worklike atmosphere

great, cool, perfect, excellent!

good communication, good atmosphere,

everyone was open to ideas, no problems even when we failed

good atmosphere, good mood, warm, a laugh

Calm, sociable, not too serious (but a little bit all the same!),

warm, nice, relaxed, entertaining

good atmosphere, serious, studious and concentrated group

16 groups = some stress

Nice, many ideas, but not enough time, so it was a big

stress in the 5 last minutes

Serious and stressful in the end

How deep do you think the learning objective about teamwork was met ?

a) The game had an ice-breaking effect which assisted socialization and helped students forming their real project teams

b) In their written feedbacks, students formulated lessons about critical teamwork processes

c) 3 month later, students refer to the game’s lessons when describing their innovation project team’s functioning

Question 13

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Lessons learnt about teamwork processes

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Teamwork process

Written group feedbacks Interviews 3 month later

Transition processes

“you need to decide from the very outset what will be done, and assure that everybody has understood”

“we had to find solutions very quickly, we had to decide quickly which solution to adopt, ..basically its a small-scale project in two hours”

Action processes

“(you have to) manage time, divide the tasks, plan and test the resistence in time to decide if that is the strategy you are going to pursue or not”

“we had a certain number of constraints, an objective to achieve, then (we have to think about) how to do this in function of the constraints, the time that we had...its an adaption between constraints and effectiveness”

Interpersonal processes

“(we need to ) listen, without neglecting ideas ... (to) communicate and avoid being narrow-minded”

“The spaghetti game wasn’t about technical know-how, we didn’t have that...nobody has ever made a bridge or Eiffel tower in spaghetti before....I don’t think it was who could build the strongest bridge that was important...it was just about teaching us how to talk (to others)”

Why did this game have such an outcome ?a) Because spaghetti are associated with positive experiencesb) Because it was perceived as a game c) Because it appealed to the students’ needs for hands-on

practiced) Because playing followed by reflection phases activates

experiential learning

Question 14

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“It was a game, I don’t see it like a class, we learned stuff but it’s not

the usual scholarly approach”

“What was the objective? Build the highest tower...or the strongest bridge? In fact, no, the goal is to work in a team but at that time, we were not aware of

it”

To add more validity to this study we could :a) further explore the negative perception of games b) search for quantitative data to probe causal

relationships between game experience and real behaviours in real project

c) conduct longitudinal interviews on a larger sample of students

d) design an experimentation with control groups

Question 15

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Who is the winner team ?

Further questions to start debating together…• Did you have fun ?• Did you learn anything ?• Was it a real game ?• …

Thank you for your active participation !

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