Inês Direito

Stimulating Learning in Engineering Students by Collaborative Entrepreneurship Training

This paper describes the results of an educational project aiming to promote improved learning and entrepreneurial spirit among engineering students by resorting to the simulation of real world business cases in a collaborative digital environment. The approach is based on the combination of the following ingredients: - Creation of student awareness about real world engineering activities, involving engineering professionals and enterprises in selected classroom activities; - Simulation of a business environment in capstone project classes; - Market gaming around a set of business cases where students are organized in teams playing different professional roles (role playing); - Linking the outcome of market gaming and associated business cases with syllabus topics and with practical technological and market issues. The results obtained so far are encouraging and have attracted a major international prize: HP Innovations on Education.

Stimulating Learning via Tutoring and Collaborative Simulator Games

The main goal of higher education is to support students learning empowerment and also prepare them to solve problems in the real world. Tutoring and collaborative methods will help to stimulate students’ motivation and learning empowerment in education contexts. Simulator games are other methodologies that can be used to support students’ active learning. This chapter presents two initiatives developed at the University of Aveiro addressed to enhance students’ learning: (1) a tutoring system, wikiLUA, and (2) a simulator game to support engineering students’ learning and entrepreneurship. The tutoring system stimulated the interaction between students and tutors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. This is a new work-in-progress initiative already with positive outcomes showing that students are motivated to participate and learn through different methodologies. The simulator game was rooted in a capstone-like project with engineering students. It contributed to raising the awareness about real-world engineering activities, involving engineering professionals and enterprises in selected classroom activities. This tool simulated a business environment, with a set of business cases, where students were organized in teams, playing different professional roles. The results showed that it helped to link the outcome of market gaming and associated business cases with syllabus topics and with practical issues resorting to engineering decisions that have to be prepared based on technology choices, network design, market simulation, and economic–financial analysis.