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Train the Trainers: How to design and plan a course with entrepreneurial and innovation elements

Welcome to Train the Trainers. This session is bespoke for EIT, but you're welcome to join. In this 3-day course, you will be introduced to a top-down approach to designing and planning a university course that combines discipline-specific elements with entrepreneurial and innovation elements.
How to plan a course with entrepreneurial and innovation elements

At Aalto, courses that combine discipline-specific elements with entrepreneurial and innovation elements are called "integrated courses" where the focus is on discipline-specific content, but the course also teaches selected entrepreneurial and innovation skills. The main point of this course is to help teachers create a positive student experience that supports learning of the selected entrepreneurial skills and competencies and enhances the learning of the discipline-specific topics.

The course is based on experience gained while designing both Aalto Ventures Program entrepreneurial courses as well as working with Aalto staff to include entrepreneurial elements into a wide variety of discipline-specific courses.

In the course, the participants will work on developing an own course in university-specific teams (min: 2 participants/university). The course will cover the following topics/schedule (some changes are still possible):

Day 1, Tuesday, March 9

  • The need for integrated courses: student, industry, and university education views.
  • Framing of a course: including innovation and entrepreneurship
  • Home assignment: Entrepreneurial framing of the course

Day 2, Wednesday, March 10

  • Presentation of the homework
  • Choosing entrepreneurial and innovation learning outcomes for the course
  • Creating a course schedule
  • Home assignment: Learning outcomes and schedule for the course

Day 3, Thursday, March 11

  • Presentation of the homework
  • Supporting student teams
  • Teaching staff – co-teaching and using university and ecosystem support
  • Final comments

Daily schedule:

  • Online Zoom class: 10-12 CET (11-13 Finnish time, 9-11 UTC)
  • Lunch break and team exercise: 12-14 CET (13-15 Finnish time, 11-13 UTC)
  • Online Zoom class: 14-16 CET (15-17 Finnish time, 13-15 UTC)
  • Team homework on Tuesday and Wednesday
Two teachers learning new ways of teaching
Train the Trainers 2019 in action

Requirements for joining:

  • Team size: Min 2 participants per participating university that want to work together to co-design a course (team size can be also 3, if 4 or more persons participate from the same university, please form multiple teams)
  • For each team: Example course to be developed in the training (this can be either a new course or an existing course to be revised to become more entrepreneurial).
  • Participation: The sessions form a step-by-step approach to building a university course where the modules are built on top of each other. The participants should be available for all 6 sessions to meaningfully complete the course.
  • Digital tools: The course platform is Zoom. For the best Zoom experience, you should download and install the Zoom application on your computer. You could use Zoom from your mobile but using Miro from a mobile is not very convenient. The second tool we will use is Miro. Miro is a very powerful whiteboard tool, that has a little bit of an initial learning curve to use it smoothly. You do not need a Miro account to join the session, but I would recommend spending a few minutes getting familiar with the Miro user interface before the sessions.

NOTE: Many entrepreneurial courses at universities are essentially student team accelerator programs with a strong focus on getting the student team to launch a product/service and start a company. This is NOT the approach that will be taught in this course. Instead, the course focuses on teaching useful entrepreneurial skills and competencies that can be used in any work setting, be it a startup or a government organization looking to improve its performance. This can be done in the context of any discipline (tech, business, design, etc).

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