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Developing experimental development ecosystem to serve ICT education — A follow-up study of collaboration possibilites between stakeholder groups
... This article is an extension of the work originally presented in Educon 2017 in Athens in April 2017 [1]. ...
The background of the article lies in South Eastern Finland, in Lappeenranta, where an active University campus has attracted a group of ICT startups as well as SME’s in the field to collaboration. The novel education approach also has another remarkable role as a developer and source of innovation. An experimental development ecosystem (EDE), where learning of knowledge, skills and character are combined, is presented in the article. Also future paths of the EDE are discussed. Companies in the ICT field worldwide are in constant need of competent experts who are ready to adopt the new tools and, at the same time, have an entrepreneurial mindset. We argue that inspiring students to learn through appropriate learning methods and providing them with a modern learning environment comes first. ICT tools, applications and systems to support learning objectives come second. The model presented in the article has been studied for some years as action research. The learning methods that have been found beneficial in IT and marketing bachelor education have been spread to other bachelor and master study programs as well. Results from the data show that students who study as team entrepreneurs have learned content knowledge, meta-skills and reflection skills via the learner-centric methods used in EDE. They have also been inspired to employ new ICT tools and applications to support their learning and project work.
This article is a part of developing Experimental Development Ecosystem (EDE). EDE is a framework including researchers from University of Applied Sciences and a Technological University, students from both institutes, team entrepreneurs and lecturers, local enterprises and local cities. Learner-centric methods utilized with team entrepreneurs and practioners have now been tested in other contexts as well.
This team learning and team entre-preneurship model of education has been deployed at the Bachelor’s level in the degree programmes of IT and Business Administration (BA). In BA studies the students who take part in team learning have specialized in marketing since 2009 at the Saimaa University of Applied Sciences (SUAS). The model called ICT entrepreneurship study path (ICT-ESP) has been developed for IT education. The ICT-ESP has been built on the theory of experien-tal learning and theories of knowledge creation and knowledge management. The students study and complete their degree as team entrepreneurs. The model has been further developed in the Business Administration Degree Programme with students who specialize in marketing. The Degree Programme in IT at the Bachelor’s level was terminated in 2011 by Finnish Min-istry of Education and Culture. Cur-rently, there are severe discussions on bringing it back – not as an IT but as an ICT Degree Programme. This article makes a cross-section of what has already been explored with the team learning and team entrepreneurship model and what the next steps will be. It makes a comparison of two originally sep-arately developed models and dis-cusses their best practices. The arti-cle also argues whether the upcom-ing ICT education should be orga-nized in a conventional way – as curriculum of courses, or as expan-sion of the current team learning and team entrepreneurship model. The data consists of field notes, meeting memos, and dozens of un-official discussions with colleagues and company representatives. Liter-ature studies made during the ongo-ing research, development, and in-novation (RDI) projects offered an extra view of how the business con-text is changing and what should be done to make benefit out of the change. The results suggest that the up-coming ICT Degree Programme at SUAS should be integrated into the existing deployment of team learning and team entrepreneurship learning environment. This would foster col-laboration between different disci-plines, e.g. marketing and ICT. Fur-thermore, the emerging ideation, ser-vice design and experimentation eco-system which we are developing in ongoing RDI projects, would be strengthened by adding more students focused on ICT competencies into it. The article was later extended to include interview data from 12 theme-based specialist interviews where the thoughts of original article were tested among administration of our campus, RDI funder, experienced and former team entrepreneurs, and local entre-preneurs. The results validated the author’s previous suggestions of how future ICT education should be organized and also provided some new targets for development. The essential find-ings were: The future ICT education should be deployed in a way that it a) develops students’ entrepreneurial mindset b) offers versatile coopera-tion possibilities with existing market-ing team entrepreneurs and other en-terprises, and c) the current ecosystem should be internationalized.
In this prologue to the special issue on theory in action research we provide a context and an introduction for the articles that follow. We begin by sketching in some of our shared ideas on theory in action research and some of the differences between our own approaches. Then, after briefly describing the process of preparing this issue, we provide a succinct pointer to each article in the issue.
Speed, uncertainty and complexity are increasing in the business world all the time. When knowledge and skills become quickly irrelevant, new challenges are set for information technology (IT) education. Meta-learning skills – learning how to learn rapidly - and innovation skills have become more essential than single technologies or other specific issues. The drastic changes in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector have caused a need to reconsider how IT Bachelor education in Universities of Applied Sciences should be organized and employed to cope with the change.
The objective of the study was to evaluate how a new approach to IT Bachelor education, the ICT
entrepreneurship study path (ICT-ESP) fits IT Bachelor education in a Finnish University of Applied Sciences. This kind of educational arrangement has not been employed elsewhere in the context of IT Bachelor education. The study presents the results of a four-year period during which IT Bachelor education was renewed in a Finnish University of Applied Sciences. The learning environment was organized into an ICT-ESP based on Nonaka’s knowledge theory and Kolb’s experiental learning. The IT students who studied in the ICT-ESP established a cooperative and learned ICT by running their cooperative at the University of Applied Sciences. The students (called team entrepreneurs) studied by reading theory in books and other sources of explicit information, doing projects for their customers, and reflecting in training sessions on what was learnt by doing and by studying the literature. Action research was used as the research strategy in this study. Empirical data was collected via theme-based interviews, direct observation, and participative observation. Grounded theory method was utilized in the data analysis and the theoretical sampling was used to guide the data collection.
The context of the University of Applied Sciences provided a good basis for fostering team entrepreneurship. However, the results showed that the employment of the ICT-ESP did not fit into the IT Bachelor education well enough. The ICT-ESP was cognitively too tough for the team entrepreneurs because they had two different set of rules to follow in their studies. The conventional courses engaged lot of energy which should have been spent for professional development in the ICT-ESP. The amount of competencies needed in the ICT-ESP for professional development was greater than those needed for any other ways of studying. The team entrepreneurs needed to develop skills in ICT, leadership and self-leadership, team development and entrepreneurship skills. The entrepreneurship skills included skills on marketing and sales, brand development, productization, and business administration. Considering the three-year time the team entrepreneurs spent in the ICT-ESP, the challenges were remarkable.
Changes to the organization of IT Bachelor education are also suggested in the study. At first, it should be admitted that the ICT-ESP produces IT Bachelors with a different set of competencies compared to the conventional way of educating IT Bachelors. Secondly, the number of courses on general topics in mathematics, physics, and languages for team entrepreneurs studying in the ICT-ESP should be reconsidered and the conventional course-based teaching of the topics should be reorganized to support the team coaching process of the team entrepreneurs with their practiceoriented projects. Third, the upcoming team entrepreneurs should be equipped with relevant information about the ICT-ESP and what it would require in practice to study as a team entrepreneur. Finally, the upcoming team entrepreneurs should be carefully selected before they
start in the ICT-ESP to have a possibility to eliminate solo players and those who have a too romantic view of being a team entrepreneur.
The results gained in the study provided answers to the original research questions and the objectives of the study were met. Even though the IT degree programme was terminated during the research process, the amount of qualitative data gathered made it possible to justify the interpretations done.
Grounded theory methodology and procedure have become one of the most influential modes of carrying out qualitative research when generating theory is a principle aim of the researcher. This volume presents a series of readings that emphasize different aspects of grounded theory methodology and methods. The selections are written by former students of the late Anselm Strauss and have been chosen for their accessibility and range.
After an early career as primary teacher and school principal, Ernie was lecturer in teacher education at Curtin University of Technology in Western Australia. From the mid-1980s he worked collaboratively in Curtin's Centre for Aboriginal Studies to develop a wide variety of innovative and highly successful education- and community-development programs and consultative services. His activities in association with government departments, community-based agencies, business corporations, and local governments assisted people to work more effectively in Aboriginal contexts. In recent years, as visiting professor at colleges of education in New Mexico and Texas, he taught action research to graduate students and engaged in educational action-research projects with African American, Hispanic, and other community and neighborhood groups. As a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) consultant from 2002–05 he engaged in a major project that assisted development of schools in East Timor. He is currently facilitating a school-renewal process in a remote aboriginal community in West Australia. He is author of the texts Action Research (Sage, 2007), Action Research in Education (Pearson, 2008), Action Research in Health (with B. Genat, Pearson, 2004), Action Research in Human Services (with R. Dwyer, Pearson, 2005), and Teaching, Learning and Action Research (with L Christensen and S. Baldwin, Sage, 2009). He is associate editor of the Action Research Journal and past president of the Action Learning, Action Research Association (ALARA).
The Innovator's Method. Bringing the Lean Startup into your Organization.
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The skill foresight of The Finnish Technology Industries
- T Meristö
- S Leppimäki
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The Innovators Way. Essential practices for successful Innovation
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