Testing teaching methodologies on the UP FM courses for the I-THEN project

One of the activities in the international EU project I-THEN, in which UP FM cooperates as a partner, is also a pilot testing of teaching methodologies in the framework of university courses. As a project partner, we have tested 2 selected teaching methodologies in the undergraduate course Creativity and Innovation Management (2nd year): Business Game Challenge and Jigsaw Classroom.

At the beginning of the course (2nd quartal), students first individually took a short test which contained 10 closed-ended questions with one possible answer in the field of creativity and innovation. 51 students took the test and the average number of achieved points was 4,75 out of 10 possible (mode was 4 points). After this initial test, we have then applied both teaching methodologies during several sessions at tutorials, by means of which we aimed to improve students' competencies in the field of creativity and innovation.

In Business game Challenge methodology, a representative of BeLife company and UP FM graduate Zlatan Ljubijankić presented 2 challenges to students at one of the first tutorials, both of which refer to business operations of BeLife company and which require innovative solutions/approaches. In the following tutorials, students then learned some selected methods of creative thinking and applied them in solving these two challenges. At the final tutorial, students presented their proposed solutions to the representative of BeLife company, and they mostly received very positive feedback. Company honored students with its distinctive kombucha drink.

Jigsaw Classroom methodology was implemented in the framework of only one tutorial, in which students assumed a role of a teacher and mutually educated one another on different aspects of so-called social innovations. At the end of this tutorial, students once again took the test (individually), which contained the same 10 questions as the initial test at the beginning of the course. 37 students took this final test and the average number of achieved points was 5,97 (mode was 7 points), by means of which we wanted to see the effect and progress of both applied methodologies with respect to knowledge in creativity and innovation.

In order to get somewhat deeper feedback from students about their assessments and impressions regarding both applied methodologies, we conducted short interviews with selected students, and which can be viewed below.

Interview 1    Interview 2    Interview 3    Interview 4

In the 3rd quartal, we will test another teaching methodology – Flipped Classroom – in the graduate course Managerial Aspects of Smart Technologies.

Text written by assist. dr. Peter Štrukelj

Thursday, March 3, 2022 | FM | Education

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