Content of the Entrepreneurship course “gamified” to make it come to life

The Entrepreneurship unit in the Department of Management Studies at the School of Business re-designed 1,5 years ago their Bachelor level course ‘Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management’.

'The course is offered to all Aalto students twice a year. To cope with the increasing student numbers, we decided with my colleague postdoc Johannes Gartner to apply a flipped classroom approach where all lectures are offered online only and the classroom time is devoted to interactive case analysis, which is organised in small groups', Professor Teemu Kautonen tells.

Information is provided in small easily digestible pieces

'The lecture content is a mix of short theory bulletins and an imaginary case about Australian (aspiring) microbrewery owners Jane, Paul and Emma. Most of the theoretical content is not presented as traditional textbook prose, but through examples of decisions and dilemmas that the microbrewery owners face in planning and running their businesses.

‘Much of theory is actually embedded in interactive exercises, where students get more explanations based on their responses. The idea is to provide information in small easily digestible pieces and applied to the imaginary case to make the theory come to life', Professor Kautonen tells.

System has to be stable and fast

The online learning system is fully implemented in MyCourses to make it easy to use for the students. Some graphics are used to make the content more lively, but the teachers have avoided excessive graphics and video content to keep the system as stable and fast as possible. It also runs pretty well on mobile devices.

‘The idea is that students who commute to work or university can work on the course materials on the train or bus on their mobile devices. This responds to the need to serve students who are already working full-time with meaningful methods of learning', says Johannes Gartner.