Pivoting Engineering Entrepreneurship Education Following the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

The spread of COVID-19 has significantly disrupted the educational landscape since March 2020.Instructors at higher education institutions had to quickly transition to an online environment for remote delivery of their academic programs. Even though academic programs are relatively easy to adapt for remote delivery as compared to other industries, educators were still tasked with redesigning their courses to guarantee the quality of education delivered to their students. This challenge is particularly true with engineering entrepreneurship educators since their course structures heavily focus on developing intangibles such as an entrepreneurial mindset and team collaboration through immersion into hands-on learning experiences. To create this experiential learning environment, engineering entrepreneurship educators have, in general, relied uponface-to-face interactions with students. Little has been published in the existing literature to report the challenges, strategies, and innovations that can help transition effectively and deliver such academic programs remotely. In this paper, the authors from four major Canadian higher education institutions report our experience from ‘trial-byfire’ mode to redesign and deliver various courses for remote learning. This paper is by no means presenting validated “best practices” but aims to trigger discussions surrounding tools available to educators considering such a transition. We hope that this paper will provide insights and strategies for our colleagues to employ in their future course design and delivery. We also hope to invite a conversation to learn more about our colleagues’ experiences and explore opportunities to identify and validate approaches for effectively teaching engineering entrepreneurship in a remote learning environment.