A Vertically Integrated Portfolio Process to Foster Entrepreneurial Mindset Within an Undergraduate Biomedical Engineering Curriculum

Abstract

The Wallace H. Coulter Department of Biomedical Engineering at Georgia Tech is currently making an intentional effort to vertically integrate entrepreneurial minded learning within the undergraduate curriculum. With funding from the Kern Family Foundation, the goals of this work are not only to better equip students to meet the demands of the modern marketplace but also to empower students to tell the story of their growth into entrepreneurially minded engineers. In order to tell this story, students engage in a portfolio process grounded in evidence and reflection. The structure of this story-centric curricular framework consists of a first-year launcher course where foundational topics such as design thinking, reflection, folio thinking, and entrepreneurial mindset are introduced. At the other end of the framework is a unique course called The Art of Telling Your Story . In this upper level course, students learn to tell their unique stories of their experiences and entrepreneurial mindset growth culminating in an ePortfolio. In between these two curricular bookends, students are involved in their core biomedical engineering classes. Five of these core courses are designated as gateway courses . In gateway courses, students complete signature assignments specifically created to foster entrepreneurial mindset and critical reflection. These signature assignments are also designed to produce meaningful artifacts and experiences that may later be used as part of students' stories and portfolios. In this paper, we describe the details of the structure and implementation of this vertically integrated curricular framework and present evidence of entrepreneurial mindset growth within freshmen and upper level students' ePortfolios.

First-Year Engineering Students’ Conceptualization of Entrepreneurial Mindset

“…Now if I need help in the future, I have contacts and friends to go to." The prevalence of this code is similar to the findings of Bell-Huff et al (2020): that students often interpret "connections" as social, rather than conceptual. While KEEN's definition of Connections incorporates both, the emphasis is on conceptual relationships over social relationships (n.d.).…”

“…I wake up every day choosing to see the worth of myself, my education, and my future ” reflects a mindset focused on the value of the self, and the self as an asset. The prevalence of this code over the similar Improve-Others code mirrors the results of Bell-Huff et al. (2020), whose first-year students also often focused on creating value for themselves rather than others.…”

“…However, there is a precedent for students of many stages and experience levels associating trying new things with curiosity. Bell-Huff et al (2020) found that students' definitions of curiosity more often related to trying new things, rather than questioning accepted solutions or exploring contrarian views. Whatever the reason, it is clear that students see the choice to try new things as a key component of the entrepreneurial mindset by the end of their first semester, as it was one of the three most popular codes applied in the final prompt (alongside Motivation and Interest).…”

“…In particular, they observed that students sometimes think of curiosity as trying new things, rather than the constant curiosity about our changing world and exploring contrarian views that KEEN touts, and that connections are about interpersonal connections rather than connections among information sources. Bell-Huff et al.’s (2020) findings suggest that there may be a mismatch between how students conceptualize the 3Cs of an EM and how their faculty and KEEN conceptualize the 3Cs.…”

“…Bell-Huff et al. (2020) studied the use of vertically integrated portfolios in their EM-focused Biomedical Engineering program.…”