Estell, J. K., & Reeping, D., & Sapp, H. (2016, June), Curiosity, Connection, Creating Value: Improving Service Learning  by Applying the Entrepreneurial Mindset  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana. 10.18260/p.26621

\bibitem{asee_peer_26621}
  Estell, J. K., \& Reeping, D., \& Sapp, H. (2016, June), \emph{Curiosity, Connection, Creating Value: Improving Service Learning  by Applying the Entrepreneurial Mindset}
  Paper presented at 2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana.
  10.18260/p.26621

John K. Estell, David Reeping, and Heather Sapp.  "Curiosity, Connection, Creating Value: Improving Service Learning  by Applying the Entrepreneurial Mindset".  2016 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June.  ASEE Conferences, 2016.  https://peer.asee.org/26621 Internet.  12 Dec, 2024

\bibitem{asee_peer_26621}
  John K. Estell, David Reeping, and Heather Sapp.
  "Curiosity, Connection, Creating Value: Improving Service Learning  by Applying the Entrepreneurial Mindset".
  \emph{2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2016, June}.
  ASEE Conferences, 2016.
  https://peer.asee.org/26621 Internet.  12 Dec, 2024

@INPROCEEDINGS{asee_peer_26621
author = "John K. Estell, David Reeping, and Heather Sapp"
title = "Curiosity, Connection, Creating Value: Improving Service Learning  by Applying the Entrepreneurial Mindset"
booktitle = "2016 ASEE Annual Conference \& Exposition"
year = "2016"
month = "June"
address = "New Orleans, Louisiana"
publisher = "ASEE Conferences"
note = {https://peer.asee.org/26621}
number = {10.18260/p.26621}
}

TY  - CPAPER
AB  - Prior research tested the hypothesis that teams of first-year programming students can gain some of the benefits associated with service learning by establishing a client relationship with a group directly involved with a service-learning project. This research was conducted via a term project assigned in a second semester introductory programming course at a private Midwest university. The purpose of the project was to develop an interactive software application that would complement a lesson plan written by education majors for conducting STEM educational outreach activities. A mixture of validated quantitative and qualitative methods taken from the community service literature was used to perform the assessment and validate the hypothesis. While the results were generally positive, the investigators uncovered several shortcomings, which included insufficient client-team interaction, unrealistic expectations regarding project scope, and an inability to develop an appropriate level of understanding of either client or customer needs. Given that the development of deliverables to a client constitutes an entrepreneurial activity, the investigators opted to use the entrepreneurial mindset as a framework to improve the learning environment associated with this term project. To facilitate the desired changes, both the clients and the programming teams were encouraged to embrace the attributes of the entrepreneurial mindset as stated in the KEEN Student Outcomes: curiosity, connection, and creating value.

In a departure from the norm, the clients were allowed to embrace curiosity by defining their own lesson plans within the constraint of implementing a STEM outreach activity for delivery to a targeted set of customers: fourth, fifth, or sixth grade students. The lesson plan also had to connect to the needs of the greater K-12 educational community by being appropriately grounded in the Common Core and/or NextGen Science standards. Additional connections were promoted through periodic meetings between the clients and their assigned programming teams, thereby allowing the clients opportunities to rein in the scope of their design according to feedback from the application development side. While the resultant lesson plans clearly created value for the teachers and students using them, additional value was created through the creation of single-point rubrics, which allowed the client to provide more informed feedback to the teams than that provided by the traditional analytical rubric format. 

The teams also benefited from the application of the entrepreneurial mindset. It is definitely contrarian for students finishing up their first year of programming to be presented with a client to design for; this piqued the students’ curiosity, which strengthened their involvement with the project. Providing external connections in the form of clients and customers broke the teams out of the isolation commonly associated with introductory programming assignments; interactions included regular design meetings with the clients and a critical design review conducted by various stakeholders using a science fair type presentation format. Finally, the teams had the satisfaction of knowing that, if successful, their application would be used to help others as part of a lesson plan in a STEM outreach activity. 

Assessment performed through a validated quantitative survey indicated that the application of the entrepreneurial mindset yielded positive change in all ten student attitude traits measured by the instrument when compared to the previous year’s results. Responses from a set of qualitative questions provided further evidence of the success of this approach.

AU  - John K. Estell
AU  - David Reeping
AU  - Heather Sapp
CY  - New Orleans, Louisiana
DA  - 2016/06/26
PB  - ASEE Conferences
TI  - Curiosity, Connection, Creating Value: Improving Service Learning  by Applying the Entrepreneurial Mindset
UR  - https://peer.asee.org/26621
DO  - 10.18260/p.26621
ER  -