Professional Documents
Culture Documents
active learning
in higher education
Copyright © 2003 The Institute
Personal for Learning and Teaching in
Higher Education and
Introduction
Since the academic session 1996/97, the class ‘Entrepreneurship: Personal
Creativity’ has been offered by the University of Strathclyde as part of the
Strathclyde Entrepreneurship Initiative, which was originally established
with partial funding from the national economic development body,
Scottish Enterprise. It could be argued that the establishment of the initia-
tive was driven primarily by political and economic imperatives, and secon-
darily by educational ethos. Indeed, across three decades, the UK
government has consistently articulated a policy that places education for
enterprise and lifelong learning at the heart of its strategy of economic
regeneration (Chaston et al., 1999). This is considered to be particularly
salient in terms of securing international competitive advantage in a know-
ledge economy, new business creation and workforce flexibility. In
addition, employers have come to seek graduates who can communicate,
work in a team and adapt to a rapidly changing economic and cultural
145
AC T I V E L E A R N I N G I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N 4(2)
MORRISON & J O H N S T O N : P E R S O N A L C R E AT I V I T Y
AC T I V E L E A R N I N G I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N 4(2)
Class definition
Essentially, the essence of entrepreneurship is the initiation of change,
through creativity and innovation, defined by Curran and Burrows (1986:
269) as: ‘Entrepreneurship is the innovatory process involved in the
creation of an economic enterprise based on a new product or service
which differs significantly from products or services in the way its produc-
tion is organised, or in its marketing.’ At the heart is a personal, human
creative act that initiates economic activity (Morrison, 1998), resulting in
personal creativity which Torrance and Rockstein (1988: 275) define as:
Personal creativity is: a process of becoming sensitive to or aware of problems,
deficiencies, and gaps in knowledge for which there is no learned solution;
bringing together existing information from the memory storage or external;
defining the difficulty or identifying the missing elements; searching for
solutions, making guesses, producing alternatives to solve the problem; testing
and re-testing these alternatives; and perfecting them and finally communi-
cating the results.
Without such action there can be no entrepreneurship. It is proposed that
one key to unlocking the potential of entrepreneurship within an individual
member of society, and the degree to which their personal creativity exists
or can be stimulated, may be through appropriate educational inter-
ventions. The above definitions suggest that such interventions should focus
on the nurturing of innovation and creation, towards commercial appli-
cation, through the heightening of personal qualities of reflecting, doing,
valuing, feeling, behaving and relating to others. They would aim to sensi-
tize potential entrepreneurs to the value of a disposition to personal
creativity as related to entrepreneurship, and develop skill in using creative
techniques in relation to business idea generation and problem-solving.
This contrasts quite sharply to traditional higher education curricula that
emphasize sequences of instruction and examination in bodies of subject
knowledge, and their associated methodologies, frequently organized
within established disciplinary frameworks and leading to a university
degree in a given subject or subjects (Johnston and Morrison, 1997).
148
MORRISON & J O H N S T O N : P E R S O N A L C R E AT I V I T Y
AC T I V E L E A R N I N G I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N
Class ethos Session Concepts Assignments Activities
27/5/03
Class as a creative 1–5 • Components and process of creativity • Focus on the process of • Definitions of meanings
learning organization • Individual as positive contributor within a creativity and perceptions
creative organization • Individual project, report and • Left/right brain competencies
10:28 am
Which • Team building and group dynamics learning portfolio • Mind mapping
• Using team as a creative resource • Assessment feedback • Positive and negative creative
Downloaded from alh.sagepub.com at WASHBURN UNIV on January 6, 2015
Stimulates and develops • Networking as means of achieving mechanism environments and cause factors
certain kinds of personal creativity • Student reflection and learning • Belbin model
organizational behaviour • Conceptual and emotional barriers to • Team as a creative resource • Barriers to creativity
Page 150
creativity and strategies to overcome them • Team project and learning • Team exercises, feedback and
Which • Creative problem-solving methodology as portfolio discussion
a systematic approach • Individual application to project
Positively impacts on 6–10 • Opportunity delineation and problem • Assessment feedback • Creative problem-solving
creative and definition mechanism techniques
entrepreneurial • Compiling relevant information • Student reflection and learning • Team application to project
behaviour • Generating ideas re: process and effectiveness
• Evaluating and prioritizing ideas of individual and team creativity
In • Development of an implementation plan
11–12 • Written and verbal communication skills • Team project presentations
University, business and • Demonstration of key elements of the
4(2)
social environments. creative process
• Use of team as a creative resource
• Systematic application of creative process
model
• Evidence of creativity within chosen
environment
03 Morrison (to/d) 27/5/03 10:28 am Page 151
MORRISON & J O H N S T O N : P E R S O N A L C R E AT I V I T Y
model, which details class ethos, concepts introduced, assignments set, and
class activities undertaken.
Significantly, it encapsulates findings (Gibb, 1996) that perceive the
need for the creation of a powerful learning environment, with students
as active, self-managing, agents therein. This is reflected in the class ethos
that is articulated and clearly communicated to students in sessions 1 and
2 as: a creative learning organization, which stimulates and develops certain kinds of organiz-
ational behaviour, which positively impacts on creative and entrepreneurial behaviour in
University, business and social environments. The notion of the class as a learning
organization is important, and this frequently represents a stark contrast
for students. In the main, they are familiar with higher education classes
realized by linear sequences of lecture-based teaching, tutorial discussion
and end-point examination in response to that teaching. This may
constrain the initiative and creative thinking of individuals. In sessions 3
and 4, students are further engaged in the learning process through reflec-
tion on what makes some organizational environments more creative in
comparison with others, what factors tend to inhibit creativity, and how
these factors can be overcome. As a consequence, at an early stage of the
class, the students become explicitly aware of the role of the environment
(external and in-class) in stimulating personal creativity and the import-
ance of actively engaging with it towards the enhancement of self-
managed learning.
Student/lecturer communication and assignment mechanisms generate
a constant stream of data. This facilitates: the monitoring of class effec-
tiveness; flexibility and rapid response to students’ learning needs; and
insights that can be incorporated in future class design, which the lectur-
ers may not have previously considered. One major implication of this
approach to teaching practice tends to arise at the mid-point of the class.
Student self-confidence, independence and personal creative abilities
flourish within a relaxed and supportive environment, more closely allied
to the working style of professionals than the behaviours of conventional
classrooms, which has been established throughout sessions 1 to 6. This
is augmented by the development of a team spirit within the class that
comes to recognize the power of the group as an important creative
resource. Therefore, at this point and following student/lecturer
discussion and negotiation, it is normally agreed that the degree of lecturer
control should be diminished, allowing a higher level of student self-
management. Effectively, this takes the form of passing class management
and responsibility of session 7 to 12 to the students, alongside which the
lecturers run a series of ‘consultations’ with each project team in a separate
seminar room. Thus, the role of the lecturer is not one of controlled
disseminator of knowledge, but is concerned with learning facilitation and
151
AC T I V E L E A R N I N G I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N 4(2)
MORRISON & J O H N S T O N : P E R S O N A L C R E AT I V I T Y
Session Content
AC T I V E L E A R N I N G I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N 4(2)
154
MORRISON & J O H N S T O N : P E R S O N A L C R E AT I V I T Y
Category Responses
Conclusions
In the final session of the class, students are asked to complete an exit ques-
tionnaire, which poses four key questions generating qualitative responses.
An example of the responses has been analysed relative to the categories of
student learning, learning environment, teaching practice and class
outcomes. The findings are presented in Table 4 and provide an indication
of the considerable effectiveness of the class from the perspectives of a
student group.
Thus, it is proposed that this case study of one class (Entrepreneurship:Personal
Creativity) in action provides an example that makes creative thinking and
155
AC T I V E L E A R N I N G I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N 4(2)
MORRISON & J O H N S T O N : P E R S O N A L C R E AT I V I T Y
standards desirable to survive and flourish in the worlds of work and life in
the 21st century.
References
A I R E Y, D . & T R I B E , J . (2000) ‘Education for Hospitality’, in C. Lashley & A.
Morrison (eds) In Search of Hospitality: Theoretical Perspectives and Debates. Oxford:
Butterworth-Heinemann.
B L A N C H , G . (1999) ‘Conflicting Concepts of Education: The Crucible of the
Curriculum’, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education 11(4): 13–16.
C H A S T O N , I . , B A D G E R , B . & S A D L E R - S M I T H , E . (1999) ‘Small Firm Organisational
Learning: Comparing the Perceptions of Need and Style Among UK Support
Service Advisors and Small Firm Managers’, Journal of European Industrial Training 23(1):
36–43.
C H E L L , E . , H AWO RT H , J . & B R E A R L E Y, S . (1991) The Entrepreneurial Personality.
London: Routledge.
C O U G E R , J . (1996) Creativity and Innovation. Boston: Boyd and Fraser.
C U R R A N , J . & B U R ROW S , R . (1986) ‘Ethnographic Approaches to the Study of the
Small Business Owner’, in K. O’Neil (ed.) Small Business Development: Some Current Issues.
London: Atheneum Press.
G I B B , A . (1996) ‘Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management: Can We Afford
to Neglect Them in the 21st Century Business School?’, British Academy of Management
7: 309–21.
J O H N S T O N , B . (2000) ‘The Creative Mind in Higher Education: Who Learns What,
How and Why?’, paper presented at the Lifelong Learning Conference, Rydges
Capricorn International, Queensland, Australia, July.
J O H N S T O N , B . & M O R R I S O N , A . (1997) ‘Developing Undergraduate Creative
Thinking for Entrepreneurship: A Pilot Class’, paper presented at the International
Journal of Entrepreneurial Behaviour’s Enterprise and Learning Conference, University of
Paisley, UK, September.
K A P O O R , S . (1999) ‘Caring in the Classroom: Innovative Teaching Technique’, Journal
of Hospitality & Tourism Education 11(4): 9–12.
L A S H L E Y, C . (1999) ‘On Making Silk Purses: Developing Reflective Practitioners in
Hospitality Management Education’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality
Management 11(4): 180–5.
M C C L E L L A N D , D . (1961) The Achieving Society. New York: Van Nostrand.
M O R R I S O N , A . , ed. (1998) Entrepreneurship: An International Perspective. Oxford:
Butterworth-Heinemann.
S C H U M P E T E R , J . (1934) History of Economic Analysis. New York: Oxford University Press.
T I M M O N S , J . (1994) New Venture Creation. Chicago: Irwin.
T O R R A N C E , E . & RO C K E N S T E I N , Z . (1988) ‘Styles of Thinking and Creativity’, in R.
Schmeck (ed.) Learning Strategies and Learning Styles. New York: Plenum Press.
Biographical notes
ALISON MORRISON is Reader in Hospitality Management and Director of Research
within Strathclyde Business School, University of Strathclyde. She has edited and
authored five textbooks in the areas of marketing, hospitality, entrepreneurship and
franchising and has published widely in generic business and specialist hospitality
and tourism academic journals.
157
AC T I V E L E A R N I N G I N H I G H E R E D U C AT I O N 4(2)
158