The Virtual Enterprise system is an international technology-driven business simulation program in which students in face-to-face settings and coordinated online activities start and run a virtual business. Based on previous work in building a virtual technology firm that fills a societal or business need through innovative services or products it created, this project develops, implements, and evaluates two courses for an information technology curriculum -a capstone course and an awareness course. With the Virtual Enterprise system, technicians learn the technical content with activities that also require the use of entrepreneurial and "essential" skills sought after by industry. Past experience has shown that minority students can become engaged in the use of technology and learn concepts and skills in an awareness course. The capstone course also emphasizes the essential workplace competencies prized by industry. A capstone virtual enterprise course in biotechnology is developed in collaboration with faculty in the biotechnology department. Faculty in information technology and biotechnology at other two year colleges are provided direct training in the Virtual Enterprise system and personnel from three ATE centers in other disciplines are provided professional development in the use of the Virtual Enterprise system so that they can train other faculty from two year colleges to use it. Course syllabi, professional development materials are developed evaluated and disseminated.
This project developed the STEM Virtual Enterprise pedagogy (STEM-VE) where students act as entrepreneurs – designing and operating a simulated firm in the classroom. Students interact locally as divisions of one enterprise facilitated by a trained instructor and support materials. Each classroom can connect with an international community of simulated firms (the IVE Partner Network) through a virtual economy (the IVE MarketMaker), an articulated series of events, and web-based community tools. The net effect is for students to acquire the soft- and entrepreneurial-skills demanded in today’s workforce – for instance, teamwork, effective communication, and the ability to be adaptable to change – while making concrete use of the content from their academic major. STEM-VE is not a specific course, but rather a modular pedagogical framework that employs active learning principles for delivering the content within contextualized IT, biotechnology and electronics courses; thus, expanding learning from technical skills to business, career and soft skills within the context of an entrepreneurial experience. The business processes employed in the STEM Virtual Enterprise classroom are real and the products and services are drawn from current industry direction. Yet, the business is "virtual," with products only being sold through the simulated economy comprised of the international network of students and VE businesses. This economy’s backbone is the proprietary technology platform, the IVE MarketMaker, with banking, credit, e-commerce, and stock market functionality. The virtual economy gives students opportunities to practice entrepreneurship in a safe environment by launching their STEM businesses and trading with other firms in a virtual marketplace, thereby tying all in-classroom activity to an economic context. The global network also facilitates collaborative events for showcasing product development, applying for funding, and making sales. It is important to note at this point that Virtual Enterprise is not an online business simulation package, nor a written case study with well-defined problems and perfectly packaged outcomes. The team at CUNY Kingsborough Community College and CUNY Baruch College accomplished and exceeded the goals for the funding period: The STEM Virtual Enterprise pedagogy was adapted to BioTechnology, IT for Careers, and IT as Capstone as proposed. The pedagogy evolved to be more flexible than originally designed. Thus training was opened to faculty of all STEM disciplines. This resulted in additional unanticipated uses such as the adoption of VE in Electronics at Brookdale Community College. Professional development was provided for over 190 faculty participants. The numerous training tools developed through this work allowed the team to far exceed the proposed amount. A total of 14 STEM-VE courses using project curricula were developed and taught by 10 faculty members at 10 institutions throughout the country. Instructors taught some STEM-VE courses two or more times resulting in 29 course sections offered to approximately 600 students. Rigorous evaluation tools were developed to measure the positive impact of the pedagogy on students. The Skills and Competency Log, for example, was developed to measure impact several times throughout the semester. These instruments provided a better view of student impact than originally envisioned in the proposal. The team acted as leaders for the cause of STEM Entrepreneurship. Within the ATE Community this consisted of hosting discussions at ATE conferences and contributing to various Bio-Link and BATEC endeavors. The team worked to ensure that the project’s developments will be continued past the funding period.
