Search for: All records

In order to gain technical and professional experience, many students in STEM fields participate in extracurricular activities, called such as Innovation Competition and Programs (ICPs). ICPs can offer students a hands-on experience in their field, fostering creativity and entrepreneurship while also solving problems as a team. While the literature emphasizes the many benefits that ICPs offer and examples of different types, there is not yet a broad discussion of different ICP attributes, or many documented student testimonials. This paper aims to establish a precise categorization of the various attributes found in such programs and examine actual student ICP experiences to understand how to adjust these attributes in order to provide students with the most positive experience possible. It is helpful to outline the potential attributes of ICPs due to their open-ended and university-dependent nature. In addition, student interview data provides insight into the overall experiences that students have had when participating in these programs, allowing connections to be made between student goals and the structure of the programs themselves. 

Innovation competitions and programs (ICPs) are acknowledged in existing literature as effective mechanisms for fostering innovation and entrepreneurship within universities, corporations, and beyond. These ICPs (including hackathons, design challenges, pitch competitions, and others) allow student participants to expand on the knowledge gained in their classes, grow their creativity, build an innovative mindset, learn from trial and error, and improve their collaborative skills in team settings. However, with these programs also come various obstacles that have the potential to negatively impact the overall student experience. These challenges can relate to funding, organization, team dynamics, outreach, accommodation, and more, impacting how these students perceive the impacts or benefits of ICPs. This paper considers the challenges and negative experiences students have faced while participating in ICPs based on past experiences collected from student interviews. Analyzing both reported challenges and negative experiences of students provides a guide to address concerns when developing future ICPs. Understanding the type of obstacles students face in these events may be the first step in making the necessary interventions for further improving the experiences of future participants and ensuring that ICPs add value to students across majors. 

Like many faculty, we have organized student innovation competitions and programs (ICPs) and coached many student teams for various competitions; therefore, we have observed first-hand how transformational the experience has been for our students. ICPs allow students to quickly test their skills and knowledge, push them beyond their comfort zones, encourage them to take risks, and provide a safe place to try and fail, as failures can be seen as a critical part of the learning process. Despite their invaluable learning benefits, existing literature lacks a theoretical body of knowledge on the influence of ICPs on the educational experience. Our goal is to explore transformations in students’ mindsets toward innovation through perspectives and data from students who formerly participated in ICPs, mentors who coach students through ICPs, and ICP organizers who create these opportunities for students. This paper will focus on the essential practices of mentors. 

Many students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields seek to expand their technical knowledge, develop an innovative mindset, and build teamwork and communication skills. To respond to this need, many higher education institutions and foundations have broadened their co-curricular program offerings to include design challenges, hackathons, startup competitions, customer discovery labs, and pitch competitions that are designed to support and benefit student innovators. Faculty mentors are responsible for being available to students to answer questions, guide student thinking, and advise student teams to facilitate learning. For these students to gain crucial knowledge and at least be educationally successful in these programs, a mentor possessing key traits and using certain strategies is proven to be highly influential. While much research supports the importance and benefit of STEM students’ participation in these programs, literature discussing the effective strategies for mentoring students participating in these programs remains limited. Exploring the best mentoring practices will provide insight into how to support and prepare students for innovation competitions and their upcoming careers as well as catalyze their entrepreneurial minds for future success. Based on a series of interviews with experienced mentors of innovation competitions and programs, this paper presents a set of best practices for mentoring student innovation teams.