2025 ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition

Work in Progress: From Curriculum to Competence: Exploring Pedagogical Practices in Engineering Entrepreneurship and Human Capital Formation

Presented at ENT-9: Multidisciplinary Activities in Engineering Innovation

Interest in innovation and entrepreneurship has expanded how we prepare engineering students for the talent marketplace. Capital formation describes the process of harnessing human potential, individually or collectively. This could be investing in and developing the knowledge, skills, and abilities of individuals to improve their economic value and productivity; or it could be doing the same things but with the goal of meeting new societal and environmental challenges.

This work-in-progress paper identifies curricular modules and assessment practices for engineering entrepreneurship programs that are interested in incorporating a perspective of venture design and human capital formation. Using the case study of ENGR 306: Capital Formation Design Theory in Practice, this paper documents how the curriculum has evolved since 2017 and the insights gained about the student experience from experimenting with a variety of pedagogical strategies including student self-reflections, forum style discussions, and journey maps. These methods will be described in order to inform future iterations of the course, their potential usefulness to engineering educators, and generalizability to other institutional and program contexts, and engineering student populations.

Authors

Dr. Helen L. Chen http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6415-7814 Stanford University [biography]

Helen L. Chen is a Research Scientist in the Designing Education Lab in Mechanical Engineering and co-founder of the Integrative Learning Portfolio Lab in Career Education at Stanford University. She earned her undergraduate degree from UCLA and her PhD in Communication with a minor in Psychology from Stanford. Her scholarship is focused on engineering and entrepreneurship education, portfolio pedagogy, reflective practices, non-degree credentials, and reimagining how learners represent themselves through their professional online presence.
Dr. Ade Mabogunje Stanford University [biography]

Ade Mabogunje is a Mechanical Engineering Scientist and Designer who studies the character, behavior, and environment of designers when they do design particularly when they innovate. Ant-colonies design anthills, medical doctors design therapies, engineers design technologies, storytellers design narratives, entrepreneurs design social movements, and the list goes on. Design is basic to human survival, progress, happiness, and extinction. Ade received his PhD in Engineering from Stanford University and is a Senior Research Engineer at the Center for Design Research.

Note

The full paper will be available to logged in and registered conference attendees once the conference starts on June 22, 2025, and to all visitors after the conference ends on June 25, 2025

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