Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education in the Informat... more Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2013The paper presents authors experience, learned lessons in the field of University Student Company education from years of experience at master’s degree level. It presents and analyses information about the status and good practices in the Entrepreneurship Programmes Curriculum and how some countries in Europe implement it and what their best practices are. The application of Junior Achievement – Young Enterprise entrepreneurial education curriculum and practice has been developed in the creation of student’s entrepreneurial mindset and competences. The goal of the paper is also to share and discussAssociation for the Development of the Information Society, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics Bulgarian Academy of Science
Proceedings of the International Conference for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Regional Development, ICEIRD, 2009
Findings the paper represent the experience and best practice of the JA-SU partnership and propos... more Findings the paper represent the experience and best practice of the JA-SU partnership and propose a model for future implementation in both engineering and scientific faculties. Learning-by-doing methodology is a key success factor for teaching entrepreneurship. Practical limitations/implications–we believe that the presented model is a good practice and can be promoted and successfully implemented in other universities in the region. Originality/value–the patterns is seen as a good repeatable practice to encourage ...
Digitalised education is already a consolidated practice in Higher Education. Budget constraints ... more Digitalised education is already a consolidated practice in Higher Education. Budget constraints and the need to target larger students cohorts show the benefit of leveraging educational content without increasing delivery costs. However, if on the one hand this “economy of scale” based rationale is the main foundation of the digitalised education narrative, on the other, such a view clashes with the need to address a series of novel social dynamics which are enacted by technological mediation. This claim is rooted in a change of focus from just economies of scale to that of scope. When knowledge sources are diverse, fast-changing and interconnected, Blended Learning (BL) offers an opportunity to provide learners with a wide mix of contents which can be hardly owned by a single knowledge provider. However, in BL, the online part tends to drive its main value proposition, which turns out to be based on an efficiency-based view. On the other hand, positioning ICT as a means to produce...
Since the beginning of the new millennium, the rise of the maker movement has sparked again inter... more Since the beginning of the new millennium, the rise of the maker movement has sparked again interest in crafts in academia and high-tech industry. Some attempts at establishing collaborations have been tried, but have not solved the overarching problem of how our economy and society can find ways to cope with the perspective of technological unemployment. In this position paper, we propose a reflection, that leads to a model for a university laboratory that operates at the intersection of the three sectors of crafts, high-tech industry and academia. We outline a vision where each of these sectors contributes with its main strengths to the creation of a laboratory that lies at the intersection between Making, Innovating, and Learning, that we call the MILE Lab, that can aim to address the challenge at stake.
We report in this paper on a multiyear endeavour within the EIT (European Institute of Innovation... more We report in this paper on a multiyear endeavour within the EIT (European Institute of Innovation and Technology) Digital community, during which EIT Digital built an international community of Inn ...
Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship compe... more Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship competencies based on the learning-by-doing methodology. It represents the formation of a studentoperated mini-company which functions like a limited company, and the members buy shares in the company though personal contributions. During the process of learning, the students understand the opportunities of how to start and run a company and go through the whole company life cycle from establishment to closure. Our approach involves review and observation of European and global practices in the field of entrepreneurship education; practical implementation of the Junior Achievement –Young Enterprise (JA-YE) methodology for the Graduate Student Company. The main findings represent the experience and best practice of the Junior Achievement -Sofia University partnership and propose a model for future implementation in both engineering and scientific faculties. Learning-by-doing methodology is a k...
Demands over teaching methods have drastically evolved in the last decades. In particular, due to... more Demands over teaching methods have drastically evolved in the last decades. In particular, due to the increasing emphasis placed by the need to foster innovation, HEIs are called to frame learning environments accordingly, equipping students with skills and competences able to allow for some sort of innovative thinking. However, it is questionable if traditional educational contexts are able to cope with such a challenge. Indeed, it appears that their very design principles are much more conducive to what we here refer to as “convergent thinking”. This form of thinking is focused more on confirming and consolidating existing knowledge rather than challenging and critically questioning it. Such a logic contrasts with both innovation related literature and practice, which emphasises the pivotal role played by the exploration of new knowledge as opposed to its incremental exploitation. Drawing on a theoretical analysis, this contribution identifies the key principles of a “convergent” ...
2020 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE), 2020
Non-technical skills are now more relevant than ever for students in ICT. Many ICT degree curricu... more Non-technical skills are now more relevant than ever for students in ICT. Many ICT degree curricula, however, still do not include non-technical education. Furthermore, even when non-technical courses are included, they are extremely compressed in time, and students have a low interest for these subjects. Teachers, as a consequence, face the aggravated challenge of carrying out their task in a context of generally low motivation. In this contribution, we present a novel debatebased teaching method called Technology Battles. We illustrate the theoretical, pedagogical and practical elements that led us to the design of Technology Battles, and discuss some preliminary results. These first results suggest that our teaching method was able to make the course’s subject-matter more appealing to otherwise uninterested students, and bridge their initial negative bias. While some limitations remain in the ability to measure the obtained results objectively, we think debates might be a viable ...
Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship compe... more Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship competencies based on the learning-by-doing methodology. It represents the formation of a studentoperated mini-company which functions like a limited company, and the members buy shares in the company though personal contributions. During the process of learning students and their company go through the whole company life cycle from establishment to closure. Our approach involves review and observation of European and global practices in the field of entrepreneurship education; practical implementation of the Junior Achievement –Young Enterprise (JA-YE) methodology for the Graduate Student Company. The main findings represent the experience and best practice of the Junior Achievement -Sofia University partnership and propose a model for future implementation in both engineering and scientific faculties. Learning-by-doing methodology is a key success factor for teaching entrepreneurship. Patte...
Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship compe... more Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship competencies based on the learning-by-doing methodology. It represents the formation of a student-operated mini-company which functions like a limited company, and the members buy shares in the company though personal contributions. During the process of learning, the students understand the opportunities of how to start and run a company and go through the whole company life cycle from establishment to closure. Our approach involves review and observation of European and global practices in the field of entrepreneurship education; practical implementation of the Junior Achievement –Young Enterprise (JA-YE) methodology for the Graduate Student Company. The main findings represent the experience and best practice of the Junior Achievement-Sofia University partnership and propose a model for future implementation in both engineering and scientific faculties. Learning-by-doing methodology is a key success factor for teaching entrepreneurship. Patterns are seen as a good repeatable practice to encourage involvement and mentorship on part of the business community and improve the learning environment and entrepreneurship ecosystem. The target audience are developers of curricula, teachers and business angels. The GSC pattern is expanded and implemented in 10 more universities in Bulgaria during 2008-2009 academic years.
Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education in the Informat... more Report published in the Proceedings of the National Conference on "Education in the Information Society", Plovdiv, May, 2013The paper presents authors experience, learned lessons in the field of University Student Company education from years of experience at master’s degree level. It presents and analyses information about the status and good practices in the Entrepreneurship Programmes Curriculum and how some countries in Europe implement it and what their best practices are. The application of Junior Achievement – Young Enterprise entrepreneurial education curriculum and practice has been developed in the creation of student’s entrepreneurial mindset and competences. The goal of the paper is also to share and discussAssociation for the Development of the Information Society, Institute of Mathematics and Informatics Bulgarian Academy of Science
Proceedings of the International Conference for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Regional Development, ICEIRD, 2009
Findings the paper represent the experience and best practice of the JA-SU partnership and propos... more Findings the paper represent the experience and best practice of the JA-SU partnership and propose a model for future implementation in both engineering and scientific faculties. Learning-by-doing methodology is a key success factor for teaching entrepreneurship. Practical limitations/implications–we believe that the presented model is a good practice and can be promoted and successfully implemented in other universities in the region. Originality/value–the patterns is seen as a good repeatable practice to encourage ...
Digitalised education is already a consolidated practice in Higher Education. Budget constraints ... more Digitalised education is already a consolidated practice in Higher Education. Budget constraints and the need to target larger students cohorts show the benefit of leveraging educational content without increasing delivery costs. However, if on the one hand this “economy of scale” based rationale is the main foundation of the digitalised education narrative, on the other, such a view clashes with the need to address a series of novel social dynamics which are enacted by technological mediation. This claim is rooted in a change of focus from just economies of scale to that of scope. When knowledge sources are diverse, fast-changing and interconnected, Blended Learning (BL) offers an opportunity to provide learners with a wide mix of contents which can be hardly owned by a single knowledge provider. However, in BL, the online part tends to drive its main value proposition, which turns out to be based on an efficiency-based view. On the other hand, positioning ICT as a means to produce...
Since the beginning of the new millennium, the rise of the maker movement has sparked again inter... more Since the beginning of the new millennium, the rise of the maker movement has sparked again interest in crafts in academia and high-tech industry. Some attempts at establishing collaborations have been tried, but have not solved the overarching problem of how our economy and society can find ways to cope with the perspective of technological unemployment. In this position paper, we propose a reflection, that leads to a model for a university laboratory that operates at the intersection of the three sectors of crafts, high-tech industry and academia. We outline a vision where each of these sectors contributes with its main strengths to the creation of a laboratory that lies at the intersection between Making, Innovating, and Learning, that we call the MILE Lab, that can aim to address the challenge at stake.
We report in this paper on a multiyear endeavour within the EIT (European Institute of Innovation... more We report in this paper on a multiyear endeavour within the EIT (European Institute of Innovation and Technology) Digital community, during which EIT Digital built an international community of Inn ...
Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship compe... more Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship competencies based on the learning-by-doing methodology. It represents the formation of a studentoperated mini-company which functions like a limited company, and the members buy shares in the company though personal contributions. During the process of learning, the students understand the opportunities of how to start and run a company and go through the whole company life cycle from establishment to closure. Our approach involves review and observation of European and global practices in the field of entrepreneurship education; practical implementation of the Junior Achievement –Young Enterprise (JA-YE) methodology for the Graduate Student Company. The main findings represent the experience and best practice of the Junior Achievement -Sofia University partnership and propose a model for future implementation in both engineering and scientific faculties. Learning-by-doing methodology is a k...
Demands over teaching methods have drastically evolved in the last decades. In particular, due to... more Demands over teaching methods have drastically evolved in the last decades. In particular, due to the increasing emphasis placed by the need to foster innovation, HEIs are called to frame learning environments accordingly, equipping students with skills and competences able to allow for some sort of innovative thinking. However, it is questionable if traditional educational contexts are able to cope with such a challenge. Indeed, it appears that their very design principles are much more conducive to what we here refer to as “convergent thinking”. This form of thinking is focused more on confirming and consolidating existing knowledge rather than challenging and critically questioning it. Such a logic contrasts with both innovation related literature and practice, which emphasises the pivotal role played by the exploration of new knowledge as opposed to its incremental exploitation. Drawing on a theoretical analysis, this contribution identifies the key principles of a “convergent” ...
2020 IEEE International Conference on Teaching, Assessment, and Learning for Engineering (TALE), 2020
Non-technical skills are now more relevant than ever for students in ICT. Many ICT degree curricu... more Non-technical skills are now more relevant than ever for students in ICT. Many ICT degree curricula, however, still do not include non-technical education. Furthermore, even when non-technical courses are included, they are extremely compressed in time, and students have a low interest for these subjects. Teachers, as a consequence, face the aggravated challenge of carrying out their task in a context of generally low motivation. In this contribution, we present a novel debatebased teaching method called Technology Battles. We illustrate the theoretical, pedagogical and practical elements that led us to the design of Technology Battles, and discuss some preliminary results. These first results suggest that our teaching method was able to make the course’s subject-matter more appealing to otherwise uninterested students, and bridge their initial negative bias. While some limitations remain in the ability to measure the obtained results objectively, we think debates might be a viable ...
Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship compe... more Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship competencies based on the learning-by-doing methodology. It represents the formation of a studentoperated mini-company which functions like a limited company, and the members buy shares in the company though personal contributions. During the process of learning students and their company go through the whole company life cycle from establishment to closure. Our approach involves review and observation of European and global practices in the field of entrepreneurship education; practical implementation of the Junior Achievement –Young Enterprise (JA-YE) methodology for the Graduate Student Company. The main findings represent the experience and best practice of the Junior Achievement -Sofia University partnership and propose a model for future implementation in both engineering and scientific faculties. Learning-by-doing methodology is a key success factor for teaching entrepreneurship. Patte...
Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship compe... more Graduate Student Company (GSC) is an innovative educational model to teach entrepreneurship competencies based on the learning-by-doing methodology. It represents the formation of a student-operated mini-company which functions like a limited company, and the members buy shares in the company though personal contributions. During the process of learning, the students understand the opportunities of how to start and run a company and go through the whole company life cycle from establishment to closure. Our approach involves review and observation of European and global practices in the field of entrepreneurship education; practical implementation of the Junior Achievement –Young Enterprise (JA-YE) methodology for the Graduate Student Company. The main findings represent the experience and best practice of the Junior Achievement-Sofia University partnership and propose a model for future implementation in both engineering and scientific faculties. Learning-by-doing methodology is a key success factor for teaching entrepreneurship. Patterns are seen as a good repeatable practice to encourage involvement and mentorship on part of the business community and improve the learning environment and entrepreneurship ecosystem. The target audience are developers of curricula, teachers and business angels. The GSC pattern is expanded and implemented in 10 more universities in Bulgaria during 2008-2009 academic years.
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Papers by Milena Stoycheva