Teaching innovation: equipping students to overcome real-world challenges

Business students beginning their careers find that they must innovate to solve nebulous problems, work in interdisciplinary groups and environments, and effectively communicate their knowledge to colleagues and clients with diverse backgrounds. Addressing this, researchers devised a flipped classroom cross-disciplinary (CD) client-based project (CBP), in which two different business classes, containing students from two different fields, worked together on a semester-long project. The project aimed to address three areas in which students tend to be weak as they attempt to begin their careers: innovativeness, interdisciplinary collaboration, and real-world experience. The flipped classroom CD CBP was centered around two different innovation methods (Design Thinking and Productive Thinking) in order to create an appropriate learning environment. Results showed that students recognized the value of the process, perceived improvements in their communication skills, and were left feeling more prepared for real-world workplace environments. As an exploratory case study, this paper provides insight into student perceptions of flipped classroom CD collaboration, and serves as a starting point in developing more real-world experiences in the classroom.