High touch teaching: Course summative assessment

At one point of my career, I was the director of a 16 week, 3 credit graduate level course in bioentrepreneurship, Building Biotechnology, as part of a combined program between the University of Colorado-Denver Graduate School and the Business School. About 30 students enrolled each year and they were divided into four project teams. Half of the students were enrolled in our Biological Sciences and Biotechnology Professional Science Masters program and the other half of the students came from our downtown campus, industry, or the Business School. Some go on to take additional courses to earn a Certificate in Bioentrepreneurship.

The University of Colorado, particularly?at the Downtown Denver and Anschutz Medical Campus, is an example of a state public research university that has been offering bioentrepreneurship education to students for the past 10 years. What started as a short course for graduate students has evolved into a menu of courses, degrees, seminars and programs designed to address the needs of 5 campus target audiences: 1)graduate level bioscience students, including Masters, PhDs, postdocs and other research personnel,2) health professionals, 3) bioengineers and computational biologists/bioinformaticians/data scientists, 4) other students non biomedical domains, like humanities, social sciences business and law, and 5) faculty investigators interested in getting their ideas, inventions and discoveries to patients.?

On the first day of class, students divided into self-selected project teams and were tasked with 1) identifying a biomedical or clinical innovation problem, 2) devising a potential solution, 3) using the lecture material and customer discovery techniques to inform creating a value proposition design and business model canvas, 4) doing a risk evaluation and mitigation assessment, 5) making a go or no-go decision whether to move forward, and 6) presenting their findings in a 15-minute presentation on the final day of class to other classmates and volunteer faculty reviewers.

During the class, I asked for informal formative assessments from students and made the necessary mid-course corrections. Here is my summative assessment of this year's course:

1. Graduate students are impressively willing and able to conceptualize and analyze innovative ideas
2. Given the proper structure, process and tools, they will make the right go-no go decision on their own without anyone else judging whether their ideas have merit or not. Two of the four teams killed their ideas.
3. Interdisciplinary diversity adds to creativity and ideation
4. Project team assignments help develop the soft skills that employers demand and highly seek. Students discovered that self-directed teams formed to solve complex issues using experts is an effective model.
5. Our faculty consists of working professionals who are experts in their respective domains, for example regulatory affairs, intellectual property or sales and marketing. Students universally like interacting and engaging "real world" actors and the perspectives they provide and the potential employment connections they offer. Face to face delivery works best for both students and faculty. Hi touch teaching is extremely effective.
6. While we do not have longitudinal data about outcomes and impact, we have increasing anecdotal evidence that students appreciate adopting an entrepreneurial mindset as a life skill and have used it to alter or shape future career directions.
7. Some students decide that "the business of biomedical science", while interesting and useful, is simply not for them and they double down on their commitments to basic science research.
8. Most scientists and engineers came to class woefully unprepared in rudimentary elements of business. Most non-science or technical students came to the class similarly unschooled in clinical issues, biotechnologies and science. There was a rapid learning curve for both and we are creating ways to fill the gaps with elective courses in Business for Scientists and Engineers and Science for Business People.
9. Students still see entrepreneurship as an either/or decision instead of an "and" decision. Like anyone starting who is strapped for money, resources, skills and time, they are too eager to drop entrepreneurship instead of just dropping an idea, learning from the experience and moving on the next challenge.
10. We need to do a better job of "handing off" students to the next appropriate level of development, given individual education, interest, resources, networks, mentors and experience and help them create an individual personal and professional development plan given other demands on their time and energy. That includes experiential learning opportunities, SBIR/STTR workshops, more immersion into the processes involved in academic-industry-provider relationships and additional curriculum design tweaks in drug discovery and development, medtech, digital health and clinical care delivery innovation.
11. The course is best taught face to face, instead of online or using a hybrid model, since the networking, team building and leadership elements are key and are more effective at achieving the learning objectives of the course, particularly demonstrating entrepreneurial competencies. I'm sorry, but entrepreneurship is a full-contact sport built on trust and that's almost impossible to achieve in a virtual world.

These experiences will further contribute to building our bioentrepreneurship program at the University of Colorado Downtown and Anschutz Medical Campuses that will focus on satisfying our customers-our students-and the needs of other stakeholders who employ or support them. While the above observations might be useful for future planning, in large part they are irrelevant concerning the value of the course since all meaningful value is ultimately user-defined. Student evaluations will tell the tale.

Here are lessons learned teaching entrepreneurship to 1st year medical students.

Here are lessons learned teaching students in the xMBA/HA program.

Here are the fundamentals of edupreneurship.

Finally. none of this could have happened without the dedicated support and contributions from the faculty and administrators who, over the years, have been steadfast in overcoming substantial administrative barriers to organizing and delivering "the product" using a viable business model. We practice what we teach.

Plus, I love the pink socks. Here's the story behind them. Like chipping in from the fringe on the 18th hole, it will bring me back for another round.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs