From Board Games to the Boardroom

For the casual observer, students in Dr. 布鲁克·恩维克(Brooke Envick)的创意与创新班把时间都花在了闲逛上. After all, their semester involves creating and playing board games. While having fun is certainly a byproduct of their learning, there is much more going on than what meets the eye. 这些学生所需要的学习水平，正是他们即将进入的竞争日益激烈的市场所需要的.

According to Dr. Envick, professor of management at the University of Nebraska at Kearney, students tend to “lose creative confidence” as they age. Understanding this, 她策略性地为她的mgt405 -创意与创新课程开设了一个单元，重点是帮助学生了解如何将自己的优势与同龄人的优势结合起来. In preparation for being part of a team in their future professions, students work on a collaborative project which, by the end of the semester, has helped their self-confidence soar.

Dr. Envick需要了解她的每一个学生，然后才能成功地帮助他们学习. To do this, she first determines their strengths and weaknesses. This data, which she obtains from the fifty-question Kaufman Domains of Creativity survey, is essential for her to form groups for the semester-long project. After gathering the results, she can place each student in one of five categories: everyday/self, scholarly, performance, mechanical/science, and arts. 这不仅有助于她在课堂上创建异质群体，以反映工作场所, 但这些信息也与她的学生分享，以帮助他们了解自己是谁，作为学习者和潜在的员工. 她说，这些结果帮助她的学生了解他们如何“通过(他们的)创造性优势为游戏增加价值”，并学会与优势与自己不同的同龄人合作.

Once the groups have been developed, 有一个严格的循序渐进的过程用来带领学生通过这个单元. 这些步骤要求他们遵循从概念创造力到功能创造力的路径，因为他们提出了最初的想法，并最终以桌面游戏设计的形式执行. Finally, the prototype comes to fruition thanks to visual creativity.

This project becomes more than just a means to gain a passing grade. 当学生们作为个体在一个小组中一起工作时，他们学会了透明. According to Dr. Envick, 学生们了解到，“在工作场所，每个人都看到你的贡献”，这使得他们在课堂上获得的不仅仅是一个分数. 在课程结束时，他们不仅会得到同龄人的反馈，还会对自己的创造能力更有信心.

While the only challenge Dr. 自从创建这个部门以来，Envick一直在向其他人解释它的严格性, she has learned a lot from her students. 在她教授这门课的第一年，她认为等待离职调查不足以获得学生的反馈. 在整个项目中，她倾听学生的意见，并根据他们的反馈进行调整. By the third year, 她觉得这个项目“像丝绸一样光滑”，她的每个学生都清楚地认识到他们的贡献对他们的团队有多重要. The balanced teams she creates through the use of carefully gathered data, the transparent relationship she develops with her students, 学生们渴望利用自己的优势来帮助创建一个定制的棋盘游戏，这使得这门课程成为即将进入市场的学生的完美垫脚石.

Dr. Envick解释说，“创造力是雇主最看重的十大技能之一”，这就是为什么她不仅让她的学生作为一个团队的一部分工作13周, but she also has them write a reflective paper. She has them reflect on their contribution, articulate what they have learned, 并解释他们将如何将这些经验应用到他们未来的具体职业中. In a sense, 在他们踏入一个潜在的工作岗位之前，她带他们经历了回答面试问题的过程. 她相信，她正在帮助学生们“超越雇主的期望”，因为她如何利用棋盘游戏的创作来帮助学生们通过创造力掌握解决问题的方法.

As with every good thing, Dr. Envick would love to see her ideas for this project become better. She is handing off the course to Dr. Robert Macy, who is the new director for the Center of Entrepreneurship at bet36365体育, and states that she “can’t wait to see what he does with it.” With Dr. Macy’s background in entertainment entrepreneurship, she is confident he will take her idea to the next level.

当她三年前开始这个项目时，这是她创造力和创新课程的一部分, she began collecting data. Using a control group in a similar class, 在帮助学生为进入市场做准备方面，她证明了创意课程的价值. 这门课程让她看到了“每个学生都是多么有才华”，这让她“在不同的班级里用同样的方式关注学生”.她想与其他教授分享这种思维上的转变, especially those who teach business courses.

自从实施了她的桌游项目后，作为一名教授，她个人变得更有创造力了. 这使她能够帮助她的学生了解他们自己的创造力将如何帮助他们未来的职业. 她很有信心，她的学生离开她的课程后，收获的不仅仅是更多的学术知识. They leave with an awareness of their personal growth.

Dr. Envick has written a paper for the Global Journal for Business Pedagogy about this innovative board game project. 她还在全球商业研究所(Institute for Global business Research) 2022年夏季会议上向其他商学院教员展示了这些发现. Indeed, 她不仅分享了自己的研究成果，还向学生们交出了她用来让这个项目取得成功的仪器, 让她的同龄人一步一步地把她的想法应用到他们自己的课堂上.

他认识到，现在比以往任何时候，创造力对市场生存都至关重要. Envick的棋盘游戏项目帮助她的学生了解他们有创造性的天赋. 她希望她的学生超越生存，学会在未来的职业生涯中茁壮成长. Understanding that a person’s profession should be enjoyable, Dr. Envick took her students back to their childhood, back to a time when they learned best by using their imaginations. In her class, which is difficult and requires an intense level of thinking, she manages to reignite their creativity. She does this by letting them play games with their friends.