Integration MOOC On Creativity And Entrepreneurship Into Tertiary Foreign Language Teaching

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ABSTRACT

The formation of creativity of future entrepreneurs still remains one of the important issues of modern training at university. Future graduates should be able to think, analyze and be imaginative in finding solutions in situations that follow the procedures of professional training and personal development. It is extracurricular activities in a foreign language that enable us to engage a student in active, imaginative, research and cognitive activity and provide the building of a professional foreign language competence of future specialists. Extracurricular activities promote increasing of motivation to acquire a foreign language, contributes to the building of personality, its creative outbreak, broadening horizons, erudition and emotional attitude to the entire world and to oneself. This study explores the use of information and communication technologies, namely massive open online courses for the building of creative skills among students majoring in entrepreneurship, as well as for the development of their professional foreign language competence. Criteria for choosing an online course for integration into the educational process of teaching a foreign language are presented. The content of the massive open online course on creativity and entrepreneurship is reviewing. As a result of the study, a survey of entrepreneurship students is conducted after completing the massive open online course on an American online platform in order to consider the positive features of the use of massive open online courses for extracurricular activities on the ‘Foreign Language’ discipline as a part of blended learning environment. It is concluded that the use of foreign-language massive open online course on creativity and entrepreneurship in extracurricular work at tertiary level as a part of blended approach can be an effective way to jointly form the creativity and professional foreign language competence of future entrepreneurship graduates.

INTRODUCTION

Nowadays, in society the idea that education from a way of enlightening a person should turn into a mechanism for the development of a creative personality, its individual abilities, a personality capable of building itself, determining and changing its life strategy is becoming more and more asserted. The development of creativity of future specialists is one of the urgent problems of modern education.

The most successful creative skills are formed in the joint activities of a teacher and a student as a result of solving problems and problem tasks through the use of various forms of creative activity. Future specialists should be able to think, analyze and be creative in solving problem situations that accompany the processes of professional formation and personal development. At the same time, a teacher must educate his students to master the methods, strategies, and technologies of successful self-realization in educational and future professional activities (Pigaleva, 2018, p. 85).

BUILDING A RESEARCH PROBLEM

It is known that a student’s creative abilities are manifested in the extent to which he unconventionally approaches the solution of certain issues. The development of creative abilities in students does not occur by itself. A favorable stimulating environment, a cultural and creative atmosphere and fruitful conditions are required. These conditions are connected with the real educational system (environmental conditions) in which the learning process is carried out (Pigaleva, 2018, p. 86). These are the availability of adequate teaching aids, the scientific validity of methodological recommendations and attitudes, the material and technical equipment of the learning process.

In this study we propose to appeal to information and communication technologies, exactly to foreign language massive open online courses on creativity and entrepreneurship for extracurricular work on the subject “Foreign Language” at the higher education level as a part of blended learning environment.

Literature Review

As for researchers, certain aspects of this issue are covered in the works of the following researchers who studied creativity in early childhood education (Chu-ying, 2010, p. 50), creativity training in problem solving (Kandemir, 2007, p. 120), creativity in entrepreneurship education (Hamidi, 2008, p. 310), limits to creativity in education (Craft, 2009, p. 116), realising creativity in management education (Sunley, 2019, p. 180), importance of entrepreneurial creativity and education (Shahab, 2019, p. 278), application of creativity methods in education and industry (Nutzmann, 2019, p. 145), creativity measurement in undergraduate students (Snyder, 2019, p. 136), relationship of creativity with computer anxiety of the higher secondary students (Gupta, 2017, p. 100), creativity and morality in business education (Marues, 2019, p. 20), sociocultural perspectives on creativity, learning, and technology (Glăveanu, 2018, p. 81), university education and creativity (Ehtiyar, 2019, p. 131),using ICT for development of creativity (Angarita, 2019, p. 121), fostering learner creativity in English classroom (Wang, 2019, p. 68), creativity in language learning and teaching (Jones, 2019, p. 156) and language learning via massive open online courses (Jones, 2018, p. 185).

Basic Assumptions

In the era of the Bologna process a conscious and competent design of foreign language education, individual educational paths and the use of modern teaching aids including information and communication resources are necessary.

In a constantly changing world, where the amount of information accumulated by mankind is constantly increasing, we place a special emphasis on the competitiveness of the future graduate, which is impossible without involving the student in independent and creative activity. It is this function that the university performs in attracting students to actively participate in events in a foreign language.

It is extracurricular activities in a foreign language that allow us to include a student in active, creative, research and cognitive activity and ensure the formation of a professional foreign language competence of a student. Extracurricular activities contribute to increasing motivation to learn a foreign language, contributes to the formation of personality, its creative beginning, broadening horizons, erudition and emotional-value attitude to the world and to oneself. It is this form of work that contributes to the effective assimilation of the content of foreign language education. Foreign culture which has absorbed the enriched experience of centuries of collective creativity, the wisdom and talent of many generations allows you to open a wide scope for the creativity and development of students, to make their life spiritually richer and more comprehensive.

Extracurricular work at the level of higher education should be considered as an important link in the self-education of the student’s personality and act as a means of organizing the intellectual activity of students. Creative extracurricular activity forms the interest of students in learning a foreign language making sure of the obvious advantages of a future career with knowledge of a foreign language and strengthening their capabilities for creativity and self-education.

It is important to note that a new social mandate is already has formed in society: instead of an obedient employee working according to an established tradition a person who is able to quickly navigate the situation and creatively solve emerging problems became in demand. An important condition for increasing the competitiveness of a university graduate is the development of a creative approach to various areas of professional activity [].

In our study we suggest that the use of a foreign-language massive open online course on creativity and entrepreneurship in extracurricular work on the subject “Foreign Language” at the higher education level as a part of blended learning environment is an effective way to jointly develop the creativity and professional foreign language competence of future entrepreneurs.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

While conducting this research observation and questionnaire were implemented. The author has examined MOOCs in the following categories: personal development, entrepreneurship, leadership and management. These MOOCs are developed to meet the educational needs of entrepreneurship students and must deal with the domains of knowledge of fundamental and professional training of future graduates in different engineering areas.

The following decision criteria were implemented during the research:

MOOC chosen should be developed to form competencies in creativity at tertiary level;
the title of an online course should neatly maintain the direction of students` studying or correlate to the titles of professional disciplines for entrepreneurship undergraduate curricula (Logic and Critical Thinking, Leadership and Team Development, Fundamentals of Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Entrepreneurship Thinking etc.);
course duration does not exceed 8 months,
online course is available for free,
MOOC is delivered in English with the ability to enable subtitles,
presence of such creative tasks as an essay among the elements of the pedagogical design of the MOOC,
ability to get a course certificate after MOOC completion.

RESEARCH DATA

The experiment involved 52 students of the Faculty of Corporate Economics and Entrepreneurship majoring in Business Economics at Novosibirsk State University of Economics and Management. Undergraduate students were offered six massive open online courses for the development of creativity in the field of entrepreneurship on the Coursera online platform that are corresponding to predefined criteria for this study. After watching the welcome videos and reading the annotation of each MOOC offered students chose the ‘Creativity & Entrepreneurship’ by Institute for Creative Entrepreneurship at Berklee College of Music without a dissentient voice.

The MOOC is designed to help its participants reveal their inward creativity and know how to apply it for future career development or business. Created by Panos Panay the MOOC includes interviews with world famous entrepreneurs, creative directors, chefs, innovators, producers and as they consider resemblance of the creative and entrepreneurial peregrinations.

This MOOC examines business as a creative process, a basic human trait that we all possess and able to improve. ‘Creativity & Entrepreneurship’ uses ideas from the musical creation procedures, such as iterating and embracing failure, as a resources of leading you through the idea of intellection as a startup. Course participants can boost the fundamental mindset, competences and insights required to continue an business career, whether as the founder of their personal career or as the organizer of a not yet existing business in any domain.

This online course has been selected for blended learning. The teacher of the discipline ‘Foreign Language’ completed this course in advance. Tasks for language support for students to complete the online course were developed in the Moodle e-learning environment. For five weeks students were performing the following activities in distance mode: they watched video lectures, studied articles for reading, participated in the discussion of the course material at the forum and completed written assignments in essay format where they were expected to discuss the following topics:

Entrepreneurial Mindset,
Product Development,
Building a Team and Culture,
Coping with Failure and Learning to Replenish.

Also while completing the online course students and the teacher discussed the course materials in the classroom. As a result, all students who participated in the experiment completed the MOOC and received a certificate of completion of the course. The certificate indicates the providing platform, the university that developed this MOOC and the authors who were the teachers of the ‘Creativity & Entrepreneurship’.

After completing the MOOC a survey of the course participants was also conducted. The survey was aimed at identifying positive features of using ICT resources to develop creativity and entrepreneurial skills. As a result of the questionnaire it was found that 92% of respondents consider this course useful for developing their personal qualities, 94% of course participants believe that they have developed innovative thinking skills, 89% of students now better understand how to better use the concepts of creativity for their business, 95% of respondents consider that creativity skills are formed in the best way while mastering a course in a foreign language, absolutely all participants noted an increase in motivation for self-learning, 96% of students will use the acquired methods in their future careers, 92% of respondents consider ICT to be an effective means of forming creative skills and interest in learning, 92% of students believe that mastering this online course in English allows them to develop their professional foreign language competence, and as a result, develop their creativity skills (Fig. 1). It should also be noted that some students expressed a desire to enroll other courses of specialization ‘Music Business’ on the online MOOC platform Coursera and receive a certificate of a more serious rank.

CONCLUSION

Information and communication technologies play an important role in our lives. Modern ICTs can be used in education for creativity. The integration of such Internet resources can contribute to the effective formation of students` leadership skills, creativity and interest in cognition. The findings of this study reckon that the use of foreign-language massive open online course on creativity and entrepreneurship in extracurricular work on the subject “Foreign Language” at the higher education level as a part of blended learning environment can be an effective way to jointly develop the creativity and professional foreign language competence of future entrepreneurs.

The findings of this research may be interested for teachers of foreign languages at tertiary level, as well as teachers of professional disciplines for students majoring in entrepreneurship, specialists in distance and blended learning, managers of educational organizations, scientists involved in education for creativity studies, as well as current entrepreneurs.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Angarita L. (2019). Are ICT good partners for the development of creativity? A systematic review of literature. International Journal of Arts and Technology (pp. 112-123).
Chu-ying C. (2010). Creativity in early childhood education: Teachers’ perceptions in three Chinese societies. Thinking Skills and Creativity (pp. 49-60).
Craft A.. (2010). The Limits To Creativity In Education: Dilemmas For The Educator. British Journal of Educational Studies (pp. 113-127).
Ehtiyar R. (2019). University Education and Creativity: An Assessment From Students’ Perspective. Eurasian Journal of Educational Research (pp. 113-132).
Glăveanu V. (2018). Sociocultural Perspectives on Creativity, Learning, and Technology. Creativity Under Duress in Education? (pp. 63-82).
Gupta D. (2017). A study of the relationship of Creativity with Computer anxiety of the higher secondary students. International Journal of Computational Research and Development (pp. 97-100).
Hamidi D.. (2008). Creativity in entrepreneurship education. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development (pp. 304-320).
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