FOSTERING DEEP LEARNING AMONGST ENTREPRENEURSHIP STUDENTS IN A NIGERIAN UNIVERSITY: PLANNING PHASE

Abstract

In light of the growing problem of unemployment amongst young graduates in Nigeria, entrepreneurship has been heralded by the Nigerian government as a viable solution. Nigerian universities have thus been mandated to provide students with entrepreneurial skills, which will enable them to establish viable businesses upon graduation. An important prerequisite for this important objective to be achieved is that lecturers ensure that students adopt a deep learning approach towards entrepreneurship courses been taught, as this will enable them to truly understand key entrepreneurial concepts and strategies and how they can be implemented in the real world. It is against this backdrop that the lecturers of the Entrepreneurship and Business Studies Department at the Federal University of Technology, Minna decided to develop and implement a holistic educational intervention with the ultimate objective being to foster deep learning amongst entrepreneurship students. This paper presents the planning phase of this plan and presents a comprehensive review of entrepreneurship-related deep learning scholarship in order to identify various strategies that have been found to be effective in promoting deep learning amongst students. The review revealed three categories of strategies: 1) Course content strategies (case studies and writing tasks), 2) Course delivery strategies (Student-centered learning, Group work, Case Challenges and in-class simulations) and 3) Course assessment strategies (formative assessment, applied questions, oral presentations and written reports). These strategies were then combined into an effective toolkit, and a holistic educational intervention was then developed that will be implemented in the near future to foster deep learning amongst the entrepreneurship students enrolled at the Department.

Key words: Deep learning, Entrepreneurship, University students, Youth unemployment, Nigerian society