Umeå University's logo

This paper presents design steps to bundle innovation skills in an educational model that in our previous research involved ideas and construct foundations rooted in a game plan ideology that aims at examining innovativeness [1]. In this paper, our ambition is to deepen students' abilities for self-governed innovative practices within a team. The paper presents an educational model towards embracing design creativity building on the foundations of a game plan ideology formed to examine innovation-driven practices. It also sets out to find a way to communicate a coveted and sustainable knowledge and to motivate the learning since it will affect the momentum of a self-driven learning process. We have used a series of workshops, focus groups and course analysis with engineering design students to frame and concretize the 'Innopoly' educational platform. The educational prototype 'Innopoly' consists of an inclination model inspired by Bloom's taxonomy whose ambition is to prepare our students for future challenges. The implementation efforts of specific interdisciplinary design elements aim to strengthen the acknowledgement of how to carry out a common and open innovative process and a holistic perspective. The ambition to examine innovative practices is fulfilled by incorporation of skills applied to manifest an autonomous level of performance and integrity. 'Innopoly' carries the outline logics from the innovation process - identification, research, ideation, concept, prototyping, testing and commercialization - similar to the increase of value that can be traced back to the original game form. In summary, the proposed 'Innopoly' prototype comprises both an operational (i.e. course activity) level of description and a strategic (i.e. course design) level rooted in Bloom's taxonomy to leverage students' innovation-related experiences and knowledge. In this paper we focus on the operational level; the learning and game fundamentals.