Bartering Simulations

Hold a trading day in your class. Provide product tokens, bags of small inexpensive
items or ask students to bring an item from home to trade. Set a spending limit of
$1 to $2. Tell students it is up to them to decide if they want to trade or not,
but set an objective to encourage vigorous trading. Each student can be given a
card listing his goal, such as collect four erasers or three pieces of gum or four
crayons in different colors or "You have eggs, but you need new shoes." Or, kids
can have competing goals such as everyone trying to collect a full set of items but
there is not enough for everyone to succeed. Discuss how the trades went, what
happened when some people completed a set and wouldn't trade anymore or how it felt
to not be able to accomplish your goal because you didn't have what other people
wanted. Talk about whether they were happy with the trades they made, and why or
why not. Ask if they were setting up their own society, whether they would make it
a monetary or barter system and explain their choice.

How can you bolster and maintain student engagement throughout your course? If
you’re in search of ideas, we’ve curated a collection of cutting-edge class
activities used by VentureWell faculty grantees. These class activities are
designed to prepare early-stage innovators in taking the first steps toward
transforming their ideas into impactful inventions and ventures.

aileen huang-saad
1) The “If I Knew…” Exercise
Aileen Huang-Saad
University of Michigan

“Each term, I end the class with the “If I knew” assignment. Students are asked to
fill out a simple PowerPoint template that asks the following questions:

When I signed up to take this class, I was expecting…

This is what I got out of the class…
If I had only known…
This is what I would change…
Before class, I go through all of the student responses and aggregate the feedback
into the themes. I then present the summary to the students for the last class and
we discuss their reflections. This summary presentation is then used to iterate on
the course for the following year and is assigned as the first reading for the next
cohort of students as their first assignment. This sets the stage for the next
class.”

pritpal singh
2) The Envelope Exercise
Pritpal Singh
Villanova University

“I like class activities like the envelope exercise developed by Tina Seelig at
Stanford University. In this exercise, the students are asked to plan for a two-
hour activity to increase an initial, unknown investment provided to them in an
envelope. The amount of money in the envelope is very small – around $2. The
students are usually surprised at how little money is in the envelope. Yet, every
time I’ve done this exercise, the students have increased the investment money
provided to them. The exercise helps students realize how easy it is for them to
make money. I was particularly delighted when the students at the Bluefields,
Indian, and Caribbean University in Nicaragua came to this realization. These
students are generally from relatively poor communities and lack confidence in
their ability to make money. When they performed this exercise and realized how
easily they could make money, it was really eye-opening and thrilling for them. It
was also a very rewarding experience for me.”

3) The Get Out of the Building Exercise

Rodney Boehm
Texas A&M University

“I provide exercises that get students out of the building. Nothing shapes a
student’s perception about their idea or market better than talking with a
customer. Most students are uncomfortable when they start a conversation with a
potential customer. Once they are comfortable with the skill, it transforms them
and their way of thinking.”

Laquita Blockson headshot

4) The Pure Imagination Exercise
Laquita Blockson
Agnes Scott College

“During the second week of my introductory entrepreneurship courses, I conduct a

team exercise to convey the importance of creativity. I first show my students the
“Pure Imagination” scene from the 1971 film Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,
asking them to listen carefully to the lyrics. This prepares them to think beyond
normal convention during the exercise. I then provide each team with a common
household item—a clothespin, a pill bottle, a cotton t-shirt, for example—and
instruct them to think of alternative uses for their item. Once the teams have
identified ways their item can be repurposed, I encourage them to contemplate how
to deconstruct and reconstruct each item to make it more user-friendly. I find this
exercise particularly useful because many of my students are not business or
engineering majors, so by inspiring them with a film that they have likely seen,
and by using common items, they are able to better internalize the connection
between creativity and entrepreneurial opportunity.”

ruth ochia
5) The Defining Problems Exercise
Ruth Ochia
Temple University

“In my introductory course, I work on students developing a sense for defining

problems. I show pictures that contain many potential issues. The students are
asked to define the issues they can see and what questions they would ask or
additional information they would want to help define the problems. They always
want to start with solutions, but the key is to get them to define the problem
better, which is half the work of solving the problem anyway.”

SIGN UP TO RECEIVE UPDATES FROM VENTUREWELL

deb streeter
6) The Flipped Classroom Exercise
Deb Streeter
Cornell University

“I think almost all entrepreneurship professors use class activities to create what
is now considered to be a “flipped classroom.” I’m no different. Students in my
courses work to develop business ideas and concepts, go out to understand
customers, pivot, pitch, and spend time outside the building to learn and practice
Lean Startup concepts. I also try to spark interesting conversations inside my
classroom. Sometimes I do that by using short, focused video clips or the Startup
podcast. I use the mishaps and adventures featured in the podcast to illuminate
important ideas and concepts. The episodes are a perfect match with so many
concepts related to entrepreneurship and Lean Startup. The class becomes very
invested and opinionated about the founders and the company.”

Jed Taylor
7) The Business Thesis Exercise
Jed Taylor
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

“There is a simple business thesis exercise that we use in our I-Corps program that
teaches teams to articulate their value proposition and customer segment in a
concise way. It sounds simple, but it always amazes me how challenging it is for
students to do at first. I even crack out this exercise every time that I give a
guest lecture across campus.”

8) The Soft Skills Exercise

Cheryl Bodnar
Rowan University

“I use game-based class activities to help students develop their soft skills such
as oral communication and teamwork, both of which are critical for entrepreneurs.
Each player has a card with various symbols on it, and only one of the symbols on
their individual card is defined. Without showing their cards to other players,
participants have to decode the symbols and reveal the message on their individual
cards, using only oral communication. The end result: all players enter a color on
a rainbow-colored game board and the whole class wins.”

joe tranquillo
9) The Blindfold Exercise
Joe Tranquillo
Bucknell University

“In some classes I teach, I will hand out blindfolds and ask everyone to put them
on. Then they pair up. Their task is to leave the second floor of the engineering
building, navigate the campus, find the library, stand in line at the café and
order a coffee or tea. The pair only gets to take off their blindfold when they get
their beverage. Afterward we deconstruct this activity. The most important insight
is that we as educators talk a lot about knowing your customer. Sometimes the only
way to really understand a customer is to live in their world. After this activity
the challenge is to find ways to become or simulate how to be your customer.
Students seem to remember these class activities for a very long time!”

10) The Two-Minute Pitch Exercise

Christine E. King
University of California, Irvine

“I teach the students how to design websites and we train them how to perform two-
minute pitches. I love watching the students get excited about their project, and
learn how to understand the big picture. These pitches are then presented at our
final symposium to industry judges. We provide the winning team with funding and
resources to start their company. Each year, we have 1 to 3 student teams form
companies and continue to develop their venture beyond their degree. It creates
such an exciting environment to teach in, as what we show them becomes applied
immediately into their careers.”

For many student inventor entrepreneurs, their first exposure to innovation and
entrepreneurship happens in the classroom. That’s why it’s important to
continuously develop and improve upon innovation and entrepreneurship class
activities to ensure early-stage innovators are well-equipped to solve the world’s
biggest problems. Learning curriculum development ideas and best practices from
other faculty in the ecosystem can help educators adopt, implement, and refine
their own coursework for maximum impact.

submitted events.

onyx events

1. startup sunday

Form random groups of the participants and pitch the idea to a panel consisiting of
people from our college who already run a comapny in our college may it be a senior
or external. to make it diffrent from sharktank or any previous challenge, we
provide them with a specific challenge or a particular domain around which the
company should revolve.

2. Camp-onyx

This event can be similar to an open mic where people come up individually and talk
about who advancements can be made in the any field. if we do it like a pick and
speak, we can give a list of specific domains or let the speakers choose their
topics on their own free will and give us complete rundown of how their preferred
field or problem is and how they would amp it up.

3.Bartering Simulations

Hold a trading day in the club. Provide product tokens, bags of small inexpensive
items or ask students to bring an item to trade. Set a spending limit of 100 to
200. Tell students it is up to them to decide if they want to trade or not, but set
an objective to encourage vigorous trading. Each student can be given a card
listing his goal, or "You have pens, but you need new shoes." Or, participants can
have competing goals such as everyone trying to collect a full set of items but
there is not enough for everyone to succeed.

4.Imagination-exploration

Provide each team with a common household item—a clothespin, a pill bottle, a
cotton t-shirt, for example—and instruct them to think of alternative uses for
their item. Once the teams have identified ways their item can be repurposed, the
team with the most efficient and mire number of ways in which the item can be
reused wins.

5.inventor challenge.

Give the person a set of staple elements used to build basic things. whever comes
up with the most innovative invention and markets in the most innovative way wins
the challenge.

events that are my ace card

sell me this pen , similar to the movie wolf of wall street.