INNOVATORS OF TOMORROW – STUDENTS BECOMING INNOVATORS OF TOMORROW BY PARTICIPATING IN STUDIES OF EXCELLENCE. WHEN THE LATEST KNOWLEDGE BECOMES THE HIGHLY COVETED INGREDIENT OF POTENTIAL SUCCESS

The research was thus initiated to identify and develop procedures, guidelines and pedagogical practices for both lecturers and students regarding their ways in which they apply the latest and most relevant knowledge.
In this paper we thus intend to discuss and elaborate on the challenges we identified amongst lecturers when applying the latest knowledge in their lectures. Furthermore we will discuss the various didactical and pedagogical strategies explored in order to ensure lecturers applying the latest knowledge in their practices henceforth.
"While existing research suggests that firms create breakthrough innovations by acquiring external knowledge and applying it to their particular situation, it also underscores the difficulties in doing so" (Loree, Bpuji and Crossan). This statement emphasizes the core of the matter; in order for a company to stay competitive, innovations are essential. However, acquiring and applying external knowledge, such as research is allegedly difficult. Our pilot research study, which will be presented in this paper, supported the above findings that it is indeed very difficult. It also indicated the need to explicate what is a good practice when it comes to new knowledge and how do we ensure good practices for both lecturers and students.Our pilot study also indicated that both lecturers and students benefitted once lecturers were able to bring forth new knowledge and integrate in their lecturers.
Based on the pilot research study we have identified the needs which have led to the following research question:
In the attempt to ensure that lecturers include and support their lectures and curriculum based on the newest knowledge and that the lecturers are able to develop and bring forth good practices of how to apply the latest knowledge to students, we ask:
How can we organize and ensure a practice of the identification and application of the latest and most relevant knowledge to enhance lecturers using it? How can this practice become an integrated part of teaching? How can we develop a pedagogical practice in order to ensure students apply it upon graduation? Methodologically our research study is based on design based research thinking whereby the study is created involving the lecturers and students in an experiment on how to develop and form a practice. Our pilot research started by interviewing lecturers about their typical practice on how they would prepare for lectures and how they developed lecturing materials. This indicated a need to further develop new practices. In the pilot study, the lecturers were to prepare their lectures based on a selection of peer-reviewed articles and only use the textbooks etc. as supplements. This procedure is based on the Anchoring and Adjustment Theory (Tversky & Kahneman 1974), which proves that the point of departure for a negotiation will dictate that the place for the result to and will be somewhere near the point of departure. The presumption is that this will generate a higher quality of lectures (through a higher level of knowledge) and in the material. As part of the experiment, the students were introduced to Bloom’s Taxonomy, which provided an insight and understanding of the background for learning and knowledge building. Our current research applies the design based research methodology and is thus methodologically a continuation and elaboration of our pilot research study.