Tuesday 18 December 2012

Creating the Entrepreneurial University: The Educational Rationale

http://www.unialliance.ac.uk/site/2012/12/10/creating-the-entrepreneurial-university-the-educational-rationale/


Students on Caerleon Lawn
For some time, my work, both at theUniversity of Wales, Newport, and at previous Universities has been developing initiatives, structures and mindsets towards promoting the model of an entrepreneurial university.
Where I have worked to implement this type of Higher Education provision, there has been a long, and successful, history of HE providers of high-quality professional programmes, such as here in Newport working closely with businesses and the community on promoting entrepreneurship. In South East Wales, we have remained committed to developing a vibrant City-Region with students having access to incubator centres. We see the Entrepreneurial University as a more strategic, holistic framework for this development which is complementary and supportive to our Mission rather than divergent.
We need to equip our students with different types of ‘life skills’, or most importantly, the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and acquire new skills and new learning.
The environment in which we live is subject to increasing change, and change that is accelerating. It is likely that our students, for example, will experience far more change in their lives than most of us (the staff) ever have, or ever will, over the course of our lifetimes. Many of our current students will change their jobs several times, and perhaps even as many as ten times, they will have to retrain many times over, travel and work abroad, go into self-employment and, on occasions, have to deal with unemployment. They will have to learn to use technologies that are currently beyond our imagination.
That is a responsibility – as well as a head-ache for educators. We need to equip our students with different types of ‘life skills’, or most importantly, the ability to adapt to changing circumstances and acquire new skills and new learning. In fact, we need to prepare our students for jobs that have not yet been invented. The best way, is to enable them to acquire personal entrepreneurial capacity to deal with the far greater levels of uncertainty, complexity and even periods of chaos in both their work and personal life.
As organisations entering a period of diminishing resources, we need to be entrepreneurial ourselves; more driven, more competitive and more commercial.
This wider perspective on entrepreneurship places emphasis on entrepreneurial learning in which the pedagogical and organisational processes are developed necessary to support entrepreneurial competency and attributes across a range of different disciplinary and multi-disciplinary subject contexts on degree and diploma programmes.
The idea of setting up programmes, and even organisations, to develop entrepreneurial capacity in students and graduates is not only espoused by the private sector, but applies to all organisations, and particularly to start-ups including social enterprises. Entrepreneurial skills and capabilities  (the so-called ‘entrepreneurial mindset’) are equally important in the management and leadership of public bodies and social, or charitable, organisations, and this recognition is all the more vital at a time when public funding diminishes. There is an obvious potential link between the work of a university as developer of entrepreneurial mindsets and the university itself as ‘entrepreneurial organisation’.
Indeed, the Entrepreneurial University is designed to play a significant role in the regeneration of its local region, enable and transfer innovation and provide entrepreneurial leadership in partnership with business and government bodies – the so-called Triple Helix. As organisations entering a period of diminishing resources, we need to be entrepreneurial ourselves; more driven, more competitive and more commercial.
Behind our idea of an Entrepreneurial University at Newport sits a body of literature and educational thinking that has arisen in the UK and abroad. Much of the recent thinking in this respect is influenced by the work of Professor Allan Gibb, Paul Hannon and others who have developed the Entrepreneurial University Leadership Programme (EULP), initially based at Said Business School, Oxford, and now sponsored by Universities UK and the National Centre for Entrepreneurship in Education.
We also have the responsibility to equip our students with the skills to be the very best that they can be.
Highly relevant to this is the work of the US Kauffman Foundation and its Cross-Campus Entrepreneurial Education Initiative, the Innovative University models of Linkoping and Twente, in the European Consortium of Innovative Universities (ECIU) and, in the UK, the work of NESTA and Professor John Goddard in formulating the Connected University within a ‘learning region’. The ideas in these papers and resources may now be becoming of age as the Times Higher Education Supplement now runs an annual competition for UK entrepreneurial universities.
As students are increasingly demanding to be equipped with skills for portfolio careers, universities find themselves developing further the ideas of the Entrepreneurial University, which provides a model that will not only provide for individual enterprise and institutional growth in more uncertain times.  We also have the responsibility to equip our students with the skills to be the very best that they can be.

Wednesday 28 November 2012

Caine's Arcade


"Creativity, Community Engagement and alternative Learning Environment at it's best." (Iván Diego Rodríguez)


The follow-up movie


http://cainesarcade.com/


Monday 26 November 2012

3E Conference: Inaugural ECSB Entrepreneurship Education Conference Aarhus, Denmark on 29–31 May 2013



The past decades have borne witness to a rapid increase in the offerings of entrepreneurship education across Europe. There is an explicit political agenda both at the national level and at the EU level to promote entrepreneurship education at all levels of the school system because policy makers expect that entrepreneurial skills to be the key to enhancing an innovative culture, which in turn will result in higher competitiveness and economic growth. However, in order to achieving these objectives it is important that educational systems and methods move from traditional to creative, interactive and student-centred educational models that will help change student mindset and prepare students for the challenges of the future.

Through an innovative and untraditional format, the conference establishes a new paradigm for entrepreneurship conferences. It offers an exclusive and engaging opportunity for researchers, educators and politicians to debate and exchange their experiences of the major challenges and advances in enterprise education with a special and unique focus on Europe. Unlike more traditional academic events, the conference will focus on problems and questions rather than on ready-made solutions and presentations of research findings. There will be an award for the best question.

Who should attend: Potential participants include entrepreneurship education researchers, research-based educators from both tertiary and secondary institutions as well as trainers and policy makers.more info: http://www.3e2013.org/

Wednesday 7 November 2012

EU Enlargement Region: A Magna Carta For Entrepreneurial Learning

Building on an already established cooperation framework for lifelong entrepreneurial learning, ministers from the EU pre-accession countries of South Eastern Europe and Turkey reconfirmed their commitment to lifelong entrepreneurial learning. At the summit called by the Croatian government on 23 October, all eight countries signed a charter committing the countries to continued cooperation and support for entrepreneurship promotion across all levels of education.

 Charter for Entrepreneurial Learning: the keystone for growth and jobs

 The Charter builds on an existing cooperation framework provided by the South East European Centre for Entrepreneurial Learning, where each country’s education and economy ministries are represented. Through the Charter the countries will reinforce commitment to systemic developments in lifelong entrepreneurial learning through continued policy improvement, good practice sharing and regional cooperation.

A centrepiece of the pre-accessions region’s ‘growth and jobs’ agenda

 In his opening address, Niven Mimica, Croatia’s Deputy Prime Minister set the context for the summit. ‘Faced with a continuing global crisis we must work together to head off the challenges to our economies,’ said Mimica, He added: ‘our common European future requires us to work towards the EU 2020 objectives of smart, inclusive and sustainable growth.’ The meeting was chaired by Gordan Maras, Croatian Minister for Entrepreneurship and Crafts, who stressed the importance of education-economy cooperation for enhanced growth and jobs. The point was reinforced by Croatia’s education minister, Zlejko Jovanovic.

  Achievements and challenges

 The summit heard from a range of high-level officials from the European Commission who joined the proceedings. Pierre Mairesse, representing the European Commission’s education services, congratulated all signatory countries of the Charter. ‘The European Union shares the principles of the Charter,’ he said. Marko Curavic of the Commission’s enterprise directorate warned delegates that ‘there are no shortcuts to building an entrepreneurial learning eco-system.’ He underlined the need for sustained investment in training of teachers, which the entrepreneurial learning agenda requires. Bo Caperman from the Commission’s enlargement services commended the countries for the excellent cooperation and achievements. The ETF was represented by its Director Madlen Serban. ‘The signing of the Charter is an historic moment for the region,’ said Serban.

E-corner, Stanford University's Entrepreneurship corner

Knowledge and inspiration, one entrepreneur at a time. Stanford University’s Entrepreneurship Corner offers 2000 free videos and podcasts, featuring entrepreneurship and innovation thought leaders. Check out more here:

Friday 5 October 2012

The Rise of Educator-Entrepreneurs: Bringing Classroom Experience to Ed-Tech

Most teachers are happy doing their job — helping kids understand and make sense of the world around them. But there’s a growing number of educators who are wading into entrepreneurship, frustrated at the lack of tools they need, and wanting to extend their sphere of influence. As technology becomes more widely used and accepted in the classroom, teachers are taking their ideas about how to improve learning environments, sharing them online, and creating web-based tools to benefit teachers and students. At the same time, the fact that the multi-billion dollar ed-tech space is exploding has not gone unnoticed by investors. Programs like Imagine K12 run crash courses in ed-tech entrepreneurship, connecting fledgling companies to Silicon Valley venture capital firms (and staking out a six percent equity). But, as most educators know, while tech entrepreneurs can sometimes hit gold, not every newly minted site or software is useful to teachers. That’s what sets educator entrepreneurs apart — they have relevant classroom experience that can’t be gained any other way than by doing the hard work of teaching. CASE STUDIES Jack West has taught for 16 years and has been at Sequoia High School in Redwood City for most of that time. He’s a physics teacher and is naturally inclined to innovate, even if his students aren’t as enthusiastic about his non-traditional teaching style. West returned to traditional teaching for eight years until he figured out how to use his innovative techniques not only to spice things up, but to actually help his students do better. That’s what led to the launch this year of Braincandy, a tool to help students understand the underlying concepts behind their misperceptions. “Teachers are usually the last people to be consulted on many of these education technology companies.” West and his co-founders wrote trick-questions on physics concepts that many kids get wrong. The answer choices are all the common misperceptions. The goal is for students to be completely sure that they’re choosing the right answer, the obvious answer, only to find out that most got it wrong. “These aren’t test questions. They are instructional questions,” explained West. “So what we’re trying to do is create a discrepancy event, a shocking event to open the door for a teachable moment.” West is going for an even distribution of wrong answers that shock students and allows him to create discussion and activity around understanding the misconceived concept. West found that his students performed better on the Force Concepts Inventory, a test for honors physics students and first year college students on basic physics concepts when he used this technique. So far, nine other Bay Area teachers are trying Braincandy techniques on physical science, chemistry and biology students, and West is receiving help from Silicon Valley techies and business entrepreneurs to build out his site. The time is ripe for teachers to use their natural inclination to innovate to help the kids that they are failing, he said. “If I do more of the same and just do it better — I’ve seen that trajectory, and I feel like I’ve gone as far as I can with that and I need to try something else,” West said. “Based on my experience and the luck of the draw, technology is my channel.” Adam Bellow, another ed-tech entrepreneur, recently developed a Pinterest-like tool for teachers called eduClipper. Bellow is based in New York and has spent much of his career helping teachers use technology in the classroom more effectively. “The biggest issue that we have as teachers is finding and sharing good stuff,” Bellow said. “You have teachers that are open to doing these things, that want to, but who don’t necessarily know where to go or don’t feel they have a time to find them.” He wants eduClipper to fill that void and for students and teachers to interact on the site, sharing the buckets of useful links, videos and infographics with one another. Students could even use the site as way to develop a digital portfolio, he said. Bellow built the tool to serve a need he found distinctly lacking. “The reason I’m building this tool is that I’ve seen so many companies build websites that they think are cool, or that they think address a need, without consulting teachers. Teachers are usually the last people to be consulted on many of these education technology companies,” Bellow said. The site has already drawn 25,000 users and he actually isn’t accepting more until he rolls out the next version of the site. Beyond just helping teachers, Bellow is most excited about features directed at students and meant to encourage them to create. He wants eduClipper “to have students inspire other students to make real things,” the way that the Maker Faire events have done. With a body of work to carry with them, students would be able to show achievement through more than just testing.
Digital Harbor Foundation James Sanders, who worked as a teacher for many years, is another educator wading into entrepreneurship. For his day job, Sanders works as the Innovation Manger for KIPP, Bay Area Schools. But he’s also partnered with Esther Wojcicki, a journalism teacher at Palo Alto High, and Duncan Winter, to create ClassBadges, scheduled to launch Monday. It’s a digital platform for teachers and students to collect badges for mastery of certain topics. The badges represent learning experiences both inside and outside the classroom. For example, a student could get a badge for going to a museum and completing an exercise related to the visit. Sanders sees ClassBadges as a way for students to look back at a digital record of what they learned – plus it’s fun and uses elements of gamification that students are already accustomed to. Sanders agreed with both Bellows and West that education is at a crossroads. “Everyone agrees this is finally a time where people are opening up to the idea of change in the classroom and the power of technology,” said Sanders. “People recognize that this is a powerful tool for learning.” Educators are taking advantage of the moment, and the flurry of investor interest in ed-tech, to leverage some of their innovations into products. Here are some other educator-initiated companies and non-profits: READ MORE ON BLOGS.KQED

Thursday 20 September 2012

Check out our new brochure!

SCREENSHOT
downloadlink on adeptt.eu (pdf) you need acrobat reader for this: http://get.adobe.com/reader/

Monday 17 September 2012

Lean LaunchPad teaching

"In this short video,  Steve Blank tackles the difficult question: How do we teach entrepreneurship? Steve Blank is the creator of the Lean LaunchPad and faculty member at UC Berkeley, Stanford University and Columbia University.The Lean LaunchPad teaching approach emphasizes experiential learning and feedback as a way to engage students with real-world entrepreneurship.

Friday 31 August 2012

John Hattie, Visible Learning: effective methods

Edited highlights of a talk by John Hattie where he outlines some of the most successful methods to promote learning



Part two:

Wednesday 8 August 2012

3EP Summer Academy, 26th - 31st August 2012, Osijek Croatia




 
 The European Entrepreneurship Educators (3EP) aims to support and develop
enterprise education through dedicated week long European Annual Summer
Academies (EASA) from 2010 to 2012. In support of key Oslo Agenda, the EASAs
will develop pedagogy and support institutional change, building confidence
and practice in educators. It's an opportunity for peers to share
"know-how", create entrepreneurial outcomes making a difference to personal
practice, students, colleagues and institutions.
  • Are you looking to embed enterprise and entrepreneurship in your teaching?
  • Do you work to develop entrepreneurial sprits in your students?
  • Are you looking for new ways to engage your learners?
  • Keen to share your practice and learn from others?
  • Do you want to develop your teaching in a more entrepreneurial way?
  • Is your work involved in creating new enterprises?
This Summer Academy delivered 6 thematic areas over 6 days, through 50
pedagogies, supported by a "3EP entrepreneur-in-residence", which is all
underpinned by full detailed session materials to aid future teaching
practice (available on the exclusive virtual learning environment).

The Summer Academies create an unique network of up to 180 Fellows alumni
which will be supported over the 3 years of the programme by dedicated
mentors and the 3EP team.

3EP's current alumni based on EASAs in Finland and Denmark include 75
educators from 56 institutions, representing 22 European nations.
Be a part of the next European Annual Summer Academy:

Osijek, Croatia

26th - 31st August 2012

http://3ep.eu/




Tuesday 17 July 2012


INTERESTING EVENT: Supporting Inclusive Entrepreneurship in Europe:
Creating Sustainable Employment and Promoting Equal Opportunities
The Silken Berlaymont Hotel, Brussels
Tuesday 18th September 2012


KEY SPEAKERS:
Mr. Marko Curavic
Head of Unit, Entrepreneurship
DG ENTR, European Commission
Ms. Madi Sharma
Group I - Employers - UK
European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)

Monday 16 July 2012

Introducing the CRCL Model



ADEPTT partners got together in Valnalon premises (Spain) in June to derive some conclusions from WP2 research and start shaping the teacher training module. The second project meeting received some coverage in the local media but that's another story you can read here (in spanish) 

ADEPTT basic premise considers enterprising teaching as a driver of enterprising learning.  The overall aim of ADEPTT teacher training module is to engage and equip teachers with tools to adopt more innovative and entrepreneurial approaches to teaching through a personalized and self-guided process that builds on enterprising elements already present in their teaching.

To set things on track four key enablers or building blocks or enterprising teaching have been identified under the acronym CRCL that stands for: 
  • Creativity
  • Reflective Practice
  • Community Engagement
  • Learning Environment. 

 The CRCL model is actually being  used as a scaffold to structure the contents of the teacher training module. Further info on each element of the model will follow soon. 


Thursday 5 July 2012

Entrepreneurial Education Learning Needs of Teachers



Theoretical findings and a survey with 200 teachers from 8 partner countries shows that there is a recognized need to implement entrepreneurship education in initial teacher training.


You can find the report here

According to the literature and the best practices’ results, an effective implementation of entrepreneurship education in teacher training, needs to consider 3 dimensions of learning:
  1. Specific Knowledge about Entrepreneurship
  2. Skills(e.g. entrepreneurial planning, organisation, communication, negotiation,  team work, risk assessment, capacity to identify opportunities, etc);
  3. Attitudes (e.g. initiative, proactivity, independence, motivation and determination to meet goals).
Considering all the dimensions analysed in this report, we recommend 5 areas of content to be included in future entrepreneurship teacher training initiatives:
  • Clarification of global concepts that help teachers understand the advantages of entrepreneurship and contribute with their own expertise to its definition and implementation.
  • A significant focus on entrepreneurship education and teaching methods that promote entrepreneurial attitudes.
  • Inclusion of enterprising teaching techniques that enhance teachers’ own entrepreneurial behaviour and practical knowledge.
  • Teaching trainees to train their own colleagues. Investing in dissemination  and networking.
  • A business coaching approach that allows teachers to follow-up, evaluate and coach their student’s start-up projects and small businesses. 

Experiences already carried out by the ADEPTT partners in entrepreneurship education inform us about difficulties that might be find in practice:
       Partnering between educational sector and industry,
       Certification and recognition of practices,
       Assessment/evaluation of the programs,

Report: Enterprising Minds: Enterprise, Further Education and the UK Economy


Enterprising Minds:  Enterprise, Further Education and the UK Economy (June 2012)”.  A new report published by the “Carnegie UK Trust” explores the attitudes of young people towards enterprise education and the future in a changing economy.  It focuses on how students view practical enterprise - starting a business or working self-employed - and the contribution education systems make to the understanding of these work types.  
 

REPORT: Enterprise Education: Impact and Delivery -- Insights from the Evidence


“Enterprise Education: Impact and Delivery -- Insights from the Evidence (May 2012)*  A new joint interim report published by the *Education and Employers Taskforce* and *Pearson Think Tank* highlights the widespread variation in access to enterprise and entrepreneurship education at school.  
 

Friday 11 May 2012

Are you a teacher or a student that believes that entrepreneurship is quite an issue nowadays?


The fact is that ET 2020, the new strategic framework for European cooperation in education and training points out the need to foster entrepreneurship, along with creativity and innovation, in all forms of learning irrespective of education level.

ADEPTT (Acknowledging and Developing Entrepreneurial Practice in Teacher Training) is a Transfer of Innovation project funded by the Spanish National Agency that focuses on designing, testing and promoting an innovative teacher training model to foster entrepreneurship across Europe.


teacher training Entrepreneurship education

It will run from October 2011 to September 2013 and has been specifically designed to fill a gap among the existing networks and initiatives by focusing not simply on teacher training on entrepreneurship but more concretely on designing and implementing tools to help them in the classroom and thus achieving considerable impact in the wider audience of students.

Our main aims include:

•    increasing the level of attention on the role of teachers as key stakeholders with the potential to generate awareness, commitment and enthusiasm of EU students to entrepreneurship;

•   promoting mutual understanding towards joint strategies among the key EU stakeholders working in teacher training to foster entrepreneurship;

•    Identifying, adapting and validating a teacher training model establishing a community of key stakeholders to support the current policy agenda.


ADEPTT is formed by a partnerships of 13 institutions from 8 EU countries which hold complementary competences as the partnership includes Universities, colleges, research centres, foundations, regional centres in charge of promoting entrepreneurship, a National Institute for Curriculum Development and a network.

Our outcomes include a Synthesis Report on Teachers Learning Needs &  Transferable Training Programmes Fostering Entrepreneurship, a Training Model published in ES, PT, DE, NO, UK, IS and Flemish, 2 evaluation reports and a variety of dissemination materials adapted to the users and policy makers.

For more information:

Wednesday 9 May 2012

Workpackage 2: surveys part 2


TEMPLATE FOR ACKNOWLEDGING AND DEVELOPING GOOD PRACTICES IN TEACHERS ENTREPRENEURIAL TRAINING

This questionnaire is part of the EU Leonardo Transfer of Innovation Project “Acknowledging and Developing Entrepreneurial Practice in Teacher Training” (ADEPTT). It is related to teacher training and entrepreneurship education and is intended to identify and describe good practices in teacher entrepreneurial training. Please fill in one template for each good practice identified and return until xx to
TITLE (please give the original practice title and add an English translation)


COUNTRY OF ORIGIN (Please specify the country where the good practice originated)


TYPE OF ACTION (Please mark the appropriate box with an X, choose the one that best applies)

Training Program

Stand alone subject (Embedded in the curricula)

Extra curricular (e.g. at schools)

Cross-curricular (e.g. project-based)
Community based (e.g. in a community organization)
Campaign/Action Program
Research/Tool

Other (please specify):      


CONTACTS (Please include contact details of the developer or original practitioner of the practice)
Name:

Organisation:

Position:

Role experience within the good practice:

Telephone:

e-mail:

Address:


FOR WHICH OF THE FOLLOWING PURPOSES IS THIS GOOD PRATICE CASE MORE RELEVANT (Please mark the appropriate box with an X, choose as many as apply)
For business-related entrepreneurship training
For social entrepreneurship training

For entrepreneurial attitudes training (Creativity, Networking, etc.)

IN WHAT AREA OF CONTENTS DOES THIS CASE SPECIFICALLY REPRESENT A GOOD PRATICE (Please mark the appropriate box with an X, choose as many as apply)

Personal development skills

Competences in entrepreneurial behavior and interpersonal relations

Problem identification / Curiosity / Inquisitiveness

Solution identification / Creativity

Marketing / Market analysis / Information gathering

Competences in social capital / networking

Opportunity identification / Opportunity assessment

Management

Legal aspects (including patents) company creation and registry
Business plan development
Risk assessment
Other (please specify):      

REFERENCES OF RELEVANT DOCUMENTS (Please give any references to documents that describe or assess the practice or the contentsor the contents of the practice)
     
(Author (date). Title. Journal/publisher); or links supporting to online documents)
GEOGRAPHICAL CONTEXT (Please choose the geographical context that best applies to this best practice)
European
National (in at least ~ 80% of regions), please specify country:      

Regional (please specify name or number of regions): 6
Other (please specify):      

OWNERSHIP (Please identify if there is proprietary ownership of the contents/methodology)
Y
N
if yes, please identify the owner

     

BRIEF CONTENT DESCRIPTION (Please specify the content. The description should be useful to someone considering implementation of the practice. (max 400 words)


DURATION & FUNDING (Please specify duration and frequency, start/end date and funding source - max 100 words)


MAIN ACHIEVMENTS (Please summarise briefly main results and/or impact achieved and how these were evaluated - max 400 words)


TRANSFERABILITY (Please state what particular methodology (ies), content(s) or tool(s) of this best practice you would recommend for transposal into an European best practice. Please add any limitations to such a transposal - max 400 words)


OTHER INFORMATION (Please attach other documentation on this best practice)



Disclosure Agreement:

I agree on collecting and processing the data I provided above by the ADEPTT Project. If the data were collected from a third person I state that I received unambiguous consent from the data subject on using it for this purpose. The purpose of the database is to provide to researchers, policy makers and all interested bodies, good practice in the area of teacher entrepreneurship training. Submission of the data is made on voluntary basics, and there are no consequences by not doing so. Data are collected according to the Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 December 2000 and you as a data subject have the right to have recourse at any time to the European Data Protection Supervisor.


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Thank you for your support!