"Experience is what you do with what happens to you"
Epictetus was right. Experience is not what happens to you... it is the lessons you take away. No lessons, no transformational learning. Wrong lessons... even worse.
Every so often, someone (re)discovers that entrepreneurial learning could be much more impactful. Does anyone disagree with that? But how do we do that? For example, an exercise is not “experiential” unless it facilitates deep cognitive change. And that requires professional-grade expertise as an educator and the ability to assess that it actually happened. Two things where our field is disadvantaged.
Most recently, our friend Herman Aguinis suggested that we think of great entrepreneurship education as “extreme”. While I like the metaphor, what else must we do? (The following is a response I added to his post on the AoM ENT listserv. Thought I’d get your thoughts!)
Herman - thanks for raising this! So how do we get started effectively?
We cannot do what you suggest without two vital prerequisites: <TL;DR version>
???1) rigorous training in education?theory & practice and
???2) rigorous assessment of educational impact (which requires #1)
Good news: it is definitely time to talk about this. Let's talk - Herman, I'll round up the right people and let's get this going.?
Better news: A+ people are working at both! If interested, email me directly. (The Europeans/UK are way ahead of us; I'd love to hear my friends over there chime in on all this.)??Want more? Read on! :)?
<non-TL;DR>
How do we go "extreme"? Ask this question: “What DO we owe entrepreneurial learners?”
Herman - I know that you have seen this (call it a manifesto) that I developed for ICSB and has been shared by HE Innovate, OECD, and others.* <this weekend's #ADV_ENT reading: https://bit.ly/2021EntEdManifesto> But you cannot improve human learning much with just a few clever exercises. You want to go "extreme", then we need much, much more. For example, how many people think that "hands-on" equals "experiential"? How do you know something is genuinely experiential if you do not assess rigorously? How do you make something truly experiential without a deep understanding of how humans learn? **
The two important pieces that we can address right now are that:
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1) we need desperately to assess our impact rigorously. What if AACSB chose to require that? (and not self-servingly.) We know how to do that! But we are not doing that (simply look at the myriad of papers/articles that either lack the slightest expertise at how humans learn, non-generalizable research designs, or both.) This is NOT a place for those who don't have a very strong background in education theory & practice. But this IS fixable, if you are willing. We have the right people working on this. And there are HUGE opportunities.
How do we get started? One particularly good gateway assessment is HE Innovate's EPIC tool that offers a multi-faceted assessment tool designed to be developmental. Another is EntreComp for entrepreneurial skills.*** Another still in progress is a theory-driven (cognitive science) assessment of the entrepreneurial mindset. Watch this video - and let me know how my friends & I can help you get you & your school involved.**** <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JKyyMxJUCfI>
OUR OPPORTUNITY: Huge publishable research possibilities!
2) We also need to take advantage of advances in education theory & practice. Thought experiment: We replace an entrep professor with a good kindergarten teacher. The students would be at an initial disadvantage but how many months till the kids got a better education? I've found this insight is not popular, lol. Read more at the first link and consider another thought experiment: What if the government required that every instructor must have thorough training (say 250 hours) in education theory & practice? (Any of my Dutch friends wish to chime in on BKO?)
OUR OPPORUNITY: Envision how much better our students would be! Visibly better. Maybe more important, external stakeholders will also be thrilled.
How do we get started? What if we developed a rigorous educator training program? We have people who could do this. At the end of the first link is a list of the people that *I* listen to and learn from - please follow them! To start: Read Colin Jones' "How to Teach Entrepreneurship" book. And read almost anything by Andy Penaluna. To paraphrase Andy: If you want to get better at teaching and assessment, talk to the people who already know how to do this. The "renegades" have started down this road; will you join us?
And one final, important positive takeaway! If someone forced universities to do rigorous assessment and serious educator training, which b-school department would do the best? A former AACSB president said entrepreneurship is the only program that could do that well. In fact, he chided us for not doing that :)
p.s. again, if interested, email me directly.?
Cheers! Norris
* The response has been both gratifying (lots of cheers) and disappointing (almost zero interest in taking action, lol). But.. huge opportunities! Again, how can my friends & I help?
** Counter-examples include Doan Winkel’s Teaching Entrepreneurship and some national frameworks (e.g, N Macedonia & Wales).
*** go to HEInnovate.eu, search for “EPIC”. EntreComp is here.
**** shoutout to QREC at Kyushu that is getting involved. Gabi Kaffka (in video earlier) was EPIC's program manager.?
Business Development Manager at Tapit - Touch and go | Customer Experience Excellence | Operations Leader | Customer Service & Support Operations | Business Process Improvements
1 年Norris, thanks for sharing!
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1 年Basic Qualification for Education (BKO) is mandatory for teachers in HE. It does seem to lack focus on entrepreneurship. However, new insights on that front are in development. My PhD is on understanding the development of entrepreneurial mindset profiles through contingent teaching and scaffolding perspectives. Trying to unlock the black box in entrepreneurial educational programs that use effectuation, so we can better understand effective teaching strategies in situations within uncertainty.
Fintech Digital Identity Innovator, Advisor, Mentor and Mortgage Executive NMLS#19211, Idaho License # MLO-11462
1 年Step off the curb and into the slush. That is where life happens, right? Cheers!
Might I add a 3rd: practice LOTS to level up - gamers appreciate not getting to the next level until they have earned it and learned current level to 'finish'. Supporting those on their journey to level up is what a community or ecosystem can do beyond the classroom/lecturer. Observation: watching top level sports (Olympics, pro football/basketball/soccer,...) is a joy for fans and top athletes who know how difficult record times, one handed catch or getting up and keep going is. Supporting entrepreneurial learners with a ladder from starter to impact/unicorn founder seems to be a lot like sports: little league, high school, college, minors, league and then pros. Earning the right to advance in sports, business, and life is more than attendance and book work as many have 1 year of experience 10x rather than 10 years of experience building on previous and the insights of others. One of my mentors shared that those that who read and understand history are less likely to repeat it; be it their own history or that found in libraries. Another mentor shared farmers have been doing what entrepreneurs talk about for centuries and have one extra mega challenge 'mother nature/weather'.
A third manifesto point is one that Herman emphasized (and Samantha Steidle, PhD loves too) is that we need to reinforce a supportive ecosystem for entrep ed; we have more stakeholders internal and external than we realize* A great entrep ecosystem needs - and offers - great opps for entrep learning! * cf. Weerts & Sandemann