Marco van Gelderen
Department of Management and Organisation
School of Business and Economics
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Course Description:
The course “Enterprising Skills” uses experiential formats to train students in the skills needed to become ‘givers’. It does so by taking value creation out of the new venture context.
In the first part, students create value for others in daily life. Students work on so-called challenges that alert them to the endless possibilities for doing so. In part one, participants are trained in the skills to recognise, create, and act on those opportunities. Each challenge trains students in the competencies of generating ideas for opportunities, taking action, perseverance, networking and network utilization, teamwork, and convincing others. A detailed description of the learning activities and outcomes of part one has been published in Frontiers in Psychology.
Then, based on their experiences and learnings in the first part, students work to acquire a new enterprising skills-related behavior of their own choosing by means of a method called Deliberate Practice. Students choose and investigate their own point of improvement. Each student works on whatever new behavior they want to acquire. For each individual student, the student and the teacher co-create an individualized learning task, situated in daily life and in accordance with deliberate practice principles. Deliberate practice, if done right, is very powerful, but it’s not for the faint-hearted! A detailed description of the learning activities and outcomes of part two has been published in Education + Training.
Course evaluations are very positive and indicate lasting benefits, even years later.
“It’s quite amazing to know at the start of the course, without knowing what they will actually work on, that at least some of the students will come out transformed, even in the long term.” – Marco
Short description of the Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award
The purpose of the award is to encourage not only innovations in pedagogy but also the dissemination of such innovations. Criteria for evaluation of nominations included (1) the innovativeness and novelty of the content and pedagogical process; (2) the demonstrated and potential impact and transferability; and (3) the course’s relevance (e.g., actionable lessons for entrepreneurs, addresses a social need).
The teaching committee would like to thank all participants for putting together excellent proposals! Our jury members were impressed by the quality of the material presented, and we are proud to see that our Division members are nurturing future entrepreneurs through their teaching curricula.