1.4 Stimulating learners’ creativity and value creation

Entrepreneurial minds are restless in their will to create new or better solutions and outputs. Sometimes this means seeking and testing various ideas, and opening one’s mind to alternative ideas.
The 30 circles challenge is a a nice warm up activity that suits all ages (just remember to give more time to younger students). You can ask your students how many drew a funny face, how many a sun, or ask them if they want to share some ideas that they are particularly proud of. Another follow up from this activity could be to pair the students and ask them to compare their outputs, looking out for similarities and differences.

Have you ever wondered what creativity is and how it may be defined? Dominic Wyse, professor at UCL in the UK, has been working on the topic for several years. In his inaugural professorial lecture in 2014, he explains that originality and value are undeniable features of creativity. Dominic defines creativity as “a person’s ability to create something that is regarded by appropriately qualified people as original and of value” . He considers that teachers are the “qualified people” that are asked to judge the creative outputs and processes of their students.

 In the context of entrepreneurial learning and of this MOOC, we think of creativity as possibility thinking, the “what if?”. We consider that creative processes enable us to generate ideas, and that idea and possibility generation is central for enterprising students (and teachers).

Creativity can be fostered or nurtured. At the same time, it can be stifled or scorned. We would like you to reflect on creativity in the classroom. In discussing this, we would like to apply the Reverse thinking method (which is actually a method for creative idea generation).

As the term ‘reverse thinking’ itself suggests, instead of adopting the logical, normal manner of looking at a challenge you reverse it, and think about opposite ideas. For instance, if I want to find ways to lose weight, I might ask myself the question “how can I put on more kilos?”.

This method for generating ideas is easier and generally more fun. It lowers fear of saying the wrong thing (as you are talking about bad examples) and stimulate wider dialogue. It also allow us to look at things from a different perspective.

How schools (or education) might be discouraging creativity? in this Tricider, ideas are shared.

Boosting a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship in your students - European Schoolnet Academy Mooc

1.3 spotting opportunities

The question is...
In what situations (from every part of life) can this competence (spotting opportunities) be fostered? 
Suggest ways for your school to support the empowerment of students in spotting opportunities.

The more I think about it the more I get confused on how to reply.

Entrepreneurship is very often associated with identifying problems, needs, and coming up with creative solutions for the benefit of others. Often, entrepreneurship minds bring the attention of others to needs and opportunities that they have not considered before by trying to look at things from various perspectives.

Sometimes we do not spot opportunities because we are not used to see things from a different perspective.

So I think that helping students develop the ability to see things from a different perspective must begin in the early school years (pre-primary and primary school), through play and funny activities. The "what is like to be a ...." activity can offer a lot. Changing roles and imagining. Can this be implemented in schools on a daily basis? 

Growing up, these students will be able to spot opportunities. Connecting subjects with real life situations, spending more time outdoors instead of staying in the classroom, allowing free expression of ideas, giving the speech to students can foster this competence. We just need to create the frame to express it. I would like to see thematic "ideas that matter" school contests, innovative students councils' initiatives, "walk in my shoes" projects.
The QR codes that are mentioned offer an attractive to students means. I can't think of something more specific at the moment but I'll keep reflecting.

(I liked the "what is like to be a cat" activity and I imagined teaching about agriculture through a "what is like to be a plant" concept)

Final thought...how important is imagination in spotting opportunities? Imagine, close your eyes and create in your mind something that doesn't exist. Isn't it obvious that reading fairy tales in early years and fiction stories later on, help imagination grow so that the ability of taking a different perspective to things and situations is fostered?

Boosting a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship in your students - European Schoolnet Academy Mooc

1.2 Entrepreneurial education in my school/classroom

Entrepreneurial education is introduced and implemented in various ways in Europe. There are three ways of promoting entrepreneurship education: 

1. by fostering entrepreneurship education through one specific subject; 

2. by adopting entrepreneurial education as a cross-curricular and transversal competence applicable to all subjects; and 

3. by thinking of entrepreneurial education as a method rather than an aim. 

What is the state of entrepreneurial education in your country/region/school?

• Entrepreneurship education is embedded in the school culture, where it is promoted through several actions by all teachers/educators;
• A cross-curricular approach, where entrepreneurship education objectives are expressed as being transversal and horizontal across different subjects;
• Entrepreneurship education is taught as a compulsory separate subject, or as part of (a) compulsory subject(s);
• Entrepreneurship education is taught as an optional subject, or as part of (an) optional subject(s);
• Entrepreneurship education is not taught at all.

We are asked to share our experience on Twitter using #entreprecourse or in the course community.

Hmmm....let's see...

I teach in a vocational highschool, where entrepreneurship can be taught in an optional school activity project, laying on the initiative of a teacher to take the responsibility of it. I'm not sure if there are relevant compulsory subjects in the department of Economics. So, to have entrepreneurship education we firstly need teachers with entrepreneurial mindset, who will identify the need for it and go ahead and improvise , more or less. Entrepreneurial activities could be implemented into the "vocational guidance" course which is compulsory in grade A but still it lays on the hands of the teacher. I would personally like to see school culture dealing with entrepreneurial education as a method rather than an aim.

by the way...here is an excellent info-graphic from Kornelia Lohynova. As I see it, schools in Greece are not ready to support entrepreneurial education, be it due to lack of means or lack of teachers' attitude and skills.

Boosting a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship in your students - European Schoolnet Academy Mooc

1.1 Entrepreneurial mind-set and sense of initiative

Module 1 is about Engaging students through entrepreneurship education

First question to reflect on: 

What does an entrepreneurial mind-set consist of? What are the skills and attitudes that you can think of.

my answer

"The sense of initiative and entrepreneurship is the ability to turn ideas into action through creativity,innovation, and risk-taking as well as the ability to plan and manage projects.

In other words, entrepreneurial learning, as seen in this course, is not about preparing the next business leaders of our society, but is about nurturing open- minded, creative thinkers. It’s a mind-set which would allow pupils to approach every opportunity, goal or challenges with the same curiosity and creativity, regardless of the context, subject, and situation."

Reflecting on the skills needed, I find it more and more complicated to define them, analyse them. What about self-confidence, perseverance, resilience? They are not skills but internal abilities and together with skills they are more or less interconnected and they need as a basis an already gained general growth mindset.

Boosting a sense of initiative and entrepreneurship in your students - European Schoolnet Academy Mooc