Exploring Enterprise:
exploiting Enquiry-Based Learning to enhance
enterprise education
May 2009
Karen O’Rourke
Academic Developer and Teacher Fellow
Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
k.orourke@leedsmet.ac.uk
I have no special talents, I
am only passionately
curious
Me too!
•
Problem-Based Learning research, development and implementation in
English Literature with UK National Teaching Fellow
•
Set up and managed the first Pedagogic Research Centre in the Faculty of
Arts, The Victoria University of Manchester
•
Managed an externally-funded EBL staff development project delivered
across six UK HE institutions
•
Key member of Manchester team developing successful bid for Centre for
Excellence in Teaching and Learning - £4.5M
case studies and publications
student intern programmes and National Student Network
keynotes ,workshops and consultancies across the UK and in Ireland,
Italy, Spain, Sweden, USA, Canada, Mexico, Peru, Australia,
Finland....
Current area of interest is the link between enquiry-based learning and the
development of students’ entrepreneurial and intra-preneurial skills,
behaviours and attitudes
•
•
www.leedsmet.ac.uk/enterprise
During this workshop, you will:
• Engage in an EBL activity (or two....or three!)
• Have opportunities to
– Review some key EBL principles and processes
– Discuss some of the benefits of EBL
– Examine the applicability of EBL as a method to develop
entrepreneurial graduates
– Identify some opportunities and challenges in relation to
enterprise education
Our group contract
•We will work collaboratively and co-operatively
•Everyone should be encouraged to make a contribution
•Tasks should be completed by the designated deadline
•We will relax and enjoy ourselves!
•Any more….?
Your handouts
Find others in the room with the same colour paper clip
as yours
As a group, you have three minutes from the word ‘go’ to
come up with as many uses for a paper clip as you can
think of
Hints someone should note your ideas – this is a
competition! – so you will need a record
use your imagination!
Institute for Enterprise
My journey to Cheltenham....
TUBE
walking
escalator
elevator
TAXI
train
on separate post it notes, write down all
the modes of transport you used to get to
this workshop today, e.g.
Train
cycle
walk
bus
Hang on to those post-its!
Exploring ways to work together....
• Conduct a team investigation
– Pens
– flipchart
• Share information and use it to create an escutcheon that illustrates
your team’s
– Skills
– Interests
– Talents
– Diversity
– USP
You have ten minutes to complete the escutcheon followed by
two minutes ‘elevator pitch’ for each team
Any questions?
Assessment, Learning and Teaching Priorities
2008-12
‘Leeds Met puts students at the heart of everything
we do, enabling them to maximise their potential
and use all their talents to the full’
Helping students to engage in learning in exciting, flexible,
stimulating environments where creativity and individuality of
approach are encouraged
Offering an engaging, transformative and rounded experience for
our students e.g....through working with industry and our partners
Broadening student perspectives to enable them to develop skills
for learning, information literacy and enterprise
At Leeds Metropolitan University, enterprise
education is recognised as “an inclusive concept
which provides both the context in which subject
disciplines can be explored as well as an approach
to learning which can be taken to the exploration
and discovery of a discipline. In this respect, it can
provide a challenging environment within which to
explore a variety of teaching areas (such as a small
business context) as well as providing a new and
stimulating dimension to learning – that of being
enterprising”.
At Leeds Metropolitan University, enterprise
education is recognised as “an inclusive concept
which provides both the context in which subject
disciplines can be explored as well as an approach
to learning which can be taken to the exploration
and discovery of a discipline. In this respect, it can
provide a challenging environment within which to
explore a variety of teaching areas (such as a small
business context) as well as providing a new and
stimulating dimension to learning – that of being
enterprising”.
The CETL – Enterprise in the Curriculum
Supporting the development of a positive attitude to innovation,
personal change and development
Development, integration and embedding across all subject areas
and levels – beyond discrete activities and ‘bolt-on’ models
Underpinned by theory and grounded in practice
Subject knowledge and skills development
Engagement with with experts and professionals, developing
relationships and forming partnerships
Experiential learning approach – active, student-centred, reflective
The cure for boredom is curiosity.
There is no cure for curiosity....
Dorothy Parker
Amalgamate your post-its and discard
duplicates. Now think of as many OTHER
ways you could have got here and write
your ideas down on separate post-it notes
HINT – break the boundaries and be
imaginative!
swimming
Formula
One
racing car
On the back
of an
elephant
Be mindful of the ground
rules....
We’re nearly there!
Organise your post-it notes according to
common characteristics or themes
Identify opposites (e.g. fast/slow or fun/boring) and
re-sort if necessary
Take any two opposing themes and use them to
complete a Boston Box
Boston Box – an example
Fast
Slow
Expensive
Affordable
Review/Reflect
• How did your group approach the task?
• Who or what helped you?
• What hindered you?
• What resources did you need and find?
• What could you have done differently?
Developing intellectual skills
Evaluation
Synthesis
Analysis
Application
Comprehension
Knowledge
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Bloom’s Taxonomy
Knowledge – repeat, record, recall, list, relate
Comprehension – restate, discuss, explain, identify, tell
Application – interpret, apply, use, illustrate, demonstrate
Analysis – compare, contrast, question, debate, categorise
Synthesis – arrange, assemble, construct, create, organise
Evaluation – rate, compare, revise, judge, appraise
Hypothesis
Creativity and Innovation
Instinct
Intuition
new territory to explore
Evaluation
Synthesis
Challenging landscape
Analysis
Application
Comprehension
‘safe’ environment
Knowledge
Based on Beard, C. Sheffield Hallam University
Getting down to it
• You are an interdisciplinary team working in Local
Government, Town Planning department. You have
been asked to develop a transport strategy for getting
the public from London to the University of Sussex. You
have 3 weeks to produce an outline strategy.
• What’s your action plan? (15 minutes)
• Present your initial action plan to colleagues (3 minutes)
• Feedback to refine your ideas (5 minutes)
NCGE and NESTA Report September 2008
‘Developing Entrepreneurial Graduates’
The executive summary:
• More UK students need to engage in entrepreneurial
activity
• Vice-Chancellors should provide visible leadership
• Academics are the enablers of change in the curriculum
• Entrepreneurship education can enrich students’
university experience
• Business and social entrepreneurs must be fully involved
• Students should seize opportunities that enterprise
education offers to enable them to prepare for their
futures
Developing Entrepreneurial Graduates
• Engaging stakeholders
-
academic faculty
student clubs and societies
entrepreneurs and businesses
social entrepreneurs
• Enabling environments
-
capacity building
cross-campus reach
visible leadership
institutional culture
embeddedness
• Entrepreneurial Practices
-
multidisciplinary
innovative educators
experiential approaches
experimentation and discovery
What is EBL?
A natural form of learning, borne out of our innate sense
of curiosity and desire to investigate and understand
It is widely applicable, and has grown across a number
of subjects and covers a broad spectrum of approaches
and learning activities
A definition....
EBL represents a shift away from passive
methods, which involve the transmission
of knowledge to students, to more
facilitative teaching methods through
which students are expected to construct
their own knowledge and understanding
by engaging in supported processes of
enquiry
Kahn and O’Rourke, Guide to Enquiry-Based
Learning, www.heacademy.ac.uk
EBL provides two broad models of learning through
enquiry:
a) Engagement with problems that present difficulties but
are capable of solution when subject to appropriate
enquiry
b) Engagement with problems whose outcomes are
inherently uncertain, open to question, unsettled, and
thus a matter for continuing, perhaps irresolvable,
enquiry
CEEBL, 2006
STUDENT LED
Pursuing (information-active)
Students explore a knowledge-base by pursuing
their own closed questions and lines of enquiry (“what is
the existing answer to my question?”)
EXPLORING AND ACQUIRING
EXISTING KNOWLEDGE
Authoring (discovery-active)
Students pursue their own open-ended questions and
lines of enquiry in interaction with the knowledge-base
of the discipline (“how can I answer my question”)
PARTICIPATING IN BUILDING
KNOWLEDGE
Identifying (information-responsive)
Students explore the knowledge-base of the discipline
in response to closed questions or lines of enquiry
framed by staff (“what is the existing answer to this
question?”)
STAFF LED
Producing (discovery-responsive)
Students pursue open questions or lines of inquiry framed
by tutors, in interaction with the knowledge-base of the
discipline (“how can I answer this question?”)
LEVY (2009), CILASS
Active, student-centred, authentic, supported
•
Learning driven by a process of enquiry or investigation
•
Starting point - complex, intriguing, ‘real world’ stimulus
•
Student-centred
•
Requires action
•
Connects theory and practice
•
Values process and product
•
Develops skills
•
Social
•
Enjoyable
Why introduce EBL?
• Transition
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–
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Practice in a safe environment
Opportunities for reflection and review
Accommodates different learning styles
Socialises the learning and the learner
• Integration – knowledge, social, cultural
• Lifelong learning – information explosion
• Inter-professional and interdisciplinary approaches
• Links teaching, learning and research
• Employability/professional body requirements
• Develops entrepreneurial mindset
‘….leaving behind the dusty lecture
halls, to find out about our
subject….done through interaction with
other students and academics, and
evidence found in places – books, the
internet, and the big wide world itself’
Group Task
Background: a group of academic staff have decided to
make the university’s stance on enterprise education
explicit to the first-year intake. They have asked your
team to design a poster that explains (sells?) enterprise
to the students. The poster will be displayed in the
student common-room during the first three weeks of
term.
Task: design an outline poster (a draft)
– Present your ideas to a panel of students (3 minutes
maximum)
Enterprise skills are defined as:
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Creation of new ideas, innovation
Recognising strengths (individual and collective)
Effective communication
Undertaking research (demand, competitors, trends etc)
Networking
Leadership, managing others
Seizing opportunities and managing risk
Project management
Organisation and planning
Successful negotiation........persuasion
Societal responsibility, ‘making a difference’
Familiar?....EBL?
Motivation
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Authentic
Realistic challenge
Positive attitude towards discipline - passion
Supportive
Detailed, timely feedback
Shared learning
– Successes
– Mistakes and risks
• Social learning
• Builds confidence
Personal (Iife) skills
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Taking and accepting responsibility - autonomy
Ethics, empathy, tolerance, honesty
Reliability
Creative problem-solving
Balancing creativity with resilience
Balancing work with life
Adaptability
Entrpreneurial mindset
Employability
• Team working/building and leadership
• Inter-personal skills
– Negotiation
– Decision making
– Handling conflict
– Sharing
• Communication skills
– Presentation, explaining, questioning
– Networking
• Managing projects and meetings
• Evaluation, judgement, appraisal
• Entrepreneurship, ‘intrapreneurship’ and
social enterprise
attitudes are also important to
employers….
Interested, enthusiastic and flexible
graduate….and….keen, motivated and ambitious
individuals….
are frequently encountered phrases and the words
dedicated
passionate
self-starter
systematic
committed
energetic
BioSciences Subject Centre Newsletter
2007 www.heacademy.ac.uk
The centre of the teaching and learning
process must become the student. In the
words of Heidegger, “the teacher is ahead
of his apprentices in this alone, that he has
still far more to learn than they....he has to
learn to let them learn”.
(Prof Lewis Elton, THES, 21 July 2000)
Education is not the filling of a
pail, but the lighting of a fire
W B Yeats
Research
I originally thought research was a big thing to do, it
required lots of people and money. I thought it was
scientists and stuff. I know it’s not now. I know I can do
it. It’s about being critical, looking at what other people
have done, then finding a methodology and asking
questions.
First Year Student, Early Childhood Studies,
Northumbria University, UK
Research
I soon learned that it did not require a great brain to
do original research. One must be highly
motivated, exercise good judgement, have
intelligence, imagination, determination and a little
luck. One of the most important qualities in doing
research, I found, was to ask the right questions at
the right time.
Julius Axelrod (Nobel prize winning scientist)
• You go out of a PBL with your head buzzing, rather than
feeling you’ve just passively sat there
• The discussions....it’s amazing! Hearing all the different
viewpoints....seeing how things develop
• When you see someone else is on the same track and
you’re all learning the same thing, that can give you a big
confidence boost, it pushes you a bit more because you
want your work to be just as good as theirs
• You have responsibility to the whole group, not just
yourself, everyone has to pull together
I have developed my skills, it
has given me confidence to put
my ideas forward
This has given me experience
and confidence to take into my
final year at university and my
professional life. This module
has had a huge impact on me
I am more confident working
with people Who I am not
familiar with and I found out
I’m more creative than I
thought!
I feel more confident in my own ideas and
having the ability to lead a group and create a
concept that others buy into
Students talking about enterprise education
My current area of EBL activity
‘Transforming Enterprise Education’
Supporting the development of a positive attitude to innovation,
personal growth and professional development
Development, integration and embedding across all subject areas
and levels – beyond discrete activities and ‘bolt-on’ models
Engagement with experts and professionals, developing relationships
and forming partnerships
Enquiry-based learning approach – active, student-centred, reflective
The Institute for Enterprise – a familiar approach....?
Core Team of ‘experts’
Enterprise Pioneers – specific areas of expertise
Small-scale teaching and learning projects
Entrepreneur in Residence
Engagement with external partners
CETL alliance
Student Pioneers and interns
A FAVOURABLE CLIMATE – the ‘enterprising university’ - but there
are risks and challenges
An Enquiry-Based Approach to Enterprise
Collaborative, co-operative learning environment
Experiential
Challenging - uses real-life scenarios and problems
Investigative - stimulates deep exploration of the subject
Multi-disciplinary as well as subject-specific
Facilitated - guided by experts and supported by peer group
Utilises existing knowledge and develops new knowledge
Develops a range of skills, attitudes, values
Developing and embedding enterprise in the curriculum....
Working as individuals and in teams, developing networks and communities
Recognising individual and collective talents, capabilities, strengths, limitations
Excitement of discovery, generating new ideas , passion, creativity
Understanding business and organisational processes
Opportunities to develop, practice and apply skills
Reward and recognition for hard work
Celebrating successes and learning from failure, developing resilience and self-reliance
Facilitation, inspiration, competition
CONFIDENCE to take the key, unlock potential
Enterprise….it’s what we do every day!
The important thing is not to
stop questioning. Curiosity has
its own reason for existing.
Albert Einstein
Encourages us to ask questions that we both know we want the answers
to....
Usingthe
student
response:
....stimulates
innatereflections
curiosity to in
compare
home cultures and diversity
between methods of daily living to opposing world views on current
affairs....
As a group, the understanding becomes clear....
Each person brings to the table a different world view, and different
world knowledge, thus compelling explorations of unfamiliar cultures....
‘….leaving behind the dusty lecture
halls, to find out about our
subject….done through interaction with
other students and academics, and
evidence found in places – books, the
internet, and the big wide world itself’
‘The world is but a school of inquiry’
(Michel de Montaigne)
Exploring a new learning
landscape….volunteering in Peru 2009
My home for six
weeks in
SeptemberOctober 2009
Zapallal shanty
town, near Lima,
Peru
k.orourke@leedsmet.ac.uk
Centre for Excellence in Teaching and Learning
Leeds Metropolitan University, UK
Publications, case-studies and resources
www.leedsmet.ac.uk/enterprise
www.manchester.ac.uk/ceebl
May 2009