coneeect keynote final july 23

Educating

Entrepreneurship

Educators Coneeect is an international network of universities that offers training courses for academic entrepreneurship teachers to improve the Entrepreneurship Education across Europe.

www.coneeect.eu

http://bit.ly/13R0aYz

The Experiential Essence of Entrepreneurial Cognition:How Understanding Entrepreneurial Thinking Enhances Teaching & Practice

Norris Krueger, PhD –

Entrepreneurship Northwest

July 23, 2013

We’re Not Teaching Entrepreneurship (or Shouldn’t Be!)

We Are Growing… Entrepreneurial Brains

Sturgeon’s Law?

• Do you want to be:

• Above-average?

• Top 10%?

• Top 1%?• Are you sure?

Copernicus Redux?

• Who invented kindergarten?

• A Copernican revolution

Three Revolutions?

• Converging today….

How do humans actually learn important stuff?

Practitioners leading the way

Online/blended tools

…and a 4th: moving from Novice to Expert

(don’t you want to create experts? Don’t you want to BE an expert?)

Experts’ Obsessions

• Obsess over developing a truly entrepreneurial mindset– Not “stuff”– Not “skills”– Business models NOT plans

• Obsess over deep co-immersion with the entrepreneurial community (a/k/a “Ecosystem”)

What drives great things in…

• Startup Weekend, Lean Launchpad, TechStars?• exactly this

• Best technology commercialization programs? exactly this

• The most successful entrepreneurial ecosystems? (e.g. Boulder or SV)

• exactly this

• The A++ Entrepreneurship Programs exactly this

What the best programs do…

• 1. Focus on mindset.. but not as buzzword• 2. Connecting students to ecosystem• 3. Connecting ourselves even more deeply• 4. And make connections two-way

• “Engagement” –> Immersion

• Immersion -> CO-immersion!

• ACTION!

Consider “lean startup”

• Validate biz model… sure, but also..• Change mindset at a deep level

• Startup Weekend, TechStars– Full immersion

• Peer support• Personal reflection

– Co-Immersion with ecosystem• Expert mentors• Ecosystem feedback

– Who & what is guiding all this?– And how do we do this… online?

Sorry… there’s homework

• For now…

• When you think about the entrepreneurial mindset – not skills, not info… Think DEEPER. How would you know someone had a more expert mindset?

• What is different specifically? What are YOU facilitating in your class or activity? (pick one)

WB Yeats

“Learning is not about filling a pail;

it’s about lighting a fire.”

(but where does the spark come from?)

Two Ways to Learn

• Behavioristic• - fill the bucket

• -define the buckets•

• Constructivistic• - light the fire (or fan it!)

• - assume knowledge structures evolve

• (often discontinuously)

Learners create their own buckets…

– through…

• personal reflection,

• peer mentoring,

• expert mentoring

• ….based on authentic questions

• “Experience is not what happens to you, it is what you do with what happens.”

-Epictetus

Novice ExpertEntrepreneurial

Mindset

Critical Developmental Experiences

Change in WHAT we know (content)

Change in HOW we know it (knowledge structures)

Change in Deep Beliefs

again…the best programs…

• 1. Focus on mindset.. but not as buzzword• 2. Connecting students to ecosystem• 3. Connecting ourselves even more deeply• 4. And make connections two-way

• “Engagement” –> Immersion

• Immersion -> CO-immersion!

More ed psych!

Neergaard, Tanggaard, Krueger & Robinson (2013) Pedagogical Interventions in Entrepreneurship: from behaviourism to existential learning?

What we are should be doing

• Skills• Knowledge

• Improving Intent

• Mindset• Changing Deep

Beliefs• Novice

Expert

• Improving ACTION

the “new” role of instructors

Accelerating Learning

• Problem-Based Learning (“authentic” questions)

• Two overlapping themes:• IMMERSION – Action before thinking• MENTORING – Learn the right lessons

– Expert mentors [and I do mean expert]– Peer mentors

– Or THREE? Supportive ecosystem?– Social infrastructure; cognitive infrastructure– http://bit/ly/EcoSys

MORE homework

• Remember that one change that contributes to a more entrepreneurial mindset – what’s different?

• What CDE would YOU give learners the

opportunity to make that change?

• (You will never guess what I want to do this afternoon…. )

…. If you do it right, you will be called….

• A trouble-maker• A bomb-thrower• A boat-rocker• A…. Well, what do they say in your country?

• But NO, you are not. You are a….

•Bildung Brandstifter!!

If you want to get involved

• in projects – research or applied?

• Norris Krueger: – norris.krueger@gmail.com– @entrep_thinking– Facebook– LinkedIn

Immersion/Mentoring

• Chalmers/Gothenburg• NU Singapore• The Foundry (Utah) • TechStars (www.techstars.org)• Startup Weekend

– www.startupweekend.org

• Lean Startup– http://www.slideshare.net/sblank/successful-

entrepreneurship-1

So what IS this “entrepreneurial mindset” anyway??

• Crowdsourced list• Thoughts? Which are the hardest to change?

– (More important for here... what can we measure?)

Seeing opportunities, yes, but…• Seeing self as entrepreneur (role identity)• Strategic thinking• Dot-connecting / pattern recognition• Effectual thinking (bricolage, improv)• Optimist (attributional)• Metacognition• Counterfactual thinking• Bias for action (vs. FoF!)• Value creation as sine qua non (Market-pull?)