Educating

Entrepreneurship

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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?)