Context/background of project: The schools of today must fit the society of the future. Teaching and education must be reinvented. The entrepreneurial mindset must be brought into focus and a personalized approach adapted, so the education becomes tailor-made, constructive and engaging. Entrepreneurship is turning ideas into action. This International Entrepreneurship Education provides a new approach to teaching and learning. Students will decide the topics they wish to learn, and learn through experience. Faculty will serve as mentors and coaches, and teach students to live a more fulfilled life. The students will be exposed to a wide range of subjects as they discover how to learn about skills or subjects that personally interest them. We will direct overall focus to entrepreneurship, nourishment/health and global environmental sustainability. Objectives of project: The objective of the project is to equip young people with the tools to develop transversal skills that will help their professional and personal lives. This cross-national program and process for youth entrepreneurship is a bridging youth education with a one year curriculum, using new teaching methods and tools. It is a modular program, suitable in most school settings. The teaching methods are built on ideas of game design and iterative processes, personal development tools, with focus on developing IT- and entrepreneurial skills through small business incubators and actual funding processes. Number and profile of participants: Three strategic partners, organizations from Denmark, Finland and Estonia, will be involved in this project. IAmTrading from Denmark has originated the idea for the project and acquired buildings in DK to test the full curriculum in a boarding school setting. The Educraftor team from Finland has since 2013 been driving change in Finland and Estonia, designing and developing practical solutions that make real differences in the mindsets of educators and innovators alike. Vitatiim from Estonia has created successful new youth programs for their students focusing on important key-competences such as interpersonal and social competencies, entrepreneurship, languages and basic competencies in science, math and technology. Student participants will be between 15-26 years of age with an interest and willingness to take responsibility for their own next steps. Description of activities: An initial development and design-phase of 6 months A couple of months with teach-the-teachers training events A 10 month test-phase to test both the full program and modules in different settings Project length is 22 months. Will develop full curriculum and methodology, including an observation report analysis of qualitative and quantitative data to substantiate presumed results The student’s progress will be monitored and observed throughout the test-phase. They will generate ideas and take them all the way to the market. The project will culminate in multiplier events - ‘Show and tell-demo days, where the students can display their results and the project partners can display our results. Methodology to be used in carrying out the project: Each project partner will bring building blocks for the combined curriculum and process methodologies. We will use the same iterative processes we intend to teach the students to plan, design/co-develop, test, evaluate, refine and eventually create a full curriculum and methodology for the international entrepreneurship education. In the student’s first semester that same methodology is called: kick-off (choose subject, pitch and plan), research (ask questions, find answers), story (engage roles, journey), showtime (show and tell, share), lookbook (evaluation, reflection). The second semester of the education program is a journey from business idea to consumer. The ideas will be generated in an EDUJam. From the idea, the students will create small business units, draw up business plans, apply for funding, set up sales and marketing plans and actually take their products to the market. A short description of the results and impact envisaged: The impact potential of this entrepreneurship education program is far reaching. This is a bridge-builder to more informed higher education choices or a stronger foundation for self-employment directly. These innovative entrepreneurial processes will have a better chance of inspiring young people in this direction and thereby meeting the goals of increasing the percentage of self-employed and innovative entrepreneurs in the workforce. The methodology and curriculum will develop those crucial skills required to confidently make career or education choices. The long term benefits might therefore potentially be fewer dropouts from higher education. The students will have acquired methods for learning giving them a competitive advantage for moving forward in life.
An entrepreneurial education that is tailor-made, constructive and engaging, this new International Entrepreneurship Education (IEE) has been developed and designed with a holistic perspective, concerned with the development of every learner's intellectual, emotional, social, physical, artistic, creative and spiritual potentials. The IEE facilitates learning through a two-part process: formation (‘dannelse’) and education. Formation is the ‘who am I’ as an entrepreneur, the mindset formation. Education is the information, the building of competencies and the goal of the learner. Linked together, it evokes a desire for action. This IEE provides a new approach both to teaching and to learning. Learners decide the topics they wish to learn, and learn through experience. Faculty serve as facilitators, mentors and coaches, and teach learners - well ideally show learners how to live a more fulfilled life. This IEE requires teachers to be willing to 'walk the talk'. Being exposed to a wide range of subjects, learning about skills or subjects that personally interest the learners and learning in compatible teams, in community will motivate the learners to find what inspires them most, their own path. So the objective of the IEE is to give the individual better clarification regarding their choice of career path and way in life. It provides a bridge between elementary school, upper secondary or vocational education and higher education, or a direct way to self-employment - it even provides a really great way to spend a gap-year in a learning community. Young people who participate in the IEE realize that learning is a life-long endeavour that can be fun and rewarding at the same time. The three project partners from Denmark, Finland and Estonia have at any given time had 2-4 people each involved in the project. The student participants have been volunteers or school students between 12-40 years of age piloting various modules in all three partner countries. Our initial development and design-phase took longer than the anticipated 6 months, so with the school-year starting in August 2019 we were not ready to pilot the full one-year curriculum. Also the original sign up for students to join the pilot in DK was not bringing enough students onboard. The learning community at MillCamp Academy consisting of volunteers functioned really well, though, and young people from all over came to stay for anything from 1-6 months. Many were from the South Americas. They were a perfect test-group as it turned out, since they already had a mindset focused on adventure and taking responsibility for their own lives. So we did test-versions of the modules and piloted them with these young volunteers. We prepared a 6-month version of the IEE to run from 3rd February to 20th June 2020 and we had only just gotten started when COVID-19 brought on restrictions that caused our plans to change. Nevertheless a total of 178 young people have volunteered at MillCamp and been part of testing of IEE modules. Testing of modules also happened in Hungary, Estonia and Norway, where the EDUjam was rolled out by Educraftor, with 119 participants, EDUhacks in Finland, with 110 participants and Phenomenal teams in Estonia with 30 participants. VitaTiim has piloted 2-day camps for 20 young teens (12-14), a one-day event for 20 young adults (16-30), a 2-day course for teachers and school staff and a 7 month piloting of the IEE programme modules in frames of the English Access Microscholarship Program. All very successful and with good feedback. The LTT's have helped the project along very nicely and given us all hands on experience of how we teach and think about education, and we have found great compatibility and learned a lot from each other. Originally the project length was 22 months, because of corona it was extended to 26 months. We used the extra time to work hard on the IEE guidebook, to discuss the structure and contents of our philosophy, the education approach and methodology and appropriate methods and tools for the IEE. The IEE guidebook gives a comprehensive view of this. So even if it turned out differently than expected, we are still very pleased with the partnership and the result of the work done in this project. Lots of new ideas have been generated and shared, and even if there was no final 'show and tell' by the student participants, lots of new endeavours are seeing the light in Norway, Hungary, Holland, Andorra, Argentina, Chile, Australia, New Zealand and other places where IEE learners have moved on to. We strongly believe that the impact of this IEE program has far reaching potential and that all the objectives can be met. The IEE as a bridge-builder, a solid foundation for self-employment, young people who confidently make career or education choices giving them a competitive advantage for moving forward in life. More innovative entrepreneurs in the workforce and potentially fewer dropouts from higher education.