Name of the original practice to be transferred
Youth Start – Entrepreneurial Challenges
Specific context where the practice has already been implemented/ applied
The Youth Start Entrepreneurial Challenge Program is used in Austria, Bulgaria, Indonesia, Luxemburg, Slovenia, South Africa.
Conditions of the original practice
Challenge-based learning is a practically oriented approach to entrepreneurship education and is based on the learning cycle “challenge – feedback – reflection”. This learning method combines an action-oriented (especially project-oriented) pedagogical approach with a reflection-oriented pedagogical approach:
- A challenge is defined as a demanding and complex task that is tailored to the target group and reflects their daily reality. Learners are challenged to develop and implement ideas (often in collaboration with others) for the specific situation in question. Our “daily reality” follows its own dynamics and in order to cope with it we need to adopt a process of inquisitive learning in a close correlation between theory and practice. Children and adolescents should learn early on that they can develop their own ideas and confront challenges on their own.
- Adequate feedback uses the “backwards design model”. The competences that are to be achieved are made transparent at the beginning of the learning cycle. Following a phase of independent and creative work, feedback is provided in the form of “teacher assessments”, “peer assessments” (students) or “self-assessments”.
- Reflection offers learners an opportunity to process their personal experience of the challenge and the feedback (cf. Boud, Keogh & Walker 1985) and to develop internal structures or attitudes (cf. Dubs 1995). The strengthening of attitudes has to do with a person’s self-efficacy, i.e. the conviction that we actually can and want to do what we are currently doing or planning to do. It is precisely this internal conviction that determines whether we succeed at what we are doing or not.
Self-efficacy is important and it develops in our childhood. The good news is that it can be developed further and expanded throughout our lives. Self-efficacious learning (cf. Bandura 1997; Pervin 2000) takes place:
- in an environment with competent role-models,
- if we consciously perceive a situation as a challenge,
- if we confront the challenge in a reasoning and active manner and successfully master it,
- if we reflect on ourselves, the development of our ideas and our self-evaluation – metacognition (cf. Kolb 1983).
Entrepreneurial challenge-based learning is intended to inspire joy in learning. “Independence is an essential feature of learning. Learning in its ’full’ form is always self-regulated”. This has major implications for the design of the content and pedagogics of teaching-learning arrangements and requires a combination of various learning methods.
Structures of the original practice
The approach of entrepreneurial-challenge based learning is using challenges from various areas as learning opportunities. Each of these categories features individual variants for the different competence levels of the entrepreneurship reference framework. The Idea Challenge (level A1), for instance, comprises a workshop with the slogan “Get your ideas moving”. Level A2 introduces various examples of Design Thinking Institute of Design 2015; IDEO 2012), with different, age-appropriate starting points. At level B1 students develop a sustainable business model, using Entrepreneurial Design. Level B2 presents the Business Model Canvas. Take a look about our own shop.
Suggestions on how these will transfer to the new context
For the assignment, the challenges have to be translated into the national language and adapted, the implementation includes learning offers (teacher training etc.) and possibly also competitions. For the implementation a connection to the school-development is important.
If available, give us a link where we can find additional information on this practice in English