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Entrepreneurship: The Gift of Moving Beyond the Classroom

By Lindsey Sanborn

Are your students constantly creating and seeking out content? Our students have so many outlets outside of the classroom to not only learn from a global community, but also to share their own expertise and ideas. Our students already appreciate, and perhaps have firsthand experience, of what it takes to go viral. So how might we encourage this entrepreneurial mindset in the classroom? Continuing with our monthly theme of giving “gifts” to our community, we are gifting you three ways to engage your students as entrepreneurs as you start the new year! 

  1. Give your students an every day problem to solve: Brainstorm a problem that is relevant to your students. Something like this… “High school students are constantly stressed and miss important information because they must track academic assignments, extracurricular schedules, and social commitments across too many disorganized platforms (email, specific school portals, text messages, and physical notes).” First, have your students develop a challenge prompt that communicates the user need that they will solve for in their design. Next, encourage your students to ideate solutions and see what they come up with. Hint: struggling to identify a good problem? Ask your students!

  1. Rapid fire pitch: Give your students 10 minutes to develop a business idea and create a slogan/catch phrase. Give each student an opportunity to share their slogan, and the other students will guess what their business idea is based on the slogan. This quick activity engages students to quickly think through effective marketing strategies for their business ideas. 

  1. Engage local business: Identify a local business that your students love (think: ice cream shop). Invite the business owner to present a problem they’re grappling with and engage your students in using the design thinking process to solve it. Students will not only love serving as consultants to a business in their community, but the business will also receive user-feedback directly from students on how to improve their offerings. 

Try out one of these strategies next semester and let us know how it goes on IYC Inside!