As I explained in a previous post, this year our school created a new space, the entrepreneurial classroom, in order to train and develop entrepreneurial skills in our students, according to the EntreComp definition: spotting opportunities and acting on them to create value for others, should this value be cultural, social or economical. I believe this new space and the activities and methodologies suggested to use in this entrepreneurial classroom have ignited a spark that will lead to a more entrepreneurial school in general terms. I wanted to share with you some of those activities and would love to hear about any suggestions you might have. Some of these activities I have shared in a different post, since they were too complex to explain here. You can find here our I virtual and face-to-face practice enterprise fair, and our social entrepreneurship project ExpODS here.
My first task as this project coordinator was to get more teachers on board. Thanks to the EntreComp community, and the ENE entrepreneurial COVES initiative, I had heard about entrepreneurial centers in other countries, and I wanted the same for our school. Thus, I organized a training/motivation course and invited all the teachers in my school to let them know about this new entrepreneurship classroom and EntreComp. In principle, this is a project designed for vocational education and training, but as I explained before I thought that to be really entrepreneurial, all of the school community should be involved. My objective was that as many teachers as possible would know what the entrepreneurship classroom and what EntreComp is about, and to suggest some examples of activities, methodologies and projects that could be carried out in any subject to develop the entrepreneurial skills of students.
It was clear to me that the important part with our entrepreneurial classroom was not the space itself, but the methodologies to be applied that would allow our students to train and develop those entrepreneurial skills: project-based learning, challenge-based learning, service-learning, simulation, ...
We also needed basic knowledge about how to use our 3D printer and 3D scanner. Thanks to one teacher colleague we were able to offer a 10-hour course both to teachers and students interested. Thanks to this basic course, we were able to develop our virtual tour about SDG: ExpODS, which I have talked to you about before in a previous post.
At the same time, I started to work jointly with a business association, Empresa Familiar de Castilla y León. One of the main entrepreneurial classroom goals was to create an ecosystem where schools and companies would work together closely. This led to several interesting meetings, working together on a guide for other schools that will have to set up their own entrepreneurial classroom in the future, and a series of informal meetings between our students and local entrepreneurs, to network, discuss entrepreneurship, and labor market needs. To promote both entrepreneurship, and intrapreneurship.
Then I enrolled my second-year students in the E-challenge, a national project fuelled by private companies, where the students have to develop their own business plan, using a design-thinking approach, with the help of external experts and mentors that guide them throughout the whole process. It is also a national competition, the results will be published in June. I thought this project would help to develop our students' digital and entrepreneurial skills, and also to create this ecosystem where companies and schools work together towards a common goal: promoting entrepreneurship (and intrapreneurship as well). Here you have a short video showing their final presentation videos.
Simultaneously, we heard about the CEDEFOP Photo Award. The award, Cedefop’s initiative to promote excellence in VET, offers young learners, as well as adults in continuing education, the chance to showcase their talent. Teams of up to four learners in the European Union are invited to share their VET experience related to green or digital skills in a creative photostory and/or video, accompanied by a narrative of up to 100 words, explaining the idea behind their work. At the beginning of the course, I had challenged the students to make our practice enterprise more sustainable: they had to think about ways for us to work towards sustainability and implement some of them. So we thought this international competition, was perfect to tell our digital and green transition. This is the video the students created, and we are happy to share that we were selected among the 10 winners in the video category.
In total, 80 teams of vocational education and training (VET) learners from 13 European countries took part in the sixth edition of the #CedefopPhotoAward, which also featured a video competition. The teams consisted of 287 VET learners and 63 teachers/trainers, representing 62 learning providers. The winners are showcased at the Cedefop Photo Award 2021 exhibition. It will stay open until 11 April, with free entrance.
And then for the third consecutive year, the students/employees of our simulated company DECASARRE SAS have been winners in the Social Media Competition, organized by the international network of practice enterprises Pen Worldwide, formed by more than 7,000 companies around the world. We have already told you on previous occasions how our Vocational Training students learn by performing different tasks in some of the virtual practice companies that we have set up in our school.
The objective of this annual competition is to develop the digital competence of the students, and it is an opportunity to interact with each other and learn from each other. Thus, this year, during the Global Entrepreneurship Week 2021, the employees of the different simulated companies had to publish one or more posts on social media explaining how the simulated company had helped them to develop some of the most demanded skills in the future, according to the World Economic Forum. And here are some of our contributions, what do you think?
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