Learning & Teaching

Title of case study	Entrepreneurship
School / subject	Adam Smith Business School
Lecturer	Professor Jillian Gordon
Course	New Venture Challenge MGT4053
Student Level	4
Class size	50
Location	ASBS

Brief summary 

The New Venture Creation course provides students with an opportunity to learn about the new venture creation process, to develop entrepreneurial skills and apply their learning in a realistic context. Students link their knowledge of entrepreneurship theories and concepts to real-world practice, deepening their understanding of contextual nuances through personal experience and insights from practicing entrepreneurs.

Students will engage in the process of ideation and lean start up methodology. Working as part of a team they practice entrepreneurial and decision-making skills, as well as, developing their teamworking and presentation skills through a practical skills-based group assessment.

Students will also reflect on their learning and consider how they can apply their learning in future scenarios where they can apply their entrepreneurial knowledge and skills.

The course introduces students to the core concepts of entrepreneurship and provides them with an opportunity to develop related skills, valuable to graduate employers and will help to enhance their employability.

Objectives

The course aims to provide students with the opportunity to apply their learning in a realistic context and link theories of entrepreneurship to practice. To experience ideation and lean start-up and to practice entrepreneurial and decision-making skills.  Students also reflect on whether entrepreneurship is a realistic career option. 

The learning objectives include:

1. Apply knowledge of entrepreneurial concepts in a practical setting through undertaking activities involved in discovering a business idea, notably ideation, opportunity discovery and identification, value proposition, market positioning,and business model development.
2. Develop and apply entrepreneurialknow-how in a practical setting, notably the lean startup concept, marketing mix, distribution channels, branding and pricing, 
3. Develop andapply skills such as team working, negotiation, time management, problem solving and communication skills  
4. Develop reflective skills to critically assess their entrepreneurial experience.

What is done? 

The course is built around a new venture challenge, which involves the students working in groups to generate a business idea often linked to solving real problems. Some examples of business ventures featured in the course include a financial literacy app, blind date with a book, student created healthy eating recipe books, self-care subscription boxes.

Students identify and select a challenge on which to base their new venture. On identifying a business idea, the student group then apply a range of entrepreneurial concepts and tools to evaluate the idea as an opportunity and employ lean start-up methodology to test the business idea. Through in-class activities the students develop customer personas, map out routes to market and develop a business model. Students also learn about pitching and selling to customers and importantly through in class activities learn how to provide peer feedback.

All these activities culminate in a pitch to a panel that includes the teaching team as well as external experts. The pitch takes the form of a 10-minute group presentation with a 10-minute Q&A afterwards that enables the panel to drill down into the critical thinking of the team. This is followed by role plays where the panel adopt the customer personas of each new venture and interact with the student entrepreneurs who need to sell their product or service to the panel.

The group practical skills assessment is worth 40% of the overall course marks with the other 60% being made up of an individual reflective essay on the new venture challenge itself.

The course also features input from real-world entrepreneurs who deliver guest workshops describing their entrepreneurial journey and linking entrepreneurial concepts to practice.  

What works well? 

Students enjoy being able to apply their learning through in class activities and learning vicariously through external guest presenters who share their experience of entrepreneurship. The new venture challenge itself has a competitive edge to it via in class activities and this helps to keep momentum. For example, during ideation phase, students apply the creativity and ideation tools learned in class to generate ideas and we award the group that generates the most ideas.

Benefits (students & staff) 

Students gain a deeper understanding of entrepreneurial concepts, by scaffolding new learning onto knowledge they have acquired through a core Level 2 entrepreneurship course.

Importantly, they can apply the knowledge through in class activities which build up to and support a practical skills assessment of a pitch and role play.

Challenges (students & staff)

For staff the key challenge is to support students to manage group work and to navigate the issues that inevitably arise such as unequal participation, poor communication, and challenges with group dynamics. We have tried all sorts of things from group contracts to meta rubrics and peer evaluation as well as embedding sessions into the taught component that support students to understand what a team is and the roles within the team. I don’t think there is any one solution. This continues to be a challenge for academic staff and for students.

What did you learn?

Students never cease to amaze me, their creativity and critical thinking alongside their development and enhancement of communication, negotiation and selling skills all shine through in this type of course. Moreover, the solutions they generate to address needs and wants have potential.

I continually learn that empowering students to become a team and not to just be a group is the ultimate challenge, regardless of the tools that we can access to support and evaluate student group work. As educators I think we need to be mindful of continuing to support students to see the value of working with others and of teamwork.

The reflective element of the assessment is helpful here in supporting the students to recognise and to reflect on the skills and knowledge they are developing and enhancing and to consider how these are valued by employers beyond university.

What advice would you give to others?

Think about ways you can embed experiential learning in your discipline, and how you can design meaningful assessments, which enable students to apply their knowledge whilst developing and enhancing skills.

It is useful to be explicit at the outset of the course about what the student journey looks like on your course and the knowledge and skills they will gain from completing it. Identifying the value that your course provides to students and then clearly articulating this value to them is important, as it enables them to recognise how they can continue to create value using their learning beyond university.