Creative thinking: pioneering entrepreneurship PD for teachers

By Grant Quarry
Published July 11, 2024

With PISA 2022 for the first time measuring students’ capacity to engage in creative thinking, it’s no surprise that teaching entrepreneurial skills is now acknowledged as an important part of any quality education program.

Sydney School of Entrepreneurship’s Cherie Karlsson says primary school is when children’s entrepreneurial education should be starting.

Yet globally, school systems continue to struggle to settle on just how to effectively incorporate it into their teaching.

“...it’s really amazing that no country has been able to work out how to embed these entrepreneurial skills into a curriculum, widespread,” entrepreneurial expert Cherie Karlsson tells EducationHQ.

“Singapore and Finland are often looked to as leaders in education, yet they still haven’t really made much headway in that space.”

Karlsson is Educational Design Manager at the Sydney School of Entrepreneurship, and in her role oversees course creation and the tailoring of a wide range of online and live courses and workshops to an ever-growing spread of schools and businesses.

She says Australia can be a world leader in preparing children from a young age to be thinking entrepreneurially.

A great start, Karlsson says, is the already well-established collaborative group of five entrepreneurial learning schools in South Australia, which are providing specialist entrepreneurial education within the public system.

The schools are supported by the SA Government in developing resources across Years 7 to 12, while their expert staff, dedicated facilities and high quality resources are shared and used across the state.

In the process they’ve become destination schools for aspiring business and social entrepreneurs.

Students engage in immersive learning experiences, using design thinking and solution fluency processes to solve identified community and/or global problems, and have the opportunity to further develop their understanding of business, the economy and financial literacy through SACE subjects including Business Innovation and Entrepreneurial Maths.

“Some things we’re doing really well with, which is exciting, because I think we’re ... more open compared to many other places,” Karlsson says.

“Widespread change is difficult to create, it’s always hard to try to change big institutions and departments of education, but I think there’s enough people really interested in doing it, and there’s little markers everywhere that we’re on the right path."

Karlsson and her team are busy preparing for a groundbreaking professional development workshop for high school teachers titled ‘Supporting the Student Entrepreneurial Journey’.

Accredited by the NSW Education Standards Authority (NESA), it is the first and only one of its kind in Australia, and is designed to equip teachers with the skills and knowledge needed to guide students through their own entrepreneurial journeys.

“The workshops will focus on empowering teachers to foster entrepreneurial skills in students, from ideation and innovative thinking to comprehensive business planning,” Karlsson explains.

“In an era of rapid technological and industrial change, these skills are essential for preparing students to meet the evolving demands of life and work in the 21st century.”

Karlsson says the earlier the better when it comes to fostering innovation and entrepreneurship among students. “...if they’re thinking in that fashion from that [primary] age, you’ve just got an easier job once they get to high school.”

While feeling deeply privileged to have the opportunity to work with teachers to develop a deeper understanding of the entrepreneurial mindset and design thinking, and how they can be applied to identify and solve real-world problems, Karlsson believes it's in primary school that any child’s entrepreneurial education must start.

“I just think to get it in the minds of kids, to be thinking about the world in terms of not just following the pathway that’s pre-prepared by the education system, but be thinking about what they could do and what their role is.

“Being an entrepreneur, you’re really thinking about connections and communities, and thinking about how they have the power to make change. And to be able to apply thinking to solve problems in their own communities.

“Kids have got that spirit, and they’ve got that imagination that kind of gets crushed out of them as they travel through.

“That’s why I think the earlier the better – if they’re thinking in that fashion from that age, you’ve just got an easier job once they get to high school.”

Regardless of when they begin, with the advent of AI, Karlsson contends that it’s becoming ever-more important to be able to think entrepreneurially – especially given it is the type of thinking that is beyond AI. Well, for now, anyway.

“Companies are looking to candidates with those softer skills or entrepreneurial skills, those who can problem solve and think critically, and just look for areas in ways to grow businesses or grow teams,” she says.

“It’s about rather than just training as a scientist and sticking in one field, being able to think cross-disciplinary.”

Having to work within strict NESA guidelines, the workshops Karlsson says comprise a two prong approach – entrepreneurship as one, and mindset as the other, and helping teachers with techniques of how to achieve that.

“We create awareness around an entrepreneurial journey, and so teachers understand the beginning stage around ideation, and the design thinking that happens at that stage,” Karlsson elaborates.

“Then we show them the business planning stage, and what does need to happen to be able to launch an idea, so not just have the ideas but be able to take them through to launch stage.”

In just three hours, Karlsson explains, it’s not possible for teachers to be able to learn how to do that, but at least there’s an awareness created and direction given as to what resources attendees can access to help students.

“The other side of the workshop is to really implant those entrepreneurial mindsets into the classroom and for teachers to be thinking about entrepreneurial ways of teaching themselves, because if they’re modelling that entrepreneurial behaviour, then just that being transferred to their students, for us, is a great step forward in any case.”

The workshops, scheduled to be delivered once monthly in August, September, and October, emphasise teamwork, communication, and collaboration, equipping teachers with the tools to create an authentic learning experience for their students.

On completion, teachers will receive a certificate of completion and a verified digital credential to enhance their resumes, e-portfolios, and LinkedIn profiles.