Six sources that can help teachers think like entrepreneurs

Aldo de Pape is the founder of TeachPitch, a cloud-based learning platform that helps teachers and schools identify the best online resources available. Aldo is a former teacher who, constantly constrained for time and budget, struggled to find and manage the best and most relevant answers to his questions among the abundance of learning resources, platforms and content already available on the Internet. He created TeachPitch to solve this problem.

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‘Entrepreneurship’ is an immortal buzzword. A simple online search will provide you with over 146,000,000 answers (and multiple pictures of Richard Branson) of which the first one (by Wikipedia) will give you the following:

“Entrepreneurship has traditionally been defined as the process of designing, launching and running a new business, which typically begins as a small business, such as a startup company, offering a product, process or service for sale or hire, and the people who do so are called 'entrepreneurs'.”

Entrepreneurial terminology is loved by many because it inspires. It makes us dream, helps us define our ambitions and execute on them. It makes us work hard and persevere also through the difficult times to help us achieve our goals.

But is also disliked. When used wrongly, the word can have a very hollow meaning and suggest an instrumental excuse of getting away from daily (normal-life) responsibilities; an escape from hard-working life rather than a proper launch into it.

Hated or loved, one thing remains certain; entrepreneurship is here to stay, and the earlier we speak and teach about it in our schools and classrooms, the more likely we are to succeed in fostering a new generation of successful entrepreneurs.

Here is my Top 6 list of sources that can help teachers with educating such a generation:

1. The Teaching Channel

A well-known and respected platform in the US teaching community but less known in other parts of the world. Great videos for teachers – especially on new teaching methods and strategies. I really like this video on how to stimulate problem-solving behavior among junior high students – highly recommended!

2. Edutopia

This foundation, set up by Star Wars creator George Lucas, is a true help for teachers to ensure that their students become the very best they can be. Similar to the Teaching Channel it helps educators find out more about new teaching strategies and methods, however it puts the emphasis more on technology.

If you have time, take a look at this video on how students learn in an ever changing media landscape or this one on how teachers can use technology to become even better at their jobs.

3. Khan Academy

I love the absolute ‘Can-Do’ attitude of this platform! Easy to digest (short) videos that speak about any subject matter. Even though Khan Academy concentrates more on curriculum topics, less so on new teaching styles, it is definitely worth taking a closer look.

This video will give you a good idea of what they are all about.

4. PBS

The famous public US television network taps into its collection of recorded videos and makes them available specifically for learning purposes. Even though it is very much catered to the needs of US teachers and the Common Core – it proves to be very diverse with a wide educational offering in many topics and formats. A lot more than ‘just’ video.

For instance, I really liked this article I found on teaching entrepreneurship.

5. Teaching English

Perhaps an odd choice, but the only European platform in my list is the product of a joint venture between the BBC and The British Council. Even though the platform has the primary aim to teach British English and its culture, I feel it also contains great resources that can inspire teachers on other levels.

Take a look at this collection of lesson plans called ‘Entrepreneurs Are Great’ – definitely worth a read and very hands-on in teaching your students about Entrepreneurship.

6. EdgeMakers

A fairly new initiative, but it looks very promising! This US platform has designed an entire curriculum for teachers to inspire their students to innovate. It is led by John Kao, a bestselling author on Innovation, former Harvard Business School Professor and Tony Award nominee. I really like the stance of the Edgemakers team that innovation and entrepreneurship is a discipline that needs to be taught and cultivated through many hours of training – not a given talent that some people have and others don’t.