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Enterprise Skills (10 credit part time undergraduate module) - University of Hull

This is a short six-week course of 18 hours contact time designed to inculcate and foster within students the development of an entrepreneurial mindset or the values, behaviours, attitudes and skills that are important for enterprise and entrepreneurship ( based on the NGCE outcomes Gibb 2005). The idea behind the course and the underpinning concept behind it is that upon completion of it I want learners to be able to go out into the world and make positive changes within their own sphere of influence and be more enterprising in life and work. Learners must actively participate in the course and learn by doing - as well as understanding the theory I want students to be able to put things into practice and develop their own tacit knowledge of enterprise. For this reason the course is specifically named 'enterprise skills'. I would argue that the ability to be enterprising is more important than understanding the theory of 'how' to be enterprising.

The target group of learners are part-time students from a wide range of ages from 20-60 years, typically including those out of work or threatened with and facing redundancy. Learners work together in a group and engage with a wide range of learning resources. The course content includes aspects drawn from: business and management, psychology, action learning, experiential learning, reflective learning, creativity and problem solving and student led presentations including elevator pitches. Students are set learning tasks each week to complete the following week and are encouraged to bring examples from their own life to the class. Learning is delivered in a facilitative style rather than being lecture-based.

The website contains copies of almost all the learning resources along with PowerPoints of the taught sessions and supplementary web resource links.

Case Study Details

Type	Undergraduate
Impacts	Feedback from participants has been extremely positive with learners indicating that the experience has helped them shape, develop and apply ideas and in two cases students have gone on to set up their own business whilst another has supported her husband's existing new business.
What worked well	Pretty much everything worked well. One of the key requirements for me as the tutor was the ability to deliver the course at an appropriate place for the learners – meaning that an approach and intention to cover a certain amount of material within a three-hour session was neither possible nor advisable, it being much better to be flexible and to cover an appropriate amount of material that students could learn and then apply within their own life and work.
What could be changed/improved	Strict University guidelines about not allowing students to put posters on the walls in teaching rooms and sometimes a lack of a room with movable chairs and desks have meant that occasionally I have not been able to do things with the students that I wanted to do. Some students, due to conflicting pressures in their home life, were unable to fully engage with all of the out of class self-study. This meant that they rapidly fell behind in taught sessions.
Website link	http://enterpriseskillsuniversityofhull.wikispaces.com/

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