Entrepreneurship and Innovation align with the 21st century needs of our society: complex problem solving; creativity, collaboration, communication; lateral thinking, grit, flexibility and hustle. They also align with emerging best practice areas: interest-driven learning, open-ended PBL, and real world learning. Despite this alignment, we still do not teach entrepreneurship in depth at the K12 level! This session will address the question of why we don't teach entrepreneurship and innovation, and provide some guidance and examples. We will use the Design 4 Impact startup as a robust example of student-driven entrepreneurship, while also looking at a number of other less developed by instructive examples from my Innovation & Entrepreneurship class, the startup incubator at Avenues, and my work with Breaker.
Ivan teaches classes and projects related to Entrepreneurship and Innovation in the World Course department and Mastery Program at Avenues: The World School in Chelsea. He oversees the Design 4 Impact (D4i) student-led startup, which grew out of the design challenge model he conceived at Avenues in collaboration with Breaker, a startup doing in-depth design summer challenges for students and weekend PD in design thinking for teachers.