University of Szeged (SZTE) Workshop 1
Workshop 1 – Set-Up and Context
The general aim of this first workshop was to start the discussion between two institutions of the University: Institution of Business Studies (Faculty of Economics and Business Administration) and Institution of Education (Faculty of Arts and Humanities) therefore provided a platform for building up the context for further discussions about implementing EE in ITE. The workshop was organized following the structure of Workshop Type I (see above) in a relaxed bar outside of the university. This informal atmosphere provided an opportunity to frame the whole event as an inspiring get-together (instead of some formal workshop). As a result, around
10 colleagues from the Institution of Education participated with 3 colleagues (PIETE members) from the Institute of Business Studies. All the participants were educators (ISCED level 3-4) with an
average experience of 8 years in ITE. Their commitment towards fostering the ITE was clear from the beginning. The discussion went on for 90 minutes, following the above-mentioned Workshop Type I methodology. The participants were mostly active when asked about challenges in ITE. All in all, the workshop provided an excellent basis for further discussion about EE – the team was set-up, the topic was covered. So, the first step in the process was successful.
Main Results – Workshop 1
Many aspects of ITE were discussed, in the followings the main results are highlighted under general topics.
Problems of ITE in Hungary:
• The students are really overloaded, meaning that they must attend classes at their “mother faculty” according to their main programme (e.g. biology, math, history, etc.) and classes in ITE programme at Institution of Education.
• There are only 32+2 credits for pedagogy (all the others are according to their main programme) in their curriculum and it is not enough for an extended teaching curriculum.
• Recently: 15 courses in the BA+MA system, were reduced to 11 courses in the 4/5+1-year system.
• All courses are compulsory, there are no optional courses.
• All in all: It is hard to implement new courses (focused e.g. on entrepreneurial mindset development or something similar).
Challenges and opportunities for EE within ITE in Hungary:
• Entrepreneurship education is part of the „National Educational Regulations” → It should be covered in the ITE curriculum
• In the classroom the ITE students are from widely different fields →Soft skills orientation should be the key (instead of business hard skills)
• There is a special type of class in all levels, called “Head-of-class discussion”
→Entrepreneurship skills can be part of the course The EntreComp Wheel is almost the blueprint how a good teacher should look-like.
→ The connection with EntreComp and ITE is very much there
• Existing courses where entrepreneurship competences are discussed/involved:
− Identify and elaborate on them
• Dedicated (new) courses that are open for all the faculties (as done in the Erasmus+ EEE project)
− Offered by the mother faculty
• Launching a specialization
− You get a “certificate” added to your diploma if you do this.
Workshop 2 – Set-Up and Context
Workshop 2 can be considered as the following step of Workshop 1 – as most of the participants were the same and the whole discussion was built on the results of Workshop 1. The workshop was attended by 7 participants, 5 from the Institute of Education (with an average ITE experience of 9 years at ISCED level 3-4) and 2 from the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration (who were the moderators). The workshop was organized according to the Workshop Type II (see above) in a comfortable place to allow for an atmosphere that catalyses creative, non-formal discussion. The whole workshop was held in a vivid and active manner, all the participants were highly involved in the topic with several suggestions and opinions. The most relevant part of the workshop was the one-by-one analysis of all the 15 competences of EntreComp. It was discussed in detail how these competences can be identified in current ITE. Three solutions were suggested which can tackle the lack of entrepreneurship competences. However, it was decided that these solutions (“actual modules”) need to be developed in a follow-up workshop.
Main Results – Workshop 2
Many aspects of ITE were discussed, in the following the main results are highlighted under general topics.
General assumption about Entrepreneurship competences
The majority were familiar with entrepreneurship competences, as the Hungarian Education Act also provide a fair notion for adhered terminology. In addition, basic EE concepts – in the broad (EntreComp) and narrow entrepreneur) sense – were (re-)introduced as part of the prior workshop. However, there was no longer any consensus on the extent to which entrepreneurship competence is present in the current education. Nevertheless, the participants concluded and agreed that the competences inside EntreComp should be an integral part of the competence’s portfolio ITE students’ educational activities are based on. After all, these competences also very
much represent features of a good and modern teacher (“entrepreneurial teacher”).
Already existing entrepreneurship elements in ITE and elements of EntreComp that could be
embedded into ITE
During the workshop, we went through all 15 competencies of the EntreComp model. In each case, we discussed the extent to which it is present in the current teacher training. On this basis, we distinguished the following 3 categories (according to the Workshop Type II categorization):
(A) It is already present in teacher training (although often not under this name)
• Creativity – it is difficult for students to think creatively, as their previous study in schools was not based on it. But there are initiatives to do that in the current curriculum.
• Ethical & sustainable thinking –a “Ethics in pedagogy” course exists.
• Self-awareness & self-efficacy – this is strong in theory, part of several subjects.
• Motivation & perseverance –students learn, but they are not persistent enough.
• Working with others – students have several groupwork situations during their training.
(B) To some extent, they affect the teacher during training, but not sufficiently
• Spotting opportunities – no time for your own ideas in lectures.
• Valuing ideas – students are not used to getting ideas, evaluating.
• Mobilising resources – students learn about tools, but they have only basic digital knowledge.
• Mobilising others – students learn in theory, but they barely practice it.
• Taking the initiative – students are not brave or proactive enough.
• Planning &management – students can plan a class, but they cannot think in larger projects.
• Learning through experience – students learn academic material, they dare not deviate from it, they do not consider experience as something to learn from.
(C) Missing from the teacher training
• Vision –students have no idea who they are going to be or what the future holds for them after graduation.
• Financial & economic literacy – students have absolutely no sense of this, nor do they learn it.
• Coping with ambiguity – uncertainty & risk – in a precarious situation, students do not dare to act either as an initiator, nor as a teacher.
Methods/solutions for embedding entrepreneurship education into ITE
In general, the participants agreed that the word “entrepreneurial” was not suitable for addressing wider target audience – let it be students or educators. “Innovative” would be a much better term. Teach innovatively and develop innovative skills are more appealing. Or it could be a combination of these two words: entrepreneurial skills in education – become an innovative educator. Three actual teaching methods/modules were mentioned. They are described below.
• Module 1: Self-awareness measurement in the acquisition of entrepreneurial mentality
Participants agreed that self-awareness can be key to developing students’ entrepreneurship competences. Since entrepreneurship competences may be misconceived, the students may not even know that they already have entrepreneurship competences. Hence self-awareness is important, participants proposed a continuous (annual) test whose results would allow students to see where they stand in terms of acquiring entrepreneurship
competences. This could be called “Journey to become an Entrepreneurial Teacher”.
• Module 2: Teacher-student joint practices
In the Hungarian education system, teachers who are already in service must participate in compulsory training courses from time to time. Such trainings are also held by the University of Szeged. University students could also participate in these trainings, so that (e.g. on the basis of mixed teacher-student tandems) mutual learning spillovers are triggered. The material of these trainings could rely on EntreComp. In teacher & HEI-student tandems the students will be not only be able to learn the entrepreneurship competence, but also to identify how it is applied in practice by the practicing teacher counter-pair. These trainings are usually 30 hours
long and are mandatory for practicing teachers every 3-5 years, while HEI students could be motivated by ECTS credits obtained for participation.
• Module 3: Summer school
Since the students of teacher training programmes are very busy and have extremely high number of courses during the semester, it is not possible to insert a new (entrepreneurship) course into the normal curriculum. For interested students, competency development trainings could be held in the form of a summer school. This could even be combined with the solution indicated in Module 2