Teaching Entrepreneurship to Undergraduates

Colin Jones, Associate Professor of Academic Development, Faculty of Health, Engineering and Sciences, University of Southern Queensland, Australia

An experienced entrepreneur and educator, Colin Jones has written this book to help entrepreneurship educators pause and reflect upon their students’ learning, and therefore their own responsibilities as educators. He advocates a student-centric way to teach entrepreneurship and to building the curriculum. He shakes up the reader’s thinking and invites discussion on an experiential learning approach, to engage students in learning about entrepreneurship.

这本书是慎重审议地挑衅,醒了ns another level of thinking on how to teach entrepreneurship. It will be required reading for entrepreneurship educators and those building a university entrepreneurship programme for years to come.

‘Colin Jones hits some nails firmly on the head in this enlightening text. Driven by learning and accepting of the fact that contexts change, often at great pace, his writing is firmly placed in the heads of the people who need these experiences, learners who not only need to recognise future opportunities but to reap the benefits of realizing them in meaningful ways. He has been there, wears the T Shirt of failure with pride and develops thoughtful ‘spaces’ in which we can reflect and move on. More importantly, Jones’ position as meddler in the middle now extends beyond his classrooms and conference presentations, providing us with a text that I thoroughly recommend to you.’
– Andy Penaluna, CEO Enterprise Educators UK

‘Reading this book will greatly help educators in the field of entrepreneurship. As stated by Colin Jones the title could be How to Allow Students to Learn About Entrepreneurship. It means that the author has adopted a student-centric approach emphasizing learning processes in entrepreneurship. The book and its main ideas have emerged from a personal journey combining entrepreneurial and educational experiences. Above all, this book is a fascinating and reflexive approach on how entrepreneurship education should be thought and delivered.’
– Alain Fayolle, EM Lyon Business School, France

‘It is with delight that I endorse Dr Jones’ application of entrepreneurship education in the context of undergraduates. A theory to practice philosophy is maintained, as well as enhancement of the entrepreneurship-directed approach to learning based on the idea of experiential learning, in which new activity produces a new experience and new thinking through reflection.’
– Alex Maritz, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

‘Teaching Entrepreneurship to Undergraduates is a mandatory read for all academics who love teaching, and will stimulate discussions and further enquiry on teaching in higher education for many years. This groundbreaking and practical book provides a unique and superior conceptualization of entrepreneurship education, creating a more student-centric approach to learning, not a lecturer-centric approach to teaching. This book focuses on how entrepreneurial educators, and any university faculty, could become much more effective at teaching by a adopting this new perspective on education, its objectives and its outcomes.’
– Morgan Miles, Georgia Southern University, US

‘I believe this to be the first book in the world to attempt an in-depth exploration of both the philosophy and practice of entrepreneurship education. As such it embodies a number of unique (and entrepreneurial) characteristics. Its emphasis is not upon teaching but on processes of learning. It is written by an entrepreneur who has experience of failure and builds upon a personal learning journey from entrepreneur to teacher and therefore has many thought-provoking insights. The main focus is upon the needs of student learners in higher education and the importance of their taking ownership of learning. The text seeks to demonstrate what this means in practice, how to build upon what learners already know and what they can bring to the party from very diverse perspectives. Unlike many other books in this field it is not prescriptive. It presents a debate and is designed to encourage the reader to think, reflect and indeed argue.’
– From the foreword by Allan Gibb, University of Durham, UK