Value creation pedagogy enables students to make a difference for other people or to society as a whole.
“This might be helping healthcare staff come up with a new flavour to make a disgusting medicine taste better or attracting more people to attend the local football club’s matches,” says Martin Lackéus, a researcher and teacher in entrepreneurship and pedagogy at Chalmers University of Technology who has a PhD in entrepreneurial education.
Martin Lackéus
Researcher and teacher in entrepreneurship and pedagogy at Chalmers University of Technology
He has been developing value creation pedagogy and researching the approach at all levels of the education system for 15 years. Within higher education, he has increasingly come to refer to the method as ‘collaborative pedagogy’, to highlight its links it to universities’ third-stream external collaboration activities. Today, its impact is both significant and well-documented, he explains.
“Students are more engaged and motivated, and they learn in greater depth. They also develop skills that can otherwise be difficult to acquire, such as decisiveness, initiative taking, dealing with uncertainty, communicating, and presenting ideas in a way that makes them interesting and attractive to others.”
Anders Hultén is a lecturer at the University of Borås. He has spent over six years working to integrate value creation pedagogy into the university’s bachelor’s programme in event management. He usually begins by letting students create value for one another in a straightforward and fun way. During the first term, they are asked to create value for others in the class. For example, some students have organised quiz nights.
“They start slowly and simply, and they learn that there’s a point to the fact that we don’t know everything,” he says, “and that doing something wrong is not the end of the world. I want to create these kinds of secure agent of change.”
Anders Hultén
Lecturer at the University of Borås
Later, his students get to create value outside the university and collaborate with external organisations. This might involve helping companies or organisations to organise different events.
“For example, some students helped the local handball club to develop new structures to motivate players in its youth teams. The kids were paired up as mentors and mentees, which allowed them to get to know players of different ages, which they really enjoyed.”
Hultén has built and developed links with these external organisations. Previously, he had let the students contact the host organisations themselves.
“That caused them some anxiety, and it proved difficult. We hadn’t prepared them very well. We hadn’t taught them how to pitch their ideas or what it was exactly they were supposed to pitch.”
His advice to university teachers who want to start working with value creation pedagogy is the same as that he gives his students: do it in order to learn.
“It’s not very complicated. Start by giving students simple tasks to get them going. It could be having a coffee with someone who inspires them and talk about their career. That usually gives students a boost and helps them realise that it’s not such a big deal to contact people.”
Another suggestion is to get in touch with organisations that are used to working with volunteers. For his own part, he has collaborated with the Red Cross and other non-profit organisations.
“They’re usually happy to get help and have plenty of patience. They’re good at onboarding new people and understand that this sort of collaboration takes time,” he explains.
For Lucy Hatt, value creation learning always begins with a problem or an opportunity. One of her favourite examples is that of a student who was responsible for maintaining equipment at a hospital. His team used to spend a great deal of time trying to locate items such as the blood pressure monitor.
“As part of his project, he fitted tracking devices to all the equipment, which meant that staff could spend considerably more time repairing the devices rather than looking for them,” she says.
Lucy Hatt
Docent of entrepreneurial education at Newcastle University
Hatt is docent of entrepreneurial education at Newcastle University. Her students either have work experience or are studying part-time while working. They therefore tend to work with creating value at their current or former workplaces.
In her teaching, she follows a process whereby students define a problem, identify who is affected and what value they wish to create, before choosing among a range of possible solutions. As the work progresses, they liaise regularly with the client.
In her view, the most important things that students develop through value creation learning are greater independence, improved confidence in their own abilities and, above all, drive and initiative.
“It’s about putting them in the driver’s seat and giving them the belief that they can actually bring about change.”
The most difficult thing, she believes, is that many students arrive with the expectation of being passive recipients of knowledge; that they will be spoon-fed information which they can then regurgitate to pass tests and gain qualifications. Value-creation pedagogy turns that mindset on its head.
“It can feel daunting for students, because the boundaries aren’t clear and there is no ‘right’ answer. This can lead to a lot of resistance.”
So it is important to be clear that there is a process and what that looks like. Hatt explains that the method is unique because neither she nor the students know how the projects will turn out.
“It suits today’s working environment, where nobody knows what will happen next and everyone operates in a state of uncertainty, unlike anything we’ve seen before. This type of entrepreneurial thinking is designed for such conditions and helps students to act based on what is happening right now.”
Martin Lackéus has found that many teachers find it difficult to get started with value creation learning. The education system prioritises efficiency and throughput, while this method is time-consuming, complex and challenging.
“It requires new skills and commitment from teachers, as well as resources and support from the management level.”
His advice is to start small and think in terms of progression. He has developed a set of playing cards featuring 13 possible starting points.
“You can start with the course subject and ask yourself who might benefit from the knowledge. You could also modify something you’re already doing in a course, like adding an external recipient.
Lackéus has concluded that reflection assignments are the best way to assess value creation learning. “I usually advise against grading reflection, as it undermines the purpose of in-depth reflection, and instead use a pass–fail model.”
How to get started with value creation pedagogy
Martin Lackéus has developed 13 playing cards to help teachers get started with value creation learning. One of them is about letting students show that they care, for example by:
Identifying what a group needs help with and providing that help.
- Creating something that gives someone comfort, support or happiness.
- Performing a small act of care linked to another living being.
- Creating a gift, for instance in the form of supporting documents, an activity, a fundraising initiative, information material, a visit or a practical aid.
Source: Martin Lackéus
