Our world needs skilled, innovative workers. Not just any skills—but increasingly specialized as well as wide-ranging ones. According to a World Economic Forum Report, “New Vision for Education: Fostering Social and Emotional Learning Through Technology,” students need to have core skills in science, mathematics and finance, among other essentials. They need to develop critical thinking,…
Discover how VentureLab’s unique ESTEAM framework merges entrepreneurship with STEM and the arts to foster innovation and critical thinking among youth. Our curriculum not only teaches important STEM skills but also applies them in creative, real-world contexts, empowering students to become motivated, team-oriented, and problem-solving innovators. Explore our approach to making STEM concepts relatable and engaging, particularly for girls and younger students, through hands-on projects and entrepreneurial education.
Teaching girls to think like entrepreneurs can be the key to unlocking their potential in STEM fields. At VentureLab, we encourage girls to innovate, problem-solve and take calculated risks, and we’ve seen a profound change in their enthusiasm and confidence as a result. By exposing girls to entrepreneurial concepts at a young age, they become more aware of opportunities around them and learn to think creatively. We’ve even seen 5-year-old students become entrepreneurs by identifying a problem, conducting market research, and ultimately creating a successful product. If we want more women innovators, we need to teach girls to observe and anticipate needs, innovate, and take risks.
I’ve discovered three keys to building our pipeline of women innovators and changemakers. In my last post, I explored the first key: let girls break free of stereotypes. The second is to teach our girls to redefine and embrace failure. Studies show that many girls self-select out of things that are difficult or risky, because…
Through my experience teaching at the university level, and what I myself have discovered in teaching kindergarten through 12th grade, I’ve identified three keys to building our pipeline of female creative leaders and innovators: help break them free from stereotypes, let them embrace failure, and encourage entrepreneurialism. I will outline them over the next few…
Girls are gifted in science and math, but they’re missing from fields that need their talents… “More than ever before, girls are studying and excelling in science and mathematics,” writes Catherine Hill of the American Association of University Women (AAUW), in Solving the Equation: The Variables for Women’s Success in Engineering and Computing, a report she co-authored….
Friends, I am excited to share that the first half of VentureLab’s brand new youth entrepreneurship curriculum is now available for grades 6-12 and is available at no charge. The interactive lessons teach kids, particularly girls, to develop courageous, creative, can-do attitudes and be ready to take on the challenges of our evolving world. Check them…
At VentureLab, we encourage creative brainstorming and zeroing in on promising ideas. With our curriculum, girls learn to design and create a prototype, even if it is only drawn on paper. They learn to conduct research by asking friends and family their thoughts on the prototype. They follow through with their best solutions—and they think about…
I have repeatedly observed remarkable core transformations in girls of all ages who take part in the entrepreneurial exercises of VentureLab. We are demonstrating that entrepreneurial education holds a key to sparking girls’ interest in engineering, computer science, and technology by… Making these subjects real and relevant as girls learn to “think like entrepreneurs” about…
Who amongst us has ever accomplished something startlingly new without believing that it would be possible? Entrepreneurial education is all about possibilities. Being able to see how possibilities become realities for children and hot they embrace the continuing wonder of discovery is what’s so exciting about teaching entrepreneurship! Children are driven by curiosity and an urge…
What changes when students develop entrepreneurial skills at a young age? They learn that they can grow their brains, that their brains form new synapses and abilities as they learn new things. Students develop a mindset that makes learning a mental strengthening and an expansion of their potential. They employ the “curiosity cycle,” building foundations…
Real world examples, hands-on experiences, and entrepreneurial thinking can ignite girls’ interest in math precisely because they are real, relevant, and maybe even positive for girls’ lives, their world, and our planet.
… We can’t accept the simplistic premise that all differences are the result of how girls and boys are “socialized.”
One of the key differences between boys and girls has everything to do with entrepreneurial learning. Girls tend to understand math better when math problems are cast in real-world contexts. Leonard Sax, a psychologist and family physician, and the author of the books Boys Adrift, Girls on the Edge, and Why Gender Matters, describes a robust phenomenon…
An entrepreneurial mindset is an accelerated growth mindset. In acquiring such a mindset, not only do girls learn that they can make themselves smarter, they learn that they have the potential to think of new ideas that have practical applications. That might be fancy language for a 5-year-old so it would be better expressed for…
A growth mindset is a winning mindset. There is no downside to a girl believing that she has the capacity to grow her intelligence and to acquire new skills. And it’s important to know that neuroscience is on her side. Everything we are learning about plasticity of the brain supports the hope that people can…
When we encourage girls to change their mindset, rather than simply to get good grades, we open up a world of possibilities for them. In my last post, we looked at the importance of encouraging girls in math by understanding the differences in their brains and those of boys. I began to describe a study…
We’re on a mission to create the next generation of diverse innovators and changemakers by making entrepreneurship education accessible to ALL youth.
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