Smeal launches entrepreneurship program for high school teachers

University Park, Pa. -- Penn State's Smeal College of Business has launched a landmark entrepreneurial education program designed to provide school teachers with the skills they need to teach entrepreneurship to high school students.

Smeal's Center for Entrepreneurship Learning "Teaching the Teacher" program was designed by Anthony Warren, director of Smeal's Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The four-day course gives teachers the understanding they need to design their own courses in entrepreneurship through problem-based learning, which Warren says is the most effective way to teach entrepreneurship.

The center is currently accepting applications from teachers throughout the United States for enrollment in the spring and summer of 2006. Teacher Nicole Matz was the first instructor to complete the center's training program this past summer and offered the first entrepreneurship course in Delaware Valley School District in the fall.

The course allows students to develop their own ideas for businesses and create a plan to turn their ideas into reality. The first course was a huge hit with students, teachers, administrators, and parents. In fact, there is a waiting list to enroll in the school's two entrepreneurship courses offered this spring. The Delaware Valley students are excited about learning valuable lessons that will prove vital in their future careers.

"Entrepreneurship is very important to students, regardless of what career they go into down the road," Matz says. "There's a core set of skills that they're learning and they're acquiring within this setting, and no matter if they're a teacher or a CEO of a big company or a doctor, they're going to need to be able to think creatively, collaborate, and communicate with one another."

Problem-based learning is at the root of Smeal's entrepreneurship courses–both for teachers and college students. Research studies show that education through experiential and problem-based learning is far more effective than conventional methods of education. Thus, the goal of the Center for Entrepreneurship Learning is to have problem-based learning widely adopted around the United States in schools and universities teaching entrepreneurship.

Candis Finan, superintendent of Delaware Valley schools, calls the Center's approach "the future of education." And Warren agrees.

"In the new economy, today's students need to learn to create their own opportunities to be sure they have successful careers," Warren says. "The earlier that they learn these skills, the easier it is to develop the attributes and self-confidence necessary to be a real entrepreneur."

For more information on the new Center for Entrepreneurship Learning or the experience of Delaware Valley students, visit the program's beta Web site at http://www.seventhreemedia.com/cel or call 814-865-4593.