Building Courage for Creativity

This thesis focuses on fostering creative confidence within the context of entrepreneurial education for the VMBO/HAVO/MBO levels. Recognising the creative potential in everyone, the challenge is to bridge the gap between being creative and having the confidence to use it.

The literature review identified the importance of giving students the freedom to experiment and immerse themselves in experiences, emphasising the overlap between entrepreneurial and creative attitudes such as risk-taking, critical thinking and openness to ambiguity. It became clear that in a creative learning process it is not the end result that is important, but the process itself, encouraging reflection and learning from mistakes. However, the fieldwork revealed that the existing tasks within GoFuture were seen as too framed, limiting students’ exploration of questions. Teachers expressed an openness to more active and creative teaching, but faced challenges in preparation due to time constraints and a lack of tools from the platform.

Students and teachers agreed on the importance of creativity in education and entrepreneurship and expressed a desire for more opportunities to integrate creativity into learning. Hands-on, group-oriented tasks were seen as more motivating and challenged the prevailing focus on rational thinking.

Moving to the design phase, three critical design directions were identified, emphasising the need for an experiential, step-by-step approach to learning. The potential of GoFuture to foster creative confidence by encouraging risk-taking behaviour was recognised, leading to the formulation of a new design goal that prioritised creating awareness and courage to take risks and fail.
A secondary literature review was performed within the context of risk-taking. A set of guidelines was created that support within the development of designing a solution.

The subsequent stages of ideation, prototyping and testing led to the development of a creative teaching module for teachers. Build upon the proposed design guidelines, this module includes several themes, assignments and a sharing platform. The module supports teachers in fostering a creative mindset in the classroom and provides a pathway for innovation within the education system.

Alongside the module, a roadmap has been developed, consisting of four horizons. The initial focus is on raising awareness through the creative teaching module, and the end vision focusses on fostering a culture of creativity, innovation and confidence in both students and educators, preparing students for a dynamic and innovative future.