IDEA

GENERATION
 As a VentureLab instructor, you are enabling student confidence,
self-efficacy and ingenuity, ultimately preparing students to use an
entrepreneurial mindset to pave their own path. For your own journey
as an instructor, please use the resources below to complement the
VentureLab curriculum. There, you’ll find tips on how to create an
impactful learning experience.

USER ENTREPRENEURIAL
GUIDE MINDSET & SKILLSET

INTRODUCTORY
VIDEO

© 2021 VentureLab
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intellectual property rights in the Curriculum are owned by VentureLab. AlI use of this curriculum must be done in accordance with
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This is a summary of, not a substitute for, the full license agreement.
 CONTENTS
LESSON OVERVIEW /04

LESSON P REPARATION /06

ACTIVITY 1: GROUP BRAINSTORMING /10

& BRAINWRITING
Duration: 45 minutes

ACTMTV 2: ROLE PLAYING /16

& REVERSE BRAINSTORMING
Duration: 45 minutes
GOALS
In this lesson, students will learn how to effectively use and e><plore a range of methods
that will help them generate new ideas. This includes learning and practicing methods
of idea generation that

� Encourage everyone in a group to actively participate so that everyone's ideas

are captured (written down/recorded).
� Help students to recognize the benefits of building on other people's ideas
and sharing ideas.
� Help students find new and different ways to create more innovative ideas.

� Help students develop brainstorming techniques regularly used by

entrepreneurs for more focused and in-depth idea generation.

ENTREPRENEURIAL MINDSETS and SKILLS

This lesson is designed to help students e><perience and develop the following:

Entrepreneurial Mindsets Entrepreneurial Skills

Opportunity Seeking Brainstorming/Idea Generation

Problem Solving Creativity

Curiosity Teamwork

Optimism

Adapta bi lity

Empathy
MATERIALS
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() List of Brainstorming Topics

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THE ENTREPRENEUR
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 4) The ne><t person will add to the story starter by stating a sentence to help develop
the story (this can be in any way adding in action, new characters, situations -
whatever comes to mind!).

5) For e><ample, if the story starter read: "I was in school on a cold winter's day,
dreaming about the weekend when I looked out of the window and saw aliens land
on the soccer field," the ne><t person might say, "There were 200 of them running
towards me." The next person might say, "They had three heads and two eyes," and
so on. Encourage students to be as creative and outrageous as possible!

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6) After every student in the whole group has added onto the story, put students into
groups of 5-6. Use Group Up! for ideas on grouping kids.

7) Hand out the story starter cards. Place them face down in the middle of each
group.

8) Students repeat the activity as modeled with the whole group.

9) For each story starter, the group should go around twice before turning over the
ne><t card.
lO) Give the groups appr0><imately 4-5 minutes for this activity.

11) Invite the students to share their best/funniest story. Then use this as a link into
the rest of the lesson on idea generation and brainstorming. In particular highlight
how diverse, interesting and different their ideas were.

Brainstorming
12) Explain that the rest of the lesson is going to be focused on 2 different
brainstorming techniques to help generate ideas.

13) Ask students what brainstorming is and if they can give e><amples of times when
they have used brainstorming. (Brainstorming is where an individual or a group of
people come up with as many new ideas as possible around a specific topic or
problem. E><: You're hungry and you brainstorm different foods to eat).

14) E><plain that group brainstorming techniques are used by all entrepreneurs - in
whatever field they work, as a way of coming up with as many ideas as possible
and the techniques they learn today can be used in many areas of their own life.
The focus is always on getting lots of ideas rather than quality of ideas or making
any judgments.
24) Ask students to share some of the ideas they came up with of how to make a pig fly.
25) Dependent on the ideas the groups give - you may want to ask students how they
could be more creative? Sometimes we limit our ideas - we edit out ideas that are
not yet possible or seem too odd. For e><ample, did anyone suggest something like -
you could put bacon on a plane! Entrepreneurs often come up with ideas that seem
odd or not possible but over time these can be amazing solutions. Driverless Cars
were first talked about over SO years ago!

26) Can they think of any other ways to make a pig fly?

2 7) If time permits, you may wish to do an open brainstorm activity again with a more
realistic topic. Use the Brainstorming Topics List to help you.

Brainwriting
28) l<eep students in the same groups as before. E><plain to students that they will now
try a different method of brainstorming, called brainwriting, that aims to help
everyone contribute more ideas to the whole group, while allowing them to use
each others' ideas to build on.

2 9) Give each student a blank sheet of paper. Choose a topic from the Brainstorming
Topics List and write it on the board.

30) Have students copy the Brainstorm prompt on their paper.

31) Explain they will have 3 minutes to write down/draw as many ideas as possible
before passing the page to the person ne><t to them. When they receive a page,
they should quietly read the ideas given to them and add more ideas on to that
paper. Continue doing 3 minute rounds until the papers returns to their starting
point. If you have groups of different sizes simply stop when the smallest group
finishes.

32) At the end, collect and share all the idea papers so everyone can read through the
different ideas.

33) Ask the students to take a few minutes to read their original pieces of paper and
think about how different the ideas are. They can also try to estimate how many
ideas they individually contributed.

34) Give the groups a few minutes to share the idea papers so they can see all the
different ideas they came up with.
 7) Choose any topic/question from the Brainstorming Topics List that you think will
work well for your groups. Alternatively, let students choose their own question/
problem. If you have a particular topic that is relevant to your students and you
wish them to e><plore it in-depth, you can use that same topic throughout the role
playing and reverse brainstorming activity as they will likely encourage different
ideas.

8) Start by giving 2 minutes for groups to brainstorm solutions/ideas related to the

topic as themselves. Each group should record their ideas on 1 large piece of
paper. Give the groups a moment to nominate a recorder/scribe. Review the
Brainstorming Rules before starting time.

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9) After 2 minutes, explain to students that you will call out a person or character and
everyone will pretend they are that person or character. For 2 minutes they will
continue brainstorming and recording ideas while pretending to be someone else.

10) Then you will call out another person/character for them to do the same thing and
so on. You can go through the list in any order you choose. Feel free to add your
own characters or personas and make them specific people the students would
know!

11) Repeat this process with 5-6 different personas/characters (or more if it is working
well and you can see the groups want to continue) and then stop the groups for a
short reflection.

Role Playing Discussion

The aim of this discussion is to get students to think about how the technique
worked for them and their group and if there were any problems with it. The
following questions can be used as discussion points:
• What were the benefits of using role playing while brainstorming?
• Was there anything students particularly liked or enjoyed?
• In what ways was role playing difficult? Were there any issues with the
technique?
• How could they use role playing for brainstorming and problem solving at
school/at home?
• How do they think entrepreneurs use role playing?
 Reverse Brainstorming Discussion
The aim is to get students to think about how the technique worked
for them and their group and if there were any problems or issues
with it. The following questions can be used as discussion points:

• What were the benefits of trying to make the problem worse?

• How could they use this approach for brainstorming and

problem solving at school/at home?

• How do they think entrepreneurs use this technique? Were

there any issues with the technique? Why?
• Which of the techniques did they prefer - role play or reverse
brainstorming? Why?

l<ey Points:
@=uil Making something worse helps view things from a different
perspective - reversing this then helps us to focus on solutions.

@=uil This is often a great technique for businesses - entrepreneurs

can try to identify all the things that make a service e><perience
or use of a product worse for the customer. Often recognizing
what they are doing that makes things worse is a great start to
problem solving and improving.

EXTENSION or HOMEWORK ( Optional)

Ask each student to choose their own problem to work on (especially if they have one
that they feel stuck for ideas on) and give students the opportunity to spend time
using these idea generation techniques.
IDEA
GENERATION
 CONTENTS

LESSON OVERVIEW /04

LESSON PREPARATION /06

ACTIVITY 1: VISUAL IDEA GENERATION /10

Duration: 55 minutes

ACTMTV 2: SCAMPER /16

Duration: 35 minutes
 LESSON OVERVIEW
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INTRODUCTION

fJ venturelab
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