Objectives:
- To engage students with entrepreneurial action in a save space within the university campus
- To support student reflection on own entrepreneurial activity
- To explore the practice use and impact of business planning and strategic thinking
- To introduce students with fundraising and selling for a self-chosen charity or “good cause”
Overview:
The focus within this task is developing a mini start-up lasting several hours, pooling the expertise/wisdom of the group to create an offer and sell it to real customers while fundraising. These activities can then be evaluated and explored in a written reflection. The practice outcome is to raise money for a “good cause” or charity the students select.
Introduction
The key learning themes of this learning activity are:
To engage students in a real-life entrepreneurial activity within the safe space of a university campus, they have to prepare and run, like a mini-start-up, and
To support them in reflecting on what they have learned about business start-up, themselves and business skills applicable to business start-up.
The practice outcome is to raise money for a “good cause” or charity that the students select
Activity:
This activity of running a pop-up shop is embedded in a social constructive approach to learning (Hill, 2015). It employs experiential learning to effectively extend learners’ skills, knowledge and successful entrepreneurial behaviours, develops mindsets and attitudes towards selling to the public and raising money for a good cause. The activity allows simultaneous learning on cognative, cognitive and emotional level. Preparation? I have run pop-up shops without preparing learners directly for it, to allow students to apply their learning they should have had by month 2 or 3 on starting a new venture to a real life situation. This activity allows them to learn by doing or not being as successful as they thought they would be. Publish the invite with the guidelines, deadlines, risk assessment form and assessment details. The latter is only necessary, if the specific assessment details such as a reflection as part of a portfolio was not published at the start of the term or semester. During the time running up to the set date, I remind students that I am there to answer any questions they might have. Once the pop-up shop has run, however, I advise to engage students in a detailed de-brief activity. This debrief activity can happen on the day of the pop-ups shops or in the next seminar or lecture. Across self-chosen teams, engage students in pair-discussions exploring what they did, and reflecting briefly on how it went and what they learned. Questions on a handout given to students can get them talking and writing the first notes for themselves and the other student in the process. Organise a location and a date for at least two days or more depending on module student numbers - Ensure there is plenty of open space where students and staff pass by - Organise tables and chairs for students to use if they wish to do so. Invite students to run a pop-up shop and select their own groups a minimum of two weeks before the pop-up shops happen, ideally a month in advance. Groups of at least three up to 8 students work best. Set a deadline for registration of activity with you. (I have tried to put students into groups to ensure mixing international with other students, ensure gender and other social traits are mixed, but these groups did not work as well as self-chosen ones.) Inform them from the start that part of the assessment is to write a critical reflection of the whole process of group formation to delivery of the raised money to you on the end of the pop-up shop time. Whatever the chosen assessment form, learners need to know what they are being assessed on. a) Allow them to choose anything to sell they would like as long as it is legal and does not affect health and safety issues of the location and the university. With this wide open yet restricted approach you can prevent Sisha lounges in as much as betting places etc.
Preparation?
I have run a pop-up shop without any preparation, to allow students to apply their learning they should have had by month 2 or 3 on starting a new venture to a real life situation and allow them to learn by doing or not being as successful as they thought they would be.
I only published the invite with the guidelines, deadlines, risk assessment form and assessment details. The latter is only necessary, if the specific assessment details such as a reflection as part of a portfolio was not published at the start of the term or semester.
This approach is in line with experiential learning. For this option, I advise to engage students in a detailed de-brief activity.
 This debrief activity can happen on the day of the pop-ups shops or in the next seminar or lecture. Across self-chosen teams, engage students in pair-discussions exploring what they did, and reflecting briefly on how it went and what they learned. Questions on a handout given to students can get them talking and writing the first notes for themselves and the other student in the process.
Another option: Teacher-led
You lecture about flexible start-ups and test trading in reality and talk about pop-up shops and commercial providers (Hill, 2018b). You offer training on how to design a stall and give out a hand-out with tips and good practice on how to deal with customers, practice selling skills etc. and then run the pop-up shops. You make market research a requirement of the registering for running a pop-up shop. I have tried out all options, yet found that students learn the most by the less prepared approach outlined above.
This approach might offer itself for a co-curricular activity, where no assessment follows that engages students in written reflection.
Organise a location and a date for at least two days or more depending on module student numbers
- Ensure there is plenty of open space where students and staff pass by
- Organise tables and chairs for students to use if they wish to do so.
 Invite students to run a pop-up shop and select their own groups a minimum of two weeks before the pop-up shops happen, ideally a month in advance. Groups of at least three up to 8 students work best. Set a deadline for registration of activity with you.
Inform them from the start that part of the assessment is to write a critical reflection of the whole process of group formation to delivery of the raised money to you on the end of the pop-up shop time. Whatever the chosen assessment form, learners need to know what they are being assessed on.
a)Â Â Â Set a type of product or service you allow them to sell.
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Send out a risk assessment form the university uses to critically evaluate what they plan to do.
Liaise beforehand with Facilities or the department that manages the space you use what they regard as unacceptable activities. But I do not advise students in advance, as learning by not being allowed to do something they would like to do is important.
Ensure you familiarise yourself with copyright if needed, as taking money from offering to play an online game a student bought and brings along together with his own laptop is a challenge even if money is raised for a charity. You might need permission from the publishers for this fundraising activity, which takes time students might not give you.
Ask them to select a slot of xx hours (you define how many hours you want them to run it; I suggest a minimum of four hours) and submit to you what they would like to sell and do, together with the risk evaluation form. Various online event management options exist for a selection process by students beyond email, if your interpretation of GDPR allows this data to be collected this way, such as Eventbrite. And to register the activity (with filled-in risk assessment from) with you.
 Option A:
Then wait and see what happens. Send two reminders before the deadline. You might get an influx of activity the day and night before the actual pop-up days.
 Option B:
You set a deadline for registering a team and actual activity with you and do not allow any submissions after that. This has not worked for me, as many students are working towards deadlines last minute and regard the actual pop-up shop days as the real deadline. Thus, as long as the deadline is two days before the pop-up activity, deadlines might pass without more than two registrations. Thus, I set the deadline a week before the actual pop-up shop days, and give extensions.
 On the day:
Be there for questions if needed, but do not control what happens. Rather, monitor what students do to ensure they do not violate health and safety issues, and at least pretend not to be there all the time. Instead, arrange with colleagues to be there for various other times as paying customers to keep an eye on what students do. Pass by, be a customer, and talk to students. Be a mentor - Encourage them to reflect on behaviour and its success or failure and help them to find an alternative solution. Where and when needed, encourage them to get up from stalls where some might sit and wait for customers. Suggest them to walk about with product offers, tasters and the full product to engage customers. Be a sounding board - If something goes wrong, ask them questions on why they think something is not working. Help them to find a way forward, which can include signposting them to a university service. Plan to be there late on the day. Students might run the pop-up shop longer than they planned to do, and might want to boast to you about their great successes. These conversations and congratulations from you are part of the learning experience. You would also want to take the money raised minus cost students had evidenced with receipts and store it in a safe place until all activities have run. De-brief See above under Preparations for one set of activities. Part of the de-brief should be to reiterate the assessment requirements and the invite to write the reflection soon, independent on when the deadline for it might be.
AssessmentÂ
Assessments forms can vary - from reflective essay (15000 words) to video creation to short written reflection (350 words) on preparation to delivery and financial, the cognitive or knowledge dimension, behaviours towards customers and team members (conative) and increased self-awareness and emotional resilience. Reflection on actual practice is a valued learning outcome for higher education studies leading to reflective practitioners employers are seeking (Hill, 2015, QAA, 2018); learning can be enhanced through well-designed learning environments (Bruno and Dell-Aversana, 2018), which this type of pop-up shop activity offers. For assessment through written reflection students at all levels need guidance regarding what to reflect on. This can be supported through clear questions on what they should reflect on: The educator needs to develop questions around the below aspects of learning. Learning on (A)What does it feel like … (for example) to start a stall that has never existed before? - (emotional dimension of learning) (B)What have you learned about running a stall - and how does this compare to running a start-up in retail? (cognitive dimension of learning, codified knowledge through reading and preparation, and practical knowledge of doing and codified knowledge through reading and preparation) (C) What skills have you used and developed? (D) What have you learned about yourself - your attitudes towards business / team working / your skills / leadership / research etc. I set a minimum of academic journal references of two to use. The module reading list offers up to ten of those to start with. The quality of written reflections varied; those who made an effort and went beyond the description of what they did indicated a deep learning experience happened that will stay with them. This deeper learning includes learning about working with others in a live situation with customer interaction and the reasons for a difference between planning what is going to happen and what is actually happening when running a stall (Hill, 2018a).
Skill Development:
Feedback on the day of the pop-up shop was only very positive, students showed excitement during the day; many showed more outgoing behaviour and developed or demonstrated good team working skills. Unsolicited feedback in the next module lecture was immensely positive, for example “This was the best thing I have done this year”, This is the most important learning experience of all my studies”. Students tend to go for very similar offers such as selling cupcakes, sweets, bags of salty snacks. Once each time I ran it (out of six occasions), I saw unique services developed, from throwing balls into paper cups to win small prizes to darts for in-doors with balls at a target where they stick. Learners have developed the following competences after having taken part in the pop-up shop activity. These competences are matched against the EntreComp framework (Bacigalupo et al, 2016, Hill 2018a): Students develop these competencies: Competence area “Ideas and opportunities”: Students have to creatively spot opportunities for selling products or services to the known target audience on campus, reflect on their knowledge of customers and put the learning into action. They agree as a team on their selection and value each other’s contributions in the process. In planning what they do they develop a vision of how the day might run and how they set up the stall. Through carrying out a risk assessment using a given form, they evaluate the consequences of their ideas on running the stall and the impact this activity will have on customers and the organisational environment (Hill, 2018a), considering health and safety and ethical issues. Competence area “Resources”: As a group they pull together their skills and resources to run the stall, evaluate skills to decide who does what activity and role on the day and in the preparation phase. They bring own possessions along on the day, such as boxes, glasses. If they chose a location with little footfall, they have to move their tables, and/or find solutions and show determination in finding customers allowing them to sell to. They have to estimate their cost for buying products in advance in as much as how many they are most likely able to sell to break even, developing and extending financial planning skills and forecasting skills. A team leader and all members need to keep each other motivated in the planning phase and on the day, and when needed mobilise additional support from other seminar students. Competence area “Into action”: Students take initiative in selecting a charity to raise money for and make a decision so that all students then raise money for it. They have to decide on the products they sell and plan what resources they need on the day to run the stall. They have to manage how to take the money and keep track of takings, and change how they interact with customers thinking on their feet when needed. The forecasting of potential buyers deals with uncertainty - and safeguards buying products they can bring back if the packing is not damaged - needs to be integrated into the purchasing strategy of products and the pricing strategy. Team working is needed for all decisions that lead to activities for running the stall, demonstrating interpersonal, communication and strategy skills.
Resources:
Open space or a larger class room or hallÂ
Tables and chairsÂ
And other resources learners need to self-organise the stall, dependent on the product / service they decide to sell.
References:
• Bacigalupo et al., 2016. EntreComp: The Entrepreneurship Competence Framework. Brussels: Joint Research Centre Science for Policy. (last accessed, 30-7-2018; https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/en/publication/eur-scientific-and-technical-research-reports/entrecompentrepreneurship-competence-framework)Â
• Bruno, A. And Dell-Aversana, G. 2018. Reflective practicum in higher education: the influence of the learning environment on the quality of learning. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education 43 (3), pp. 345-358.Â
• Hill, I. And Bass, T. (2019, forthcoming). Embedding emotional resilience and reflection in the curriculum – pop-up shops as a tool to learn about and reflect on enterprise. In A. Diver (Ed.), Employable scholars in Higher Education: Challenges and choices in times of austerity (Vol. (in press). Berlin / New York: Springer.Â
• Hill, I. (2018a). Birmingham City University. Using EntreComp to bring credibility to practical entrepreneurial learning activities. In: Joint Research Centre (European Commission), EntreComp into action. Get inspired, make it happen. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union (last accessed 27-7-2018, https://publications.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/ 4542fd58-20f3-11e8-ac73-01aa75ed71a1/language-enÂ
• Hill, I. 2018b. https://www.linkedin.com/in/dringehillstrategy/ - for an article with links to business practice examples of pop-up locations and How-to-Guides for real-life pop-up shops.
• Hill, I. 2015. Start-Up. A practice led guide to new venture creation. London: Palgrave Macmillan.Â
• QAA = Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education. 2018. Enterprise and Entrepreneurship Education: Guidance for UK Higher Education Providers. Gloucester.