March 2023
In this HSA Bulletin
In the Spotlight!
High School Articulation Audience Survey
April and May webinar info
March webinar materials
FAQ of the month
In the Spotlight!
This month we look in on a course called Social Innovation at the Valley Christian High School in San Jose. The course harnesses students’ interest in social issues by "equipping [them] with tools to wrestle difficult topics." Read on to learn more about the course and why it piqued our interest.
Please describe the history of the course and the reasons for its development.
Valley Christian School's Business, Entrepreneurship and Innovation program has a mission to shape the next generation of principled leaders. Using the Harvard Business School Social Enterprise Initiative as a guide, course organizers seek to inspire students to view the world with compassion and give them the agency to make a difference on social issues they care about.
The single-semester Entrepreneurship for Social Impact course was launched at Valley Christian in 2021–22. The course teaches students to apply innovative business practices and an entrepreneurial mindset to society's toughest challenges. For 2023–24, we are calling it Social Innovation and making it a yearlong offering, taking additional content from Stanford's design school and other sources to further enhance the curriculum.
What is the general scope and purpose of the course? What makes it unique?
This course is intentionally project-based and fuses learning with doing. Students will have many opportunities to combine their strengths and passions with the needs and challenges of a complex world. Social innovation is a broad term for purpose-based work that entrepreneurs do across sectors (business, nonprofit, government and newer forms like B-Corps). This course explores all those forms with the idea that some students will be entrepreneurs and others might find their fit as intrapreneurs, working within existing systems to make changes that positively impact people and the environment. Students will learn about existing solutions and use the design-thinking, problem-solving approach to create prototypes of their own solutions.
Please describe one or two projects, assignments or activities the instructor is excited to teach and why.
This is a new course. Assignments are intended to develop empathy in students. Because we see an increase of high school students actively participating in social issues, we are creating a space and equipping students with tools to wrestle difficult topics. Our desire is to inspire students to see the world with compassion and with the agency to make a difference on social issues they care about.
Sample #1
Students will analyze examples of for-profit, nonprofit and government sectors as social innovation incubators and evaluate the pros and cons of each sector as a potential driver of social innovation. Students will look at a variety of business models for social ventures (including hybrids and B-Corps) and look at how policy influences the conditions necessary for social innovation. Students will explore a.) a market solution to a social problem (ex: housing in California), b.) a government solution, c.) a church-based solution, d.) a nonprofit or philanthropy-supported solution and e.) a social enterprise that does not neatly fit any of the above definitions.
Sample of key assignments and activities for Unit 3:
Students will debate the strengths and weaknesses of common statements about social innovation such as:
- "The government should handle that."
- "It's impossible to do well while doing good."
- “Every problem has a market solution."
Students will find, compare and contrast an organization in each sector (for-profit, nonprofit, government, B-Corps/hybrid) that addresses environmental challenges innovatively and will offer suggestions on how these solutions might be improved.
Sample #2
- Students will turn their findings from the virtual empathy walk in Unit 5 into a Day in the Life storyboard using an international context.
- Working in teams, students will make a TikTok or YouTube video that tells a compelling story about a social problem and a business or nonprofit that is addressing that problem in an innovative way.
- This will be followed by a design challenge: Revisiting your international storyboard, design a tool that might enable local people to perform a daily task in a more meaningful, efficient or cost-effective way.
What are some course texts or resources that you think might be useful to other educators?
Books
- Rath, Tom. (2007). StrengthsFinder. Gallup.
- Ken Banks (Ed.). (2016). Entrepreneurship and Innovation: International Case Studies and Practice. Kogan Page.
Online Resources:
Please tell us anything else about the course you would love readers to know about.
Empowering our students to solve real-world problems as a servant-leader, "loving our neighbor," by putting the needs, well-being and growth of others first, is something we believe to be our commission. Part of what sets us apart is our ability to act holistically: using our logic and rationality, employing our heart of empathy to move in new and better directions. Today's high schoolers are inheriting a complex, evolving world where challenges are intertwined, and solutions don't fit into neat boxes. Being able to look creatively, ethically and entrepreneurially at solutions will help students to arrive at conclusions that position them as the leaders of tomorrow.
To learn more, please contact Sonia Avilucea at savilucea@vcs.net.
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