The Reflective Entrepreneurship Educator: Developing Teaching Philosophies to Enhance Practice

Abstract

Advancing reflective practice for teaching entrepreneurship education (EE) in higher education requires educators to adapt their teaching. This article explores how entrepreneurship educators develop systematic rationales for defining their teaching practice’s values, beliefs, and aspirations. The empirical study reveals how educators construct different categories of teaching philosophies to become context-aware and balance EE purposes. The research question is: How do entrepreneurship educators develop their teaching philosophies to foster reflective practice and improve their pedagogical approaches? I explored this by studying existing approaches to teaching philosophies from educational science and conducting an empirical investigation at a university of applied sciences. The findings identify how educator development in EE may be guided by facilitating a reflective practice, aiding the entrepreneurship educator to foster sound pedagogical and didactical reflections and choices. The study presents an empirically refined integral perspective in which the balancing of EE purposes is promoted through three distinctive categories of teaching philosophies: 1) Teaching practice didactics and vocabulary; 2) Educators as agents in an institutional context; and 3) Professional practice as context for EE. The insights highlight critical strategies for developing teaching philosophies that are adaptable, purpose-driven, and responsive to the dynamic nature of entrepreneurship and facilitating reflective practice. In doing so, I contribute an entry point to discuss teaching philosophies in EE and bring this vital topic to the forefront, henceforth discussing how to enable and advance further understanding of the crucial roles of entrepreneurship educators in higher education.