Marco van Gelderen
Vrije Universiteit (Free University) Amsterdam
What is your current role and institution, and what courses do you teach?
I am Associate Professor at Vrije Universiteit (Free University) Amsterdam. I teach courses in which participants practice enterprising competencies. At the moment, I am also developing online modules for first-year undergraduate business students on awareness, self-awareness, and other-awareness. Another role is that of action editor, together with Andrew Corbett of Babson College, of the learning innovation section of the journal Entrepreneurship Education & Pedagogy.
How did you come to pursue a career in management education? Was there a pivotal moment or person that shaped your path?
By accident. I finally finished my studies two weeks before my 37th birthday. I was fortunate and privileged to have Roy Thurik as a master thesis supervisor. He later arranged a PhD position for me, and then my first job as an assistant professor at Erasmus University. A pivotal moment was when it dawned on me, as a PhD student, that training skills and attitudes is a very different ball game from conveying knowledge. I started to understand why a top expert on a topic can be a good teacher in terms of knowledge transmission, yet ineffective as a trainer.
Perhaps an even more important question is: How did you come to continue a career in management education? The short answer is that I put my ‘sparkle’ number one. If I’m not happy, it’s difficult to make others happy. As soon as activities or roles become stale, I drop them and develop something new. This typically happens after four years. What also helps is that I use a very broad definition of entrepreneurship. As soon as anybody does anything to create value for another person (or animal or nature), I call it enterprising behavior. With that definition I can turn any topic into an entrepreneurship study. And then I can convert nearly every entrepreneurship study into educational formats.
What is your teaching philosophy?
I usually individualize my approaches, taking each individual course participant and his or her context as my point of departure. This requires a good grasp of social constructivism and well as of social constructionism. You have a to have a good understanding of how participants learn. When training enterprising skills or attitudes, you need a basic understanding of the ‘what’, and a good understanding of the ‘how’.
How does your university’s culture or student population influence the way you teach?
I work in Dutch public education. EU students pay €2600 per year. So, we are talking about mass public education. Although it’s underfunded, I love it. Our system gives everyone the chance to study without incurring (a lot of) debt. Within the constraints that come with this system, I try to establish zones of autonomy where I can be creative and effective. Luckily this is possible, because administrators, program managers, and teaching experts for the biggest part leave me in peace.
What is your favorite classroom innovation or teaching technique?
As stated above, I like to individualize my approaches. I tend to give students a lot of autonomy. They can decide what they what to improve and I will help them with the ‘how’. It ensures authentic learning and a good fit with their specific personal and situational circumstances. Eventually even the most disengaged and disgruntled students will come on board. It’s amazing how fast people can learn if they are truly engaged.
Furthermore, I run each class like a dating agency. Life is foremost about relations so I make sure that every student will get to know other students, preferably all of them.
What teaching advice would you give to an early-career educator?
Take a course in educational psychology. At the very least learn about social constructivism, social constructionism, and behaviorism. Then use your knowledge to create value for your students. And don’t attach too much value to the narrative that research is more important than teaching. When you study cancer, this may be true. In our field, it isn’t. Most of us have more and more immediate impact, positive or negative, on our students than on our readers. And try not to lose your sparkle :-).