Author: Cyndi Whitton
First Authored: February 27, 2012
Last Revised: June 13, 2018
In this lesson the students will learn about current entrepreneurs. Each student will be given a one page information sheet about a particular entrepreneur. They will become familiar with how they got to where they are today. The students will present their entrepreneur to the class. Using guided notes the students will have information on at least 30 of the top 50 entrepreneurs.
Hooks / Set
(5 minutes) The purpose of this opening activity is to get the students thinking about the possibilities that are out there as an entrepreneur. Mark Zuckerberg is 28 years old and is worth an estimated 30 billion dollars.
Using the slide show attached - The students get to guess how he became rich. They might recognize the name from the movie about his life. The second slide is meant to get the students thinking about the money an entrepreneur could make.
The student could record their answers in an opening activity journal if you use one in your class or it could be a discussions starter.
Resources and Materials
Lecture
(5 minutes) There will be a discussion on the characteristics of an entrepreneur. (This is not included in the PowerPoint) Have a classroom discussion as you move from the opening activity into the next activity about what they might think the traits of an entrepreneur are. Answers might include: risk taker, passionate, driven, goal oriented, competitive, etc. After the students have shared all of their ideas, present an introduction into the next activity. For example," Today you are going to become more familiar with one particular entrepreneur and you will be able to determine what traits that you think they have and that might have helped them become successful".
(30 minutes) Print the "Entrepreneur Handouts" found below. Explain to the students that each of them is going to pick an entrepreneur. They are to read the fact sheet on the entrepreneur, record and be ready to share with the class the following information: name of entrepreneur, what they are known for, how they got to where they are, and what they are doing now. There is a guided notes handout below for the students. Using thehandouts that were printed call the names of the entrepreneurs one at a time and let the students pick one of their choice. Give the students time to read and record their answers.
(Varies by class)Using the PowerPoint as a guide or background for the presentations have each student to present the answers about their entrepreneur. Students not presenting should be recording the answers on the guided notes handout. The PowerPoint is helpful for a couple of reasons 1) the students get to see a picture of the entrepreneur, 2) they will be able to copy the person's name, and 3) the slides are in random order so it selects what student is the next to present. Since there are more entrepreneurs than students there will be extras. You can either share that information or skip that slide.
There are many ways to vary this assignment to fit your need. For my purpose I wanted to keep the information simple but you could turn this into a formal written paper. If you have access to computers you could have the students put the information into a single PowerPoint slide to present and later print out the slides to be up on the walls.
Resources and Materials
Closure
(10 minutes) Wrap up. Have the students identify the common characterisitics of the entrepreneurs that they learned about. Record answers on the board as the students share their ideas. (example: hard working, dedicated, didn't give up, etc.) To make the connection to Retail Sales ask the students if these same traits might be important to have to be successful in the retail industry.
Formative Assessment
There are a few different types of assessments for this lesson.