Pandemics. Climate Change. First Nations Reconciliation. Poverty. There is an extraordinary number of complex problems in our society. Many business schools follow an outdated signature pedagogy that is unable to prepare students to become responsible and ethical business leaders given this level of uncertainty. The UN has outlined seventeen SDG’s, and the fourth is Quality Education. Houston has successfully created an innovative signature pedagogy that is available for educators to adopt to ensure they can teach the skills required to safely navigate the uncertain future. New business graduates will become leaders in many different sectors, all of which strive to innovate and stay relevant, and thus demand a new skillset and ways of thinking.

Houston's course, ENTI 317 “Entrepreneurial Thinking”, is a mandatory second year Bachelor of Commerce course, consisting of twelve sections of 80 students each, offered over a thirteen week fall or winter semester. Based on intense student collaboration over 7 years, this course developed an innovation pedagogical approach for massively scalable education anchored in seven essential and teachable entrepreneurial thinking skills (ET-7) to prepare future leaders: (1) problem solving, (2) tolerance with ambiguity, (3) failing forward, (4) empathy, (5) creativity with limited resources, (6) responding to critical feedback, and (7) teamwork approach. His free OER is being used globally by not for profits, secondary and post-secondary institutions. He has published multiple SoTL research papers, won National teaching innovation awards, and is now focused on creating a new Entrepreneurship course for first year students to "design their life".

Rosalynn Peschl
Instructor Haskayne School of Business
Entrepreneurship and Innovation,  Haskayne School of Business Univerity of Calgary

Houston acknowledges the thousands of students that have taught him how to be empathetic to their learning needs and the challenges they face. Without these partners and friends, he could not of created ENTI 317.

Houston has to thank The Haskayne Center for Entrepreneurship in supporting his ridiculous ideas of how to engage our alumni and business community in this course at this scale. 3877 volunteer hours. 476 mentors provided. $548,000 in kind donations to support student ventures. $122,500 in RBC Fast Pitch Prize money for students to launch their venture. Thank you!!

To the Taylor Institute for their Teaching and Learning grants that allowed Houston to complete his SoTL research and present his ideas around the world.

Houston acknowledges Rosalynn Peschl, his partner in life and also his partner at work. She continually challenged him to push harder and further with his vision of this course. pushing back on him when developing this course.

“I found that of all the course concepts learned in my BCom degree, the concepts learned in ENTI 317 were the most relevant in my most recent internship at Deloitte. Companies are moving towards taking a more user-centred approach, and the tools such as the interview script and empathy map were on par with the tools I used at work. Another relevant component was the lean approach – many times throughout my internship I created a prototype and had my coworkers test it. My managers appreciated this strategy, and I found it to be the most effective. My work involved group facilitation among leaders in large corporations, and we used the hack-athon pitch approach in many of our sessions, which I was first exposed to in ENTI 317. Overall, I can say for certain that future organizations are moving towards using similar methodologies in strategy, teamwork, and product design. I truly think it is a beneficial course for all students, regardless if they have the desire to become entrepreneurs.”

- Kaylee Sommervillte past ENTI student, unsolicited email (August 20, 2019)

“Yesterday, we had a meeting of the Exterior Advisory Group and we invited three graduates of the ENTI 317 course. They all expressed how ENTI 317 had changed their lives for the better. Sanya was not very interested in business until she took the course and now she is very enthusiastic and is even mentoring about entrepreneurship at a local high school. Roger commented that when he interviewed for an intern position, he wasn’t asked about his grades, he was asked about his ENTI 317 experience. All of them said that ENTI 317 made them think outside the box and made them think differently. To me, this is a huge validation and endorsement of the program that you have created and I am so pleased that it is part of the Hunter Centre. So, thank you for making this such a successful program.”

- Doug Hunter, philanthropist, Hunter Foundation Trustee and member of the University of Calgary’s Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking Advisory Group (unsolicited feedback, Oct. 30, 2018)