Giving Students a Seat at the Table in Entrepreneurship Education

Giving students a genuine role in designing their own learning could help make entrepreneurship education more relevant and connected to real-world practice. 

That was the idea explored by ICMS Program Manager (Business, Entrepreneurship and Innovation) Dr Daria Samatoina, PhD (Entrepreneurship), FHEA, MSc, BA(Hons), at the ICMS Symposium 2026. 

Presenting From Learners to Co-creators: Redefining Teaching and Assessment Strategy in Entrepreneurship Education, Dr Samatoina shared a case study developed over approximately two years with her co-writer and University of Greenwich colleague Catherine Farrant, Senior Teaching Fellow in Organisational Behaviour & Leadership in the School of Management & Marketing. 

Together, Dr Samatoina and Farrant developed the premise for the project, recruited the student and alumni co-creators, and worked with them to explore what can happen when students and entrepreneurial alumni become active partners in curriculum design, rather than simply being asked for feedback once a subject has been delivered. 

The presentation draws on an area Dr Samatoina has worked in extensively throughout her academic career. 

With almost a decade of experience teaching and lecturing in higher education, primarily at UK universities, she has worked across business and entrepreneurship education, curriculum development, and the redesign of entrepreneurship programs, modules and assessments. 

Before joining ICMS, Dr Samatoina worked at the University of Greenwich, where she also developed projects connecting students with entrepreneurship beyond the classroom. 

Her presentation reflects ICMS’ broader commitment to scholarship that informs learning and teaching, particularly in a discipline that forms an important part of the College’s business education offering. 

At undergraduate level, ICMS offers the Bachelor of Business (Entrepreneurship and Innovation), providing students with the opportunity to develop their knowledge and skills in entrepreneurship and innovation. 

Rethinking the entrepreneurship classroom

At the centre of Dr Samatoina’s presentation was the collaborative case study from the University of Greenwich in which a traditionally delivered entrepreneurship subject was redesigned with four current students and two entrepreneurial alumni working as co-creators. 

The original subject relied on lectures and seminars, offered limited links to the practical elements of entrepreneurship and culminated in a 3,000-word reflective report. The challenge was to create something that more closely reflected what entrepreneurship actually looks like beyond the classroom. 

More than asking students what they think

Dr Samatoina drew an important distinction between consultation, collaboration and genuine co-creation. 

Consultation allows students to provide feedback while staff ultimately decide what changes. 

Collaboration gives students an opportunity to contribute ideas without ownership of the outcomes. 

Co-creation goes further, bringing students and staff into a structured process in which both contribute to decision-making and creative development. 

The approach is built around three principles: respect for the different knowledge and experiences each participant brings, reciprocity where both students and academics gain from the process, and shared responsibility. 

Importantly, the partnership also recognised the value of participants’ time and expertise. Each student and alumnus involved in the project was paid equally for approximately eight hours of work, based on the anticipated time required to contribute to the subject redevelopment. Payment was made through the university at the applicable minimum wage. 

For Dr Samatoina and Farrant, this was an important part of treating students and alumni as genuine partners in the process, rather than simply asking them to volunteer their ideas and experience. 

“Co-creation is about more than listening to students. It’s about recognising students as partners with valuable expertise and giving them a genuine role in shaping their learning experience.” 

Handing students the pen

The project used the “Co-Define, Co-Create, Co-Refine” framework to give participants a structured way to contribute. 

During the first workshop, participants used brainwriting, generating ideas independently before discussing them as a group. They then grouped their ideas into themes and took part in facilitated discussion, with psychological safety deliberately embedded throughout the process. 

The co-creators then had three weeks to independently develop their own subject outlines before returning for a second workshop, where their ideas were discussed and refined into a final design. 

The process was also designed to make participation more inclusive. Independent writing and sticky notes allowed participants to contribute before more vocal members of the group could shape the conversation, helping to prevent groupthink and create space for quieter voices. 

Bringing entrepreneurship closer to the real world

The co-creation process produced a different picture of what students and entrepreneurial alumni believed entrepreneurship education should include. 

Their ideas extended beyond conventional business theory to areas such as networking, personal branding, negotiation, storytelling, time management, learning from failure and making difficult decisions. 

The entrepreneurial alumni brought practical perspectives to the discussion, including reputation as a business asset, networking and diplomacy, opportunity costs, decision-making and the reality that entrepreneurial progress can be incremental rather than instantaneous. 

Those ideas influenced the redesigned subject, which placed greater emphasis on personal branding and networking, continuous reflection and active engagement with entrepreneurs and industry. 

Assessment also moved away from relying on a single 3,000-word reflective report towards a group presentation and an individual entrepreneurial journey portfolio, bringing elements of entrepreneurial practice more directly into the learning experience. 

“When students move from passive recipients to active co-designers, they develop a stronger sense of ownership, and that ownership transforms engagement, relevance, and learning outcomes.” 

Dr Samatoina also acknowledged that genuine co-creation requires careful planning, particularly when balancing student autonomy with appropriate guidance and ensuring a diverse range of student voices is represented. 

Could co-creation work at ICMS?

Dr Samatoina also turned the discussion towards how educators could apply co-creation at ICMS. 

Her message was that it does not have to begin with an entire subject redesign. Redesigning just one assessment task can be a valid starting point. 

She highlighted several practical considerations, including recruiting students from different backgrounds and levels of academic confidence, involving students who have found a subject difficult as well as those who excelled, and establishing psychological safety so participants feel able to challenge existing approaches. 

She also recommended brainwriting rather than traditional brainstorming, with participants developing ideas independently before group discussion to help prevent groupthink and create space for quieter voices. 

It is a simple idea with potentially significant implications for entrepreneurship education: rather than only asking what educators should teach students, ask what could happen when students help shape the learning experience themselves. 

The project was developed collaboratively by Dr Samatoina and Catherine Farrant over approximately two years. Their work, From Learners to Co-creators: Redefining Teaching and Assessment Strategy in Entrepreneurship Education, was published in Teaching and Learning Together in Higher Education in 2025. Dr Samatoina presented the work at the ICMS Symposium 2026. 

Disclaimer: This article reports on a collaborative case study presented by Dr Daria Samatoina at the ICMS Symposium 2026. The redesigned subject discussed in the presentation was developed at the University of Greenwich by Dr Samatoina and Catherine Farrant before Dr Samatoina joined ICMS. References to outcomes and observations relate to that case study only and should not be interpreted as outcomes of an ICMS subject or as evidence of established results at ICMS.