Malvern Prep Partners with University of Delaware to Extend Learning Beyond the Classroom

Malvern Prep teacher Kevin Moore guides his Social Entrepreneurship group through a brainstorming session in one of the school's squash courts. Using a space intended for one purpose and then flipping it for use in a new way is a component of design thinking - a principle at the heart of Malvern's Social Entrepreneurship program.

Today’s high school students are tired, stressed and bored according to a 2015 survey conducted by the Born This Way Foundation and support by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. To combat that reality, Malvern Prep is beginning to roll-out several new programs and offerings to extend learning beyond the classroom. One such offering is the result of a new, unique partnership with the University of Delaware offering students the chance to enroll in three different online college credit courses focused on entrepreneurship. The new courses are: “Startup of the Professional You,” “Ideas to Action” and “Venturing for Good.”

“At Malvern, we believe that we must help close the gap between skills students are learning and skills that colleges and future employers want,” said Malvern Prep Head of School Christian Talbot. “These new online courses are just one way that we are addressing this gap as part of our student-centered learning approach.”

The first Delaware entrepreneurship classes began last week. Each class is worth one college credit, and amounts to approximately two-to-three hours of work per week. All the work can be done online, with a couple of in-person visits to Delaware’s Horn Center for Entrepreneurship, where Malvern students will have the opportunity to meet Delaware’s entrepreneurs-in-residence, get feedback from current Delaware entrepreneurship students and take advantage of additional resources.

Malvern senior Vince Melchiorre, a Malvern resident, is taking the “Startup of the Professional You” course. He is also enrolled in Malvern Prep’s Social Entrepreneurship course and hopes to gain a better understanding of entrepreneurial concepts and basic business life skills through the Delaware partnership.

“The course fits with my career and college plans because I am exploring the possibility of being an entrepreneur, and no matter what my career path is I believe it will still be a worthwhile experience,” he said.

In 2012, Malvern Prep’s Board of Trustees recognized that the world of education—at all levels, from primary school to higher education—is changing rapidly and significantly, and Malvern Prep wanted to be at the forefront of that shift. Its new approach is to design student-centered learning experiences that develop students into leaders who are Augustinian, Globally Literate and Entrepreneurial.

Last year Malvern Prep rolled out a new Social Entrepreneurship course in the Upper School. The course quickly filled with students eager to dive into student-driven learning. Students in the class grouped into teams to prototype and test solutions to real-world issues such as teen suicide, food insecurity and how to educate low-income youth to eat well. This project-based class is an example of the new type of learning that today’s students need. Malvern’s partnership with Delaware is another step to its improved educational model.

“The primary reason to innovate is that our world demands it,” said Talbot. “Yesterday’s skills are not tomorrow’s skills. Increasingly, colleges are looking for students and employers are looking for employees who are critical thinkers and problem solvers, innovators and collaborators, creators and communicators.”