2024 Engler's Guide Conference

What is a "Guiding" Mindset? Putting the student in the driver's seat of education.

Imagine what schools could look like if students were engaged in pursuing a challenge they were passionate about. Imagine your classroom filled with students learning to solve problems themselves. Imagine being a guide to students, rather than a teacher. We seek to empower educators to create greater value, find opportunities, and challenge assumptions within their classrooms. Join us and spend two days rethinking your approach to classrooms, students, and your role as an educator.

Learn about our Previous Guides

July 1st and 2nd, 2023

Location TBD!

Cost to attend

$75

Includes two days of training, all meals, and welcome reception. Participants are responsible for lodging and travel.

*The Guide Conference is Perkins funds eligible

*If you register more than one educator from your same school, you’ll receive a $25 discount!

Payment Processing

You can register and pay for your conference fee using a credit card in the eventbrite checkout process. If you’d like to use a different payment method, please contact Brennan, [email protected].

At its core, Guide is focused on helping educators to think and teach with a ‘guiding mindset.’

Maybe the best way to teach isn’t by taking tests or focusing on one subject at a time? Maybe the teacher doesn’t have to be the arbiter of information? Maybe the students can even be the pilot of what they learn?

Built for educators of all levels and domains, at Guide we aren’t going to hand you a pre-built curriculum; We are going to look for the untested assumptions about education, learn to design teaching experiments, and seek to create new value for students. We’ll provide a toolkit to help you get started, and leave plenty of time for you to start making plans for your upcoming semester. We are going to help you think about your classroom like an entrepreneur.

First-Year Participants

If it’s your first year attending Guide, you’ll have a special track on the first day all focused on the ‘guiding mindset.’ This discussion-based training introduces the mindset and Engler’s approach to the classroom. You’ll join other first-year participants to consider how this mindset would impact your classroom and unpack the challenges and benefits surrounding thinking like an entrepreneur. After the first day, you’ll join the rest of the conference participants learning how to apply this to the classroom and networking with other ambitious educators.

Returning Participants

If you’ve been to Guide before, we have a track built to help you level up your guiding mindset and get lots of access to classroom-ready applications. We’ll quickly revisit the mindset and then dive into topic-focused sessions like creative grading and evaluation, harnessing student motivation, and building project-based education modules. The two days are designed to give you ample opportunity to learn from best practices and work time to prepare for the upcoming school year.

Guide Key Focus Areas

• Changing from ‘Teacher’ to ‘Guide’
• Challenging educational system assumptions
• Finding purpose in your teaching
• Giving your students purpose and ownership in their learning
• Working with school administration to break the status quo
• Coaching students to start and grow businesses
• Empowering students through school-based enterprises
• Provide resources for continued inspiration and education

Educators are one of the emerging communities in the Engler Entrepreneurship Program, and educators of all levels have the opportunity to become full members of our community. Learn more about the different products Engler currently offers to educators of all levels.

1. Welcome and Introduction

2. Why do we teach?

An education-themed speaker about the importance of challenging assumptions. Speaker TBA.

3. The Guiding Mindset

A discussion focused session on what the Guiding mindset is, and how it can be adopted in our classrooms

4. The $5 Challenge

What can you do with only $5?

5. Failures and Successes

A sharing of best practices, successes, and failures from implementing the entrepreneurial mindset.

6. Toolkit Workshops

Topic-focused workshops focused on the application of the entrepreneurial mindset. Topics are TBA, examples are: Creative student management, Advanced Students, Seeking Mentorship, Raising funding, Socratic Method Training, In-Class Entrepreneurial Activities, and more.

7. The Educator Pitch Contest

A new contest for teachers to receive funding for their new innovative education ideas

8. Evening Reception

1. The Educators Manifesto

A morning session that provides the importance of purpose in the entrepreneurial mindset

2. Applying the Mindset

Educators are given time to make plans for their upcoming school year

3. Gallery

Educators have the opportunity to share their plans for the next school year

4. Send-Off

Invitation to the Engler Community, Launch program, and the Educators Cohort

Questions? Contact Brennan Costello, [email protected]

Engler Entrepreneurship

englerjourney.com

We believe entrepreneurship is not primarily about creating jobs or making money — it’s about mission. It’s about the purpose each person is born to fulfill. Our experiential, community-based learning style helps members discover their purposes and how entrepreneurship can be a vehicle to achieve them. This mission-driven perspective shapes how and why Engler equips people to build their own enterprises.

The Engler philosophy echoes the American Dream, and it revels in the pride of ownership and the freedom of working for oneself. We believe entrepreneurship can eliminate the burden of outside expectations and instead allow entrepreneurs to do what is truly important to them, whatever that may be. Our vision is to establish Engler as the authority entrepreneurial force in the Midwest in every stage of the entrepreneurship process.

By intentionally investing in people, we believe they can continue to build vital, successful companies to uplift and revitalize communities across Nebraska and the world.

We connect entrepreneurs with resources like funding, business mentors, and assistance with research, education, and access. Cohorts operate in a question-driven environment where entrepreneurs tackle real problems and learn how to succeed — even more importantly, they learn how to fail. The community challenges members to innovate, build relationships, and form a network of peers and mentors to hold themselves accountable. It’s this unique atmosphere that sets Engler apart from other programs or organizations.

We accompany high schoolers, college students, recent graduates, educators and career changers throughout the roller coaster of entrepreneurship, from an introduction to the entrepreneurial mindset to the launch of a business to securing funding for a growing enterprise. Engler encourages members to cultivate an idea into a real business that meets a need in the market, all with guidance and peer support along the way to fulfilling their mission.

Website: https://englerjourney.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/englerunl

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/engler_unl/

Host or Publisher Brennan Costello