New Perspectives in Science Education

Team Academy programmes emphasise self‑directed, team‑based, practice‑driven entrepreneurship learning. However, highly open‑ended learning environments can create challenges in pacing, clarity of expectations, and the visibility of learner progression. Such ambiguity may reduce scaffolding for novice learners and complicate competence‑based assessment. To address this, at Aston University’s Business Enterprise Development (BED) programmes a structured five‑sprint pedagogical model has been introduced across the 2025-26 academic year and implemented it across all year groups of the programme. The model integrates action learning, team coaching and heutagogical principles within a cyclical six‑week architecture designed to balance learner autonomy with intentional structure - a core tension within heutagogical approaches. Each sprint targets a key entrepreneurial competence area (Connection, Customer, Marketing, Sustainability, Leadership) and follows a consistent rhythm: coaching and orientation, skill development, applied project work, a challenge‑based Action Week, and structured reflection through shared community reflection moments. This paper presents the sprint framework as a design‑based educational innovation and reports early findings from an ongoing practice‑based case study including coaching observations, student reflections and engagement indicators. Initial evidence across all year groups suggests increased clarity of expectations, stronger team cohesion and more visible developmental trajectories across the academic year. By articulating the pedagogical rationale, implementation process and emerging outcomes, the study offers a transferable, transnationally adaptable model for structuring experiential and entrepreneurship education. The five‑sprint approach contributes a replicable framework for educators seeking to combine heutagogy with sufficient scaffolding, thereby extending current practice in science and professional education contexts.

Keywords: sprint‑based learning; heutagogy; team coaching; action learning; experiential learning; entrepreneurship education, design-based research

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