Abstract
Existing industry insights and research—including work from the Foundation for Young Australians (FYA) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)—suggests that young people need enterprise skills such as creative problem-solving, communication and collaboration to thrive in increasingly complex and ambiguous working environments (Wilson, 2009; Davies et al., 2011; OECD, 2012; FYA, 2015). This chapter explores how experiential learning supports the development of these skills. Learning-by-doing provides opportunities for students to explore, experiment and reflect upon concepts and ‘ways of being’, in unstructured settings. Placing students within familiar, tangible situations such as entrepreneurship and the start-up environment can play a useful role in contextualising and driving learning. This chapter comprises three sections. First, it explores the changing working environment and the range of increasingly necessary future skills—or ‘enterprise skills’. Second, it discusses the evolution of experiential learning theory, before positioning entrepreneurship as a valuable learning experience. Finally, a case study is presented around an educational experience delivered within RMIT Activator, the university’s entrepreneurship hub. This will offer insight into how RMIT uses experiential learning design to prepare students for life and work.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Brooks, M., & Holmes, B. (2014). Equinox blueprint: Learning 2030: A report on the outcomes of the equinox summit learning 2030 covened by the Waterloo Global Science Initiative, Waterloo, Ontario. Waterloo Global Science Initiative: Canada.
Bughin, J., Hazan, E., Lund, S., Dahlström, P., Wiesinger, A., & Subramaniam, A. (2018). Skill shift: Automation and the future of the workforce. McKinsey Global Institute: McKinsey & Company.
Cope, J., & Watts, G. (2000). Learning by doing—An exploration of experience, critical incidents and reflection in entrepreneurial learning. International Journal of Entrepreneurial Behavior & Research, 6(3), 104–124.
Davies, A., Fidler, D., & Gorbis, M. (2011). Future work skills 2020. Institute for the Future for University of Phoenix Research Institute, 540.
Dewey, J. (1938). Experience and education. New York: Collier.
Di Stefano, G., Gino, F., Pisano, G. P., & Staats, B. (2015). Learning by thinking: Overcoming the bias for action through reflection. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard Business School.
Estrada-Robles, M. (2018). Experiential learning in entrepreneurial families: Lessons from Mexico. In Experiential Learning for Entrepreneurship (pp. 147–163). Palgrave Macmillan, Cham.
Fayolle, A. (2013). Personal views on the future of entrepreneurship education. Entrepreneurship & Regional Development, 25(7–8), 692–701.
Foundation for Young Australians (FYA). (2015). The new work order: ensuring young Australians have skills and experience for the jobs of the future, not the past.
Foundation for Young Australians (FYA). (2016). The new basics: Big data reveals the skills young people need for the New Work Order. AlphaBeta.
Galloway, L., Anderson, M., Brown, W., & Wilson, L. (2005). Enterprise skills for the economy. Education+Training, 47(1), 7–17.
Green, F. (2009). The growing importance of generic skills. In Beyond current horizons: Work and employment. Department for Children, Schools and Families, London.
Hase, S., & Kenyon, C. (2000). From andragogy to heutagogy. Ulti-BASE In-Site.
Hyams-Ssekasi, D., & Caldwell, E. F. (Eds.). (2018b). Experiential learning for entrepreneurship: Theoretical and practical perspectives on enterprise education. Springer.
Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, NJ.
Kolb, A. Y., & Kolb, D. A. (2005). Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning in higher education. Academy of management learning & education, 4(2), 193–212.
Lean, J. (2012). Preparing for an uncertain future: The enterprising PhD student. Journal of Small Business and Enterprise Development, 19(3), 532–548.
Lewin, K. (1947). Frontiers in group dynamics: II. Channels of group life; social planning and action research. Human relations, 1(2), 143–153.
National Research Council. (2013). Education for life and work: Developing transferable knowledge and skills in the 21st century. National Academies Press.
OECD. (2012). Better skills, better jobs, better lives: A strategic approach to skills policies. Publishing, & Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Paris: OECD.
Pittaway, L., & Cope, J. (2007). Simulating entrepreneurial learning: Integrating experiential and collaborative approaches to learning. Management Learning, 38(2), 211–233.
Politis, D. (2005). The process of entrepreneurial learning: A conceptual framework. In Entrepreneurial Learning (pp. 66–93). Routledge.
University of Amsterdam (2019). Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies—IIS—University of Amsterdam. Iis.uva.nl. Retrieved April 19, 2019, from https://iis.uva.nl/en.
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. (2019). Creds—RMIT University. Retrieved April 15, 2019, from https://www.rmit.edu.au/creds.
Scheer, A., Noweski, C., & Meinel, C. (2012). Transforming constructivist learning into action: Design thinking in education. Design and Technology Education: An International Journal, 17(3).
Smith, A. M., & Paton, R. A. (2014). Embedding enterprise education: A service based transferable skills framework. The International Journal of Management Education, 12(3), 550–560.
Stanford d.school. (2019). Stanford d.school. Retrieved April 15, 2019, from https://dschool.stanford.edu/.
Talwar, R., & Hancock, T. (2010). The shape of jobs to come. Science and Technology, 2010, 2030.
Wilson, R. (2009). The future of work and implications for education. Warwick: IER.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd.
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Sleeman, D. (2019). Experiential Learning, Entrepreneurship and Enterprise: Designing Learning for the Future of Work. In: Tynan, B., McLaughlin, T., Chester, A., Hall-van den Elsen, C., Kennedy, B. (eds) Transformations in Tertiary Education. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9957-2_17
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-9957-2_17
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore
Print ISBN: 978-981-13-9956-5
Online ISBN: 978-981-13-9957-2
eBook Packages: EducationEducation (R0)