Despite fairly widespread recognition that entrepreneurship occurs in both profit and nonprofit enterprises, a review of experiential learning techniques in entrepreneurship education does not explicitly mention service-learning. This omission may be because of a perceived lack of relevance of the pedagogy to entrepreneurship, the belief that inexperienced students are not interested in or capable of the work, and/or faculty concern about the approach’s time-consuming nature. Yet service-learning can be a powerful pedagogy for teaching the skills and body of knowledge pertaining to entrepreneurship. This article chronicles the author’s experience integrating service-learning into an introductory undergraduate entrepreneurship course and offers it as a model for others to adapt to their own preferences and teaching context. It includes the author’s rationale for using service-learning, an abridged course syllabus, sample student reflection assignments, a project grading rubric, and other course materials. Client and student feedback as well as the author’s personal reflections on the learning experience are also provided.
Common pedagogical approaches to entrepreneurship education include business plan writing, case studies, consulting, and simulations. Yet, in effect, these learning vehicles are simply proxies for the venture launch process. Operating under the assumption that learning entrepreneurship is a complex endeavor best addressed by a portfolio of pedagogical techniques, some instructors have experimented with launching student businesses in addition to traditional approaches.The challenge is how to do this with inexperienced undergraduate students within the confines of a 15-week semester. Included in the article are an outline of the process, a qualitative assessment of student learning, and suggestions for further research.
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