In a traditional lecture-based system, the teacher is seen as the custodian of knowledge to be transmitted, and the result of this transmission is assessed through regular knowledge tests. Students often still perceive mistakes as failures rather than as opportunities for learning.
But progress is impossible without making mistakes. The question then arises of providing students with frameworks that encourage them to take risks, to dare to act, to make mistakes and to learn from them .
We were able to observe the implementation of this type of approach in an experiential learning program at EM Strasbourg , within the University of Strasbourg, over four successive cohorts. In total, 40 students participated during their three years of bachelor’s studies , leading entrepreneurial projects or undertaking assignments for organizations.
It is by finding themselves in this situation, on the ground, that they realize their lack of skills and will read, meet experts and share their learning with other students in order to be able to overcome the challenges that come their way.
The skills they develop allow them to build the portfolio required for their graduation without attending classes, learning from their own actions. This “Team Academy” pedagogy was created more than twenty-five years ago at the Jyväskylä University of Applied Sciences in Finland .
Learning to take responsibility
Throughout their training, learners are guided by a team of teacher-coaches trained in this pedagogy and responsible for ensuring a supportive and safe environment. Students are thus encouraged to experience a learning loop that alternates between action and reflection, allowing them to connect their activities, readings, and meetings with experts.
In this context, denying responsibility when explaining a mistake, by invoking external or uncontrollable causes (such as “It’s someone else’s fault” or “The environment isn’t favorable”), can lead to undesirable behaviors, whereas acknowledging responsibility fosters approaches that lead to concrete results and learning. This is what we observed: when students talk about their mistakes, they do so using “I” or “we”: taking responsibility appears to be a prerequisite for learning.
However, the students acknowledge the painful nature of mistakes, which “hurt the heart” and “can quickly become frightening.” Once understood and accepted, mistakes seem to take on a more “positive” and constructive aspect. They perceive them as a “challenge” to be met. The concept of error becomes, in their eyes, inherent to the process as the three years of training unfold.
Thus, immersed in a culture that values mistakes, the students report:
“There were no mistakes, only learning experiences [and] opportunities to progress.”
By learning from their mistakes, the students believe they have acquired skills in both ” soft skills ” (perseverance to carry out an entrepreneurial project; regulation of emotions (to “move on and move forward”) and ” hard skills ” (better mastery of “project management”).
The culture of learning from mistakes experienced in their training also leads them to revisit their conception of entrepreneurial success in a more realistic way:
“An entrepreneur who succeeds in their business today is an entrepreneur who dared to fail, who dared to stop […] for me, it’s truly inspiring […] [to] know what mistakes they made, so as not to repeat them.”
Deconstructing the culture of performance
For their jobs after their studies, some students dream of a work environment that values a similar culture, but they wonder about the possible gap between their academic world and the professional world: “It’s not reality. We’re so much in a bubble. We’re in our own world… mistakes are accepted. In other companies, mistakes… You still have to be careful.”
The students relied on the two roles that a learner engaged in an experiential learning program can assume:
- In their role as learners, they choose to interpret mistakes as learning opportunities. Students seek to develop personal skills by taking the pressure off the project’s success objective;
- In their role as actors, they manage to interpret the mistake as a challenge to be overcome.
These two strategies help to reduce the emotional intensity associated with mistakes, in the first role, to focus on acquiring new skills and, in the second, to seek solutions to the problem.
This form of learning through error requires a deconstruction of the culture of success and performance, the result of which is largely dependent on the intensity of the efforts made by the students.
For educators wishing to introduce learning through error, our research highlights the need to organize a resolutely supportive space to share questions, difficulties and errors, and to place it within a sufficiently long timeframe to modify representations and behaviors.
Author Bios: Odile Paulus is a Senior Lecturer in Management (EM Strasbourg) at the University of Strasbourg, Caroline Merdinger-Rumpler is Senior Lecturer in Leadership, Team Management and Management of Healthcare Organizations also at the University of Strasbourg, Julien de Freyman is Associate Professor, South Champagne Business School (Y Schools) at UGEI and Sonia Boussaguet is at Neoma Business School
Olga Bourachnikova, researcher and entrepreneur, participated in the writing of this article with Odile Paulus, lecturer in management at EM Strasbourg, Sonia Boussaguet, associate professor at Neoma Business School, Julien de Freyman, associate professor at South Champagne Business School and Caroline Merdinger-Rumpler, lecturer in health organization management at EM Strasbourg .
