Burning Platforms and Nibbled Edges.

Senior leaders in the sector view experiential learning, in its widest sense, as a critical riposte to existential challenges. But there's work to be done first. Shantha and Mark explore...

On the 7th November, the IESBL hosted a roundtable discussion of senior university leaders, representing international, post-1992 and Russell Group institutions. A summary of the discussion, which included some collective steps for IESBL to coordinate, is set out below. 

Are you feeling the flickers of flames around you? Not uncomfortably so?

Why do we ask? Because the theme of whether the sector is standing on a burning platform cropped up at a senior leader’s roundtable on experiential learning last week. The view was that, while the platform isn’t ablaze, flames are nibbling away at some of the traditional (and often cherished) ways of doing higher education.

A range of drivers are fanning this: the yellow orange flicker from AI will only get bigger and brighter, challenging what students want from universities. Planning for cost pressures easing over the next five years would be courageous. Finally the student debate on the value of turning up is unlikely to deaden.

More experiential modes of learning offer a strong response across many of these issues, and a strategic way forward to a future university model. And attendees were prescient of the instances in the here and now that are leading the way. Practitioners across the sector have been embracing experiential learning in their courses or driving extracurricular programmes widening access and opportunity.

And yet, no one present at the event could escape the sense that these examples represent pockets of great practice. Practice which doesn’t, or hasn’t been allowed, to scale across universities. Held back by everything from a student’s lack of time to the curiously named ‘corporate immune system’ – a system which usually allows the body university flourish but occasionally kills off new ideas.

So how to support change?

Around the table (and yes it was an actual table), there was a pragmatic view that we can’t just keep doing more with less - that layering experiential opportunities around existing practice was not going to achieve breakthroughs. There was recognition that this experiential learning couldn’t be done on the cheap. However, a warning was sounded that experiential learning cannot be more expensive to deliver than current courses. Transitions may carry costs but longer-term scaling needs to bring costs down.

The general appetite is to create more transversal and/or flexible spaces within the taught curriculum (ranging from 15 credit core strands, through to entire curriculum approaches). This gets to the heart of what universities deliver and where students are. Managing this transition, and the way it ‘displaces’ existing activity, needs consultation and sensitivity in implementation.

If in doubt, experiment first to develop an evidence base to ensure experiential learning modules improve achievement, engagement and completion. A compendium of curricular approaches to experiential learning represented across different disciplines would aid the transition process.

Scaling also needs standardisation. The way we talk about experiential learning can be vague - with competing concepts used interchangeably. The idea needs to be understood and used by students, communities, employers and policy makers. We shouldn’t need 3 sentences to describe what can be done in a word or two. Standardisation obviously shouldn’t stifle creativity or innovation in practice but, without it, we’re leaving scaling to happenstance.  

Well delivered standardisation opens up other avenues to help the sector grow experiential learning. If we start to understand each other, we can help identify successful practitioners opening doors to promotion and other opportunities. Taxonomy should be allied with clarity on what good execution and outcomes look like for different approaches (in discipline, multi-disciplinary etc).

And this leads us to a critical challenge - there is a real risk, in moving away from a historic sense of what Universities are and do, that experiential learning is perceived as ‘fluff’. To combat this we need a far more compelling evidence base for its value; an evidence base that talks to the priorities of those in power who may not, on first glance, cherish it.

But a system wide evidence base is something that needs to be built. ‘Pockets of practice’ allow us to describe impact in more compelling ways, bringing colour and warmth. But large data sets and analysis are critical to justify scaling - and the patchy nature of sector provision is holding this back. There is a real appetite for some meta-analysis of how our students collectively experience these opportunities, and the impacts on their outcomes.

The movement around experiential learning needs champions and actors beyond the sector itself. To foster this, we need greater clarity and understanding of external drivers driving shifts in the HE propositions. Coupled with an evidence base discussed, a strong narrative around the value of experiential and its role in the future of students, regions and the economy will be needed to excite policy makers and employers. A moment exists now to strengthen a mandate for change. 

Learning from international partners

The Canadians have long practiced and preached cooperative education. The first phase came with a focus on employability (naturally). However, Canadian universities are moving on as an employability focus doesn’t do justice to what students, teachers, institutions and third parties do. They’re building wider sets of outcomes to track and build on new delivery models on.

UK universities are adopting similar approaches. Attendees felt this may be necessary but not sufficient if experiential learning opportunities are going to truly available to all students.

The Canadian approach to agreeing taxonomy has focused on work integration. The view was that the UK’s approach needs to be more open. A new taxonomy needs to match the ambition of leaders to reflect non-employability outcomes and wider experiential learning activities.

The Canadian experiential learning community show what’s possible – listen to students, support the practitioners, agree to common taxonomies and quality, keep building an irresistible evidence base to get government to successfully commit to CAD$800m. Simple really.

IESBL will be exploring themes around taxonomy, how to embed experiential learning into the curriculum, building evidence and narratives amongst other things through the work of the commission. Find out more here: