ABSTRACT
Workplace contexts and educational settings are often ill matched. Workplaces are sites of emergent activity, where uncertainty is part of normal modes of operation, and co-production is essential. Educational settings less often allow for emergent activity and co-production, being more formally structured for relatively unquestioned transmission of data provided by experts, which students receive passively. We introduce a learning design to align academic contexts with the complex conditions emerging in modern workplaces. This design provides a transitional learning space, which is unlike formal educational settings, yet is not a real workplace. It is a simulation-based experiential learning approach called “Classroom as Organization,” which introduces management principles via means other than familiar academic routines, thus challenging familiar assumptions about how to create learning environments. Students do the “work” of an organization (setting plans and standards, moderating activity, analysing performance and so on) and analyse their actions using relevant theory. The outcome is an experientially based environment in which students learn “how to” as well as the “what” of management, and (hopefully) appreciate the value of combining action and reflection in conditions of uncertainty.
