Reel Entrepreneurs: Illustrating Entrepreneurship with Feature Films

Abstract

Using feature and documentary films as teaching and learning resources has found wide use in a variety of disciplines, including psychiatry, history, anthropology and cultural studies, law, medicine, management and in corporate training programs. The growing interest in entrepreneurship is also noteworthy and a number of television reality shows such as Dragon's Den or Shark Tank feature entrepreneurs pitching their business ideas to win investment financing from a panel of venture capitalists This paper explores one form of experiential learning, the use of films as a problem-based learning approach. Students are guided via an assisted walk- through in which the problem solution is gradually revealed. Even though their role as observers is mostly passive, the learning process is enforced through emotional responses to the movie characters and twists and turns of the dramatic plot. That emotional enforcement increases knowledge retention rates and falls under the social-emotional learning category.