CEdu 521 Week 5: Final Project Connections

Going into Week 5 of our class, I thought that the time spent listening to our peers' final project presentations might be tedious and somewhat irrelevant. I am glad to state that I was wrong with those preconceptions! I found many ideas in our unit plans that I can take back to my business students at Falls North. This sharing of relevant technology use and authenticity proved to be most valuable.

Some of the connections I made to improve my students' future learning in Business Venture and Financial Life Skills are as follows:

• Jodi's "Adventures in Buying a Gift" unit had many differentiation suggestions that would easily expand this project beyond special education and into regular education, gifted and talented, and ELL. The product research, consumerism elements, budgeting connections, and presentation possibilities would all work very well for my Financial Life Skills students. The process of gift buying could be modified to fit the consumer purchasing decision lesson in our Business Venture marketing unit. Jodi's use of technology (PowerPoint, greeting card creation, digital pictures, calculations, etc.) and authenticity was strong and made me think further on how to use these tools for our Business Venture entrepreneur profiles and business plans. I look forward to adding more options to assignments that were previously done only in Word plus adding audiences to increase my students' efforts.
  
• Lori's Sickle Cell Anemia unit reinforced my previous brainstorming in the area of presentations. In addition, even though Lori is working with first graders, her research and writing ideas (with much sharing) could certainly be expanded for my junior high students. Finally, both Jodi's and Lori's projects had strong altruistic elements as students were asked to think of others (gift recipients and children with sickle cell anemia). As a business teacher, I strive to add this outward view as often as possible when dealing with ethics, charitable contributions within a budget, and honesty and empathy in interpersonal business relationships.
  

An additional connection that I made was to take my 8th and 9th grade introductory accounting unit and share it with our Menomonee Falls High School accounting teacher. Sara is a fantastic educator who never ceases to make accounting engaging and authentic to her students. I would like Business Venture to serve as a "feeder" to her program by "hooking" my students on accounting. I look forward to Sara's feedback and ideas!

CEdu 521 Week 4: Collaboration and So Much More!

CEdu 521 has been a most helpful course in several areas. First, as mentioned in our initial class, we indeed are learning less new material but are now applying what we have learned in our previous courses. Developing a project unit has been most exciting as we add authenticity and relevancy. I cannot wait to introduce my new accounting unit! While looking at the units I teach in Financial Life Skills and Business Venture, I am discovering so many methods to increase the LoTI and “Give a Darn” index. As a business education teacher, I continually strive to engage my students by adding value and purpose to our elective courses. CEdu 521 is helping me do this.

Not only is our course content making me a more proficient teacher, but the high level of collaboration in our cohort is also helping. I sense the enthusiasm we all have to try out our new projects/units. In addition, it is most enlightening to share our work with our study groups. I have learned so much from Tom and Megan. I never would have thought that working with a high school math teacher and a kindergarten teacher would have been helpful to my business teaching. However, they have broadened my view of education and made me think more creatively. I would not be using Inspiration with my 8th and 9th graders without Megan or be starting the process of purchasing a SMART Board without both Tom and Megan’s input. Every week, we help each other process what we have learned. This week, I needed help in developing a rubric and, as always, Tom and Megan came through!

Finally, it is always helpful to hear what other teachers in our cohort, regardless of district, age level, or subject, encounter with their students, parents, peers, district, administrators, tech people, schedules, etc.

CEdu 521 Week 3: So Much to Apply to North Business Classes!

Upon completion of our third week of class, I find my mind creatively spinning with curriculum and project ideas for my Falls North Junior High business classes. I am using Bloom's taxonomy of educational objectives for direction as I formulate new lessons/projects and take existing lessons and expand them into technology-based projects. The taxonomy documents we received in session 3 and the ensuing discussions helped me focus on adding more higher-order thinking skill activities to our projects and assessments.

Following are some brainstorming ideas:

1. Entrepreneur Profile: In the past, students have written a research paper in Word. In order to offer my students more choices to better meet their learning styles, I am adding the options to create and present a PowerPoint or role play and videotape and present a short monologue or skit. In both cases, I will create additional rubrics, for both the research element and the presentation itself. I am curious to see how many students take the opportunity to create something other than a Word document. Research can be done with online resources recommended by our school library or with books. In the past, students have written only about famous entrepreneurs in Word. I am thinking about asking my students if they would also be interested in interviewing a local businessperson or a relative/neighbor/friend who is an entrepreneur. I would provide guidance on appropriate questions to ask. Students who chose this authentic option would then pick from a Word document, PowerPoint, or videotape. The last two options would be presented to the class, causing an increase in the LoTI level.
2. Business Plan: This culminating semester project will undergo an increase in the LoTI level by simply adding a presentation to the class and/or local entrepreneurs. The business plan itself is a Word document, but students could create and present a brief, summarizing PowerPoint. In order to also increase the authenticity, students would be assessed not only on the presentation content, but also on their dress, communication skills, and persuasiveness as they seek start-up money from students and/or businesspeople posing as venture capitalists and angel investors. In fact, this sounds so exciting that I am considering it as a replacement for our scantron/essay final exam. By covering all of our units (marketing, human resources, finances, etc.), this will serve as an engaging, summative assessment.
   

The next step that I need to learn is creating valid and reliable assessments for projects. Our text gave me some ideas, but I look forward to further discussions with our cohort. In addition, I have begun collaboration with our Menomonee Falls High School entrepreneur teacher and with an eighth grade English teacher at North. At our in-service last Monday, I worked with both teachers on common assessments. I learned a great deal on project presentation assessments and was pleased to share what I have used successfully in the past.