What every Canadian needs to know in modern Business
Dear Colleague,
Congratulations on your placement to D.T Secondary! I am looking forward to meeting you and sharing our educational knowledge with each other. In your four weeks with us, you will experience many things about Canadian culture and pedagogy. I remember when I went to China to study at Peking University; the professor told me that she experienced culture shock when she went to Canada to complete her practicum. Therefore, I hope that my email will assist in preparing you for teaching in Canada.
Since you will be teaching Business Education, I will limit my advice to this subject area. I believe that a core part of the business curriculum should be hands-on projects that involve student leadership and management. According to the research of Lee S. Shulman, “Teachers must not only be capable of defining for students the accepted truths in a domain. They must also be able to explain why a particular proposition is deemed warranted, why it is worth knowing, and how it relates to other propositions, both within the discipline and without, both in theory and in practice.”[1]
As business teachers, I believe that it is vital to provide students with the theory of knowledge regarding economic principals, but also give them connections to today’s world. For example, during my practicum and community field experience, I saw business teachers create projects for their students where they produced products. One such project had the entire class set up as a corporation. Their goal was to make cellular phone cases. Some students were responsible for designing, others were to look at sourcing the cases, another group would be calculating the finances, and some would be managing the teams. It was a great group project that allowed all the students to have a vital role in the creation of the phone cases which were to be sold to the school community afterwards. The students enjoyed the work and because it was real, they gained hands on experience that they could reference on their resumes. Another similar project had students making candles and bath-bombs to sell – the materials were ordered and all the students had a vital part in production. The money from this project went to charity which allowed students to help a disadvantaged community.
I believe that this kind of experiential approach should continue to be emphasized in the business education curriculum. This is important for every Canadian student because the world of business is becoming undeniably global. Students need as many opportunities as possible to learn how to conduct modern business. With projects like this, they have the chance to research, order, produce, advertise, invest, manage, sell, and handle finances. As a result of these projects, students remarked that they were able to develop their decision making and leadership skills as a result.
I wish you all the best in your travels to Canada and I am looking forward to meeting you soon.
Sincerely,
Vanessa Chan
Works Cited
Shulman, L. (1986). Those who understand: Knowledge growth in teaching. Educational Researcher, 15(2), 4-14.