Shaking hands: Today in my Business Education 9/10 class, I shook all my students’ hands. It’s the penultimate class before Warriors’ Den 2016 presentations, and they did mock presentations in front of each other. I felt proud of all of them, for their hard work and participation over the past 8 weeks. I wanted to recognize their achievement meaningfully. Instead of the usual candy reward for good work, shaking hands seemed deeply effective. It is a symbol of mutual respect and care that few students have practiced. I may ask them to shake judges’ hands after their presentations.
Group work: I teach three blocks of marketing, and for their final project, many students asked if they could form groups outside of their class. Originally, I wasn’t keen, but after some thought, I said yes. The reason is: groups aren’t presenting their finished projects in-class, and they are old enough to take responsibility for doing their fair share of work virtually (as they can’t work on projects in-class).
Work periods: I’ve tried to structure work periods in Business Ed, Marketing and IBS classes. For example, in Marketing, I’ve put on my Windermere teaching website a suggested breakdown of the 80 minute lesson, with the view that students will use their time better if broken up into 10 – 20 minute chunks. To keep them mostly on-task, I will also look at their project progress closer to the end of the period, and those groups who haven’t done much get coaching during Thursday tutorial with me.
Structured free time: My Business 9/10 finished their business idea presentations last week. The first class back (Week 8) was pretty relaxed as they’d been working hard the last three lessons and then in presentations. I introduced the next mini unit, résumés, and there was about 20 minutes by the end of the class in which many students had finished their in-class work. My SA noted in his final observation that free time can be useful, if it’s structured. I agreed and going forward, will lay out what activities are and aren’t acceptable. Acceptable: SIMCITY (or LINCITY), quiet card games, and Keva blocks. Unacceptable: online games (they can do those at home), youtube videos (unless related to school).