Whew, we're hitting our stride in March here! This month and next are definitely the some of the toughest in terms of both teacher and student morale. It's been an effort to persevere through some of the more difficult things we've been learning in class, especially in Econ, which can already be a difficult subject.
Before diving into my more focused projects, I've been trying out a couple of new things with my CP Econ classes that have been really interesting. The Buck Institute released a series of modules that revolve around project-based learning in economics. Each one includes a scenario where students have time to examine a problem and develop a solution using applied economic concepts, and then to create a presentation that advocates for their solution. For example, the first one we did was the High School Food Court, where students take on the role of a student council that has been tasked with choosing 5 restaurants out of 12 that applied for a position in their school's high school food court, and then to present their decision as well as their reasoning to the "school board". They're presented with data on the profits for each restaurant, as well as descriptions of the restaurants and of the school board members. What I've been digging is that they make tangible concepts that are generally talked about in pretty abstract ways, which I've always struggled with in Econ, and they involve applying real-world skills like giving presentations with a more "authentic" audience. I've been recruiting TAs from other teachers to play the parts, and it adds a level of gravitas to the end product that helps to drive the overall learning. I'm very interested in developing some of my own for Gov using a similar model, and maybe adapting some of these for today (the President's Dilemma one that we just finished had data from 2007!)
Anyways, on to the other projects!
20% Time- we just finished our pitches, and things are really shaping up for this semester! A lot of groups have definitely taken on the econ side of things; we have several Depop shops and online entrepreneurs, which I'm liking a lot. One student has taken on another as a manager, and three are attempting to make an online marketplace for young artists like the ones at our school, which I'm also really digging! One of the other teachers that has done 20% Time before sat in on some of the pitches, and she said that the structure looked strong and seemed helpful for the pitch format and what I was looking for.
There's a general feeling of both going bigger than last semester's project as well as being more realistic with the time and constraints of the classroom. Now, whether that all translate into follow-through remains to be seen, but it's a strong start and a much more definitive direction. I'm glad that we've focused on the planning stage of things; that was lacking for sure.
One note that I often came back to when I pushed students after their pitches was on branding. Students wanted to create work or a shop or things of that nature, but they lacked a description of what made their "product" unique. Maybe that's still a function of being in Econ now, but especially since the pitch is supposed to be a "sell" of your project, Shark Tank-style, this seems like a useful point to highlight for students moving forward. "Yeah, you want to make an album/online store/etc., but why would people want to buy your product over others? What makes your work unique? What is your brand?"
Classroom Gaming- This one is a quick update: we just got finished with Monopoly for the last time. For this final use of the game, I had students redesign the game to reflect macroeconomic concepts, since that's what our unit of study was about and Monopoly (or really, most any game) don't use those concepts. It was a fun little one-off lesson, which I had students use in a summative essay. I'm not necessarily thrilled with it as a project, but it allowed for a different, more creative task, which I thought was a nice divergence from their other work this semester.
I'm struggling still to define what role gaming can play in the classroom. One thought that I've been returning to is that pre-existing games often time have baggage associated with them, or they don't quite hit the concepts that I'm looking for. I've considered that I might want to look into designing some of my own games. My issue is that classroom games are often dry or aren't necessarily games in the sense of what are popular on Board Game Geek and that I would want to buy and play. So I guess that's the balance that I'd like to strike: making (or finding) a game that is still fun and challenging while being a useful model of class concepts.
I liked the role-playing aspect of last semester with Kingdom, and I've got in my mind definite improvements for usage next year and so on, and Monopoly was a familiar and light Economic game. I struggled with making room for other games with the projects I was implementing. Power Grid, my other choice, was both more time-intensive to learn and still microeconomic-focused. It's an economic problem, I guess: we have scarce time, and so there are tradeoffs in what I can do. I'm happy with some of the stuff, but always with an eye towards improving for the future! :-P
Before diving into my more focused projects, I've been trying out a couple of new things with my CP Econ classes that have been really interesting. The Buck Institute released a series of modules that revolve around project-based learning in economics. Each one includes a scenario where students have time to examine a problem and develop a solution using applied economic concepts, and then to create a presentation that advocates for their solution. For example, the first one we did was the High School Food Court, where students take on the role of a student council that has been tasked with choosing 5 restaurants out of 12 that applied for a position in their school's high school food court, and then to present their decision as well as their reasoning to the "school board". They're presented with data on the profits for each restaurant, as well as descriptions of the restaurants and of the school board members. What I've been digging is that they make tangible concepts that are generally talked about in pretty abstract ways, which I've always struggled with in Econ, and they involve applying real-world skills like giving presentations with a more "authentic" audience. I've been recruiting TAs from other teachers to play the parts, and it adds a level of gravitas to the end product that helps to drive the overall learning. I'm very interested in developing some of my own for Gov using a similar model, and maybe adapting some of these for today (the President's Dilemma one that we just finished had data from 2007!)
Anyways, on to the other projects!
20% Time- we just finished our pitches, and things are really shaping up for this semester! A lot of groups have definitely taken on the econ side of things; we have several Depop shops and online entrepreneurs, which I'm liking a lot. One student has taken on another as a manager, and three are attempting to make an online marketplace for young artists like the ones at our school, which I'm also really digging! One of the other teachers that has done 20% Time before sat in on some of the pitches, and she said that the structure looked strong and seemed helpful for the pitch format and what I was looking for.
There's a general feeling of both going bigger than last semester's project as well as being more realistic with the time and constraints of the classroom. Now, whether that all translate into follow-through remains to be seen, but it's a strong start and a much more definitive direction. I'm glad that we've focused on the planning stage of things; that was lacking for sure.
One note that I often came back to when I pushed students after their pitches was on branding. Students wanted to create work or a shop or things of that nature, but they lacked a description of what made their "product" unique. Maybe that's still a function of being in Econ now, but especially since the pitch is supposed to be a "sell" of your project, Shark Tank-style, this seems like a useful point to highlight for students moving forward. "Yeah, you want to make an album/online store/etc., but why would people want to buy your product over others? What makes your work unique? What is your brand?"
Classroom Gaming- This one is a quick update: we just got finished with Monopoly for the last time. For this final use of the game, I had students redesign the game to reflect macroeconomic concepts, since that's what our unit of study was about and Monopoly (or really, most any game) don't use those concepts. It was a fun little one-off lesson, which I had students use in a summative essay. I'm not necessarily thrilled with it as a project, but it allowed for a different, more creative task, which I thought was a nice divergence from their other work this semester.
I'm struggling still to define what role gaming can play in the classroom. One thought that I've been returning to is that pre-existing games often time have baggage associated with them, or they don't quite hit the concepts that I'm looking for. I've considered that I might want to look into designing some of my own games. My issue is that classroom games are often dry or aren't necessarily games in the sense of what are popular on Board Game Geek and that I would want to buy and play. So I guess that's the balance that I'd like to strike: making (or finding) a game that is still fun and challenging while being a useful model of class concepts.
I liked the role-playing aspect of last semester with Kingdom, and I've got in my mind definite improvements for usage next year and so on, and Monopoly was a familiar and light Economic game. I struggled with making room for other games with the projects I was implementing. Power Grid, my other choice, was both more time-intensive to learn and still microeconomic-focused. It's an economic problem, I guess: we have scarce time, and so there are tradeoffs in what I can do. I'm happy with some of the stuff, but always with an eye towards improving for the future! :-P
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