Written by I couldn’t wait to start to plan out my initiative for this year when I came home from the conference on Saturday so I buried myself in my thoughts (and my laptop) for the rest of the day and most of Sunday. Here is what i’ve come up with:
I am proposing to deliver my grade 10 business curriculum in a way that students can learn whichever topic they choose, in whichever order, and the speed at which they desire and at the mastery level they are most comfortable.
The Introduction to Business (BBI20) course in the Ontario Curriculum (albeit I am teaching from an MYP perspective) lends itself well to a “business buffet” style of delivery. Most topics don’t lead into or serve as prerequisite for the next. It is a compartmentalized view of the business world in many ways and where a nice culminating project might ask to connect these areas, they can certainly be learned in any order a student chooses.
I have been able to support this idea with the help of our student course pages on our internal network known as tigernet (made by whipplehill) that lets me place dynamic and static content on pages accessible to students both in and out of class.
On the topic pages, I have placed, video, downloadable slideshows, links, images, curriculum connections, places for students to post questions to their classmates, and the topic challenges. My goal is to have students explore the topics they want to learn about, and do it in a way that makes sense to them. Perhaps they follow along my lessons and want to pause to explore an issue more closely, or have a discussion with me (now that I’m available and not direct instructing), or maybe they want to jump into a challenge.
My challenges range from Practiced, Completion, Competency, and Mastery with each stage increasing in difficulty. All students must practice using some of the available online quizzes to show that they have at least connected with the material in some way, and then move on to one of the next levels.
My next step is to actually start filming myself teaching the lessons so that students who need that type of instruction have it available to them. I want to use my monosnap tool to do this but am totally open to suggestions!
I use Camtasia whenever I need to make a video. I know it is expensive, but it is worth it. It is user-friendly and it gives quality video. I have used microsoft expression as well. It is free in Windows 7, 8 and 10. However, it can only record 10 minutes. I have to record 10 minutes at a time and then edit that after.
Thanks Bluky! I am going to stick with Monosnap and have already started to generate content. It was a free download on the mac app store.
Hi Andrew,
This looks really great! I love how you’re setting this up with students at the core. Leveraging your technology is also a great plus.
One thing to take into account will be your assessment schedule and what you assess.
Can’t wait to hear more about this!
I haven’t figured that out yet but am working on it. Ran it past the students today and might need to consider reeling it in just a bit from my original plans. Stay tuned!
Wow! Andrew you are away to the races. Our second face 2 face session will really help you refine this. Love where it is headed.
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Hey Andrew!
I love this idea of a Business Buffet – really supports elements of choice and makes students feel invested in their own learning.
I’m going to share your blog with @dmizener, who is a teacher at my school inspired by the idea of facilitating students to engage in multiple projects or units at once, in an order of their choosing. We first encountered that idea from a teacher at Hillfield Strathallan (Ryan something … I’ll have to drum up his last name) who is actually personalizing delivery of multiple courses simultaneously.
Excited to hear how the approach goes for you this year. Keep on blogging!