Ridley Radio Show tuned-in

Much has been accomplished with my radio show idea and I have begun the implementation of all of the planning with my class. Officially we are 4 classes into the project (unofficially, we have been building up to it for a month).

In short, the details of my task are as follows:

• Students were divided up into groups ranging from 3-5 across 3 different classes
• Each team developed a unique radio show topic to be discussed over four podcasts
• They are given until the beginning of April to accomplish this task

Complicating the task are three firm deadlines for additional assignments (advertisement/promotion, balance sheet and investment research, employee rights paper) that must also be accounted for. To help complete the additional work, students have access to online material on our internal network. This includes my own presentation, video taped lessons, linked readings and youtube clips (they can also read their textbook!). A little flipped… but I’m there for support as well.

Students are given absolute free range on scheduling their daily work. Some groups may be brainstorming a series of shows, some off in the archives researching, some recording etc… all on the same day.

Individual students within those groups also have unique tasks that they and their group members have prioritized. The scheduling and independence is the real gem of this assessment. What I ended up discovering was that the students are naturally developing problem solving, time-management, leadership, collaboration, and strategic decision making skills through this activity. 

Each day I appoint a new student manager with whom I discuss the outline for the day, announcements, discussion points etc, and they lead a general meeting at the start of class. They also circulate to ensure students are efficient, involved, and on schedule. They can help strategize and offer encouragement when needed. So far the student leaders are gaining a perspective on what it is like to be me on a daily basis! I make sure to have a few private conversations with this student each period to ask how they feel about the role and wha they can do to improve.

To answer the obvious question… No I am not evaluating the actual shows. Apart from the set-deadlines of the additional assignments, there is a planned self-evaluation at the end which summarizes their experience as to how well they exemplified management, marketing, accounting, and HR theory. This will be graded and will most likely take the form of an essay. These tasks however, are not central to the on-going assessment. I am most proud of the daily feedback model that I have come up with which gives regular feedback to the students using Class Dojo (which many of you probably use). Each day I assess each student on six criteria. These criteria (collaboration, self-regulation, independent work, preparedness, use of technology, and initiative) are also aligned with Ridley’s effort grades (academic skills) that we report on.

Students can log into their Dojo account and see what they got each day or I let them know as a cruise around the class with my iPad observing their work. I also have about half of my parents logged in to the Dojo accounts and post images of students working.

So far, my only issues have been with one group who is having difficulties making decisions to move forward with their business. This set-up has allowed me to sit individually with this group to support them or book a seminar room in the library for a change of environment.

I’m looking forward to linking the Soundcloud accounts on here when the shows become live!