6/29/11

I've seen that in the business world you have more freedom to create and give input on projects. In high school math classrooms it seems like so often we tell the kids exactly what to do. We give them specific examples, tell them to read specific pages, make them do specific problems to show us that they understand specific content, and we even ask for them to show us specific methods sometimes. At Hy-Vee, we have had some specific projects to work on, but we have been able to organize and decide how we wanted to execute those projects. We were asked to update manuals for the new software Hy-Vee will be rolling out. We were able to decide what each of us wanted to do to accomplish that task by using our strengths. I wasn't as good at organizing what we had done and what we still had left to do, but I feel like I excelled at going through the wording and adding emphasis to certain things. By using our strengths and splitting up the task and executing it how we wanted to, we were able to accomplish more, and I believe our work was of better quality as a result. Would this also be true of group projects in my math classroom? I want to do more group work. I struggle with how specific to make my expectations and guidelines and how much freedom to give the students to come up with ways of showing me what they've learned. It would be interesting to teach a particular lesson and then give them a period of time to come up with any project to show me what they learned. I could give them some guidelines. For example, they could use a power point, write a song, write a paper, prepare and perform a skit or short video, make a game, make a diarama, or any other project they want to complete so that when I watch, see, or hear it, I will know they know and understand that particular topic. I wonder what they would come up with! It would probably be more fun, interesting, and engaging for me and for all the students.

At this externship I have created a new manual based on something Cindy said. I've added hyperlinks and tables of contents to all of the manuals. Sam and James have done similar things to make the projects we're working on more organized, more efficient, and look and work better. In the workplace, we are valued for our input, and are allowed to take our work and learning in different directions. I would love to see this carried into the classroom and possibly even allow students to take their learning in different directions through differentiated projects.