This activity is designed for a grade 12 Entrepreneurship class. The group is very mixed, with highly academic students balanced by others who are less academic. The Entrepreneurship class also attracts students with varied levels of motivation and perseverance.
The Ministry of Education Prescribed Learning Outcomes for Entrepreneurship 12 require students “develop and evaluate a business plan and operating strategy for a venture”
This is a huge undertaking and is more meaningful if done in small groups
Frequently, work is not performed equally by all members of the group. Also, group members often use the excuse that their absent partner has the project, to avoid work during class time, or to extend deadlines for individual sections of the overall business plan. “I can’t work on it because my partner has it, and she’s away today”, is a common statement.
Use VoiceThread to introduce the Business plan and include visuals of individual sections.
All students must participate in the voicethread with comments or questions throughout the presentation.
Student comments/ questions in the voicethread will serve as proof that the students reviewed the material
Student questions will also benefit the whole group as others generally have the same questions and students who understand the material can guide those who are unsure.
Student partners set up a Google Doc, and include me as well as each other as contributors. In this way all partners can work on the project at any time (in or out of class), and an absence by one or more partners will not hinder other member’s work at any time.
Using “Review History” I can monitor each member’s contribution to the project in terms of time spent, quality of input, and collaboration with their partners.
Groups then use Google Forms at the end of each individual section of the business plan to self-evaluate their project in terms of:
Overall quality of the business plan
Personal contribution to the project
Other members’ contribution to the project. This evaluation will be done individually, and responses will be kept confidential.
Students will be informed in advance that I will compare their feedback to my own observations. This encourages honest evaluation, and discourages personal bias in the evaluation of other group members
Group evaluations will be analyzed and compared with my personal observations about the group and individual work to provide both formative and summative assessment for each student and their learning in this unit.
Richard Rothenberger
Problem of Practice
This activity is designed for a grade 12 Entrepreneurship class. The group is very mixed, with highly academic students balanced by others who are less academic. The Entrepreneurship class also attracts students with varied levels of motivation and perseverance.
My POP URL (VoiceThread) is found at
http://voicethread.com/share/3120050/
My chatroom URL is found at
http://us5.chatzy.com/31242369849350