It’s ALL Business: My Life in the Corporate World

A Middle School Keyboarding Unit

I. Introduction/Overview

Middle school keyboarding is a 6th grade Career and Technology Education (CTE) course.  It is the students’ first business class.  It is an 18 week semester course with goals focusing on student improvement in technique, accuracy, and speed.  In my class, I focus heavily on projects which encompass a wide variety of authentic problems (e.g. small business owner, advertisement writer, magazine designer, graphics designer) for students to complete.  I offer a total of 12 projects during the course (e.g. business cards, resume, advertisements, business letters, and career research).

Macro demographic highlights of the school and county include: 

Farmwell Station Middle school is a Loudoun County Public School of roughly 1300 students, including 478 6th graders.  The demographic data is presented in the following charts.

For 2012, additional Farmwell student profiles can be found here.

Parental educational levels are diverse and wide ranging.  From census bureau summary, Farmwell parents have a broad range of backgrounds with a predominance (over 59%) having a Bachelors or Graduate degree.  The national average is 10% lower for these degrees. Additional census information can be found here.

Other data areas of note about the population of Loudoun County, as a whole, include:  1) It is the fastest growing county in the country over  the past 10 years;  2) It has consistently been one of the most affluent counties in the United States, earning the “richest county in the United States” several years running with an average household income of $119,000 (2012); 3) the Median price for homes is $525K, one of the highest in Virginia and in the top 10 for the country.

II.    Unit Goals

From a broad perspective, this quarter unit will further students’ keyboarding basic skills (technique, accuracy, speed).  However, now this quarter will be dubbed “It’s ALL Business” and students will be immersed in the business realm and gain real world experience of what it might be like to have a job in business and be promoted.  They will not just thinking about how it is done, they will do it.  This unit will be a nine week corporate “simulation experience” for students.  The unit will strongly link “living with learning and learning with living” as well as linking several school disciplines (Art, Math, Keyboarding, and Language Arts) to corporate world of employment.  In addition to the traditional grading criteria for keyboarding, students will now get additional incentives, including  pay, a bonus structure, and a promotion.  For a full unit plan description, click here.

From an instructional perspective, there are both covert and overt components to the unit that I hope to cover.  The overt goals include students experiencing daily goals/objectives and structures that mimic the business world.  They will be assign tasks, projects, and work to be completed during the class block; 2) research skills; 3) direction following—written AND oral; 4) DEAPR, C-RAP, SSCC, ACTS, PICKL—depending on the project and timeframe of the unit.  My covert goals include: Through the use of the seven projects and lemonade stand (business simulation video game), students will have time to reinforce and use their search, sort, create and report skills in great depth. There will be many opportunities to implement the design, encode, assemble, publish (Business Card, Business Letter, e-Magazine Article) and review process (Business Plan, Portfolios) to increase their knowledge of the concepts outlined above. 

Overall, I want students to learn these covert and overt objectives.  From a covert standpoint, the concepts of SSCC, DEAPR, C-RAP, authentic problems, software usage, analysis, critical thinking, and project completion will be covered.  Student outcomes include using these to produce the 7 projects and be promoted through the 6 promotional levels during a 9 week unit.  This will culminate in a final presentation in a “Shark Tank” format where they will present their portfolios and business plans to a group of industry experts. I want them to learn what it is like to have a “real world” experience in the classroom.  Students will learn several valuable skills including organization, focus, deadlines, good work ethic, time management, and goal setting.  All of these simulate the corporate world.  Additionally, students will have goals, tasks, promotions, and bonuses.  Listening and following directions, organization, discipline, focus, design concepts, create, sort, arrange, software packages, and image manipulation will be important learning goals.  These will be reinforced through the following Promotion and Deliverable schedule:

1 ) Sales Representative (Job research and application); 2) Account Manager (4 MicroType Lessons, 1 week of Play, 40% or higher customer satisfaction rate, profitable); 3) Manager (4 MicroType Lessons, 1 week of Play, 50% or higher customer satisfaction rate, profitable);  4) Director (4 MicroType Lessons, 1 week of Play, 60% or higher customer satisfaction rate, profitable); 5) Vice President (4 MicroType Lessons, 1 week of Play, 70% or higher customer satisfaction rate, profitable); 6) President (4 MicroType Lessons, 1 week of Play, 80% or higher customer satisfaction rate, profitable).  

1) Job Application; 2) Business Card; 3) Letterhead/Business Letter; 4) eMagazine Article; 5) Advertisement; 6) Hot Dog Stand; 7) Wiki based High level Business Plan presentation.

Due to the duration and depth of this unit plan, motivational goals are far reaching.  These include students participating in a collaborative environment.  They and the instructor will work together to solve any issues (projects, progress, behavior) that come up during the quarter.  Overall, it is imperative for students to strive to do their best on all projects and be sure work is complete and matches the rubrics.  Through elements in the unit (authentic problems, projects, roles, advancement, bonuses), my overall motivational goal for students is to encourage life-long learning. I hope students will associate what where viewed as discrete, stand alone subjects (LA, Math, Art/Design, Keyboarding concepts) that they have in school as unified and wrap them up into what it might be like to be in a corporate job environment.  That learning is never ending and a constant application of concepts will ensure their 21st century success. 

The evaluation strategy on this unit will include elements from student and instructor based feedback.  Student assessment on this unit will be detailed and measure multiple factors.  From a broad stand point, I need to measure two things: 1) What they learned and 2) how they liked it. I have incorporated several aspects of student assessments from previous lesson plans and expanded them to cover a 9 week unit.  From an instructor perspective, a teacher journal will be kept along with reflective notes on what worked and what did not. Improvements and modifications will be made to improve the delivery of the content.  There will also be a notes section for the Shark Tank (industry professionals) to provide comments and insights.

1)  Project Rubric(s)—Each will have its own requirements; 2) Portfolio(s)—all final deliverable project work; 3) Survey(s)--Exit Survey (3 questions):  What did you like? What did you learn?  How would you improve?; 4)  GWAM (Gross Words A Minute)--Speed scale used to assess speed of student typing; 5) Game Log--Records scores/profits/customer satisfaction rates; 6) Pre/Post Assessment: 5 questions on importance of job application, business card importance/function, business math, plus other background material in an online survey.

III.    Quantitative Evidence of Student Learning

The quantitative data was collected through the use of the grading rubrics for all students in my class. Below are summaries of the quantitative data collected through the use of the grading rubric for all students.

For the promotional projects, I directly expressed to students that meeting expectations for the rubrics on projects would result in an A provided the requirements were met.  If not, students would rework the projects until correct.  For the culminating activity, students were placed in teams of at 5 for a total of three teams but were still graded individually.

Initial analysis of the data shows that students did well.  All students met the expectation for the promotion projects.  For the Shark Tank project, the class averaged 89%, again very high and a great indicator of learning but still inconclusive.  The Pre/Post Assessment numbers provide the strongest suggestion that learning took place.  Student took an ungraded, online, 10 point pre-assessment that had 5 main concepts on the unit.  At the end, students then repeated the assessment.  The class average was significantly higher when comparing pre and post test percentages. 

Promotion Projects

Culminating Activity

Pre/Post Assessment

IV.    Qualitative Evidence of Student Learning

Qualitative learning evidence was noted by three areas: teacher notebook, Shark Tank Comments, and the “Exit Interview.” 

First, from a teacher journal/notebook standpoint, I was constantly jotting notes.  Comments included: Student behavior (felt challenged but fun, excitement, nervous but prepared for the Shark Tank).  Deal with students in a fair manor, they feel respected.  If they feel respected, they feel like part of the process; if they feel like part of the process, their interest level grows.  So goes the projects.

Second, the concept of the Shark Tank really helped team members with their presentations.  The comments and feedback were very insightful and did shed light on evidence of student learning.

Shark Comments and Criticisms (verbal and from rubric):

In wrapping up the Shark Tank thoughts on learning, reviewers noted several times how great it was to tie in real world problems to the classroom in each of the projects and how mature the various projects were—“not the typical 6th grade type stuff, but pretty good.”  Their comments were excellent and valued.  Learning all these things about business in 6th grade will put them way ahead in the future and help them to see the relevance of their other classes (math, art, and language arts, in particular).  “The Sharks” were the perfect reviewers: prepared, yet good natured, serious but with a sense of humor.  Just like the show and just like the business world, they were dynamic and changing.  Bringing in the business world people on this was great for students and teacher.  Thanks Dr. Norton for the nudge to “bring in other people from the community.”

Lastly, students’ “Exit Interview” had some very interesting comments.  Student learning was clearly present here as well.  I have highlighted comments from their business plan wiki and verbal comments that were shared during the exit interview component of their presentation:

Again, taken together, these comments clearly show keen insights into the learning process and students’ true feelings about the Unit.  For the most part, they were eager to learn, ready to have fun, and immersed themselves into the experience. 

V.    Samples of Student Work

I have included samples that illustrate the broad range of student capabilities.  Some are very detailed and realistic, while others are more sparse.  Yet, they still followed the requirements in the rubric.  The wiki is a link to the entire site so you can get a view of how the wiki business plans were developed.   Username: wikiuser0003; Password: bird8fig.

VI.    What Worked

This unit had the potential to be burdensome and overwhelming for both students and teacher, I am happy to note that it rocked.  First, the Teacher Journal is yielding a great source of information in a real-time, note taking class environment.  This helps to capture thoughts and comments quickly.  Second, the students’ “exit interview” reconfirmed that I need to think about my students learning likes, dislikes, and areas for improvement.  These will help the next time I teach the unit. Third, the Shark Tank people were phenomenal and played their roles well.  Some were very hard and probing on some students and easy, at times, on others.  They really added value to the experience, and they were viewed as experts in their roles.  Some students mentioned that they were intimidated.  That said, I believed they worked harder knowing that the experts would be critiquing their portfolios. Fourth, the Pre/Post assessments to check for understanding were valuable.  They did show that the students learned from this experience. Last, the “Model, Coach, and Fade” technique works extremely well in taking out confusion and initial level questions for this unit.  It was a huge unit, and this really helped the verbal and visual learners glean insight to the project requirements at a higher rate.  This held true for the special needs students as.  They picked up on what was needed and performed at a high level.

VII.    What Would You Change or Modify

To be perfectly honest, there are very few things I would change.  The pacing was good, and student enjoyment high.  I would allow more time although many of my time constraints were due to the ITSer timeframe for work completion.

VIII.    Lessons for Your Practice

In terms of lessons for my practice, there are three main take aways:  The authentic problem, the value of the exit interview, and the teaching model of “Model/Coach/Fade.”

The authentic problem is a huge positive.  Students linked to the real world and communities and felt that it was realistic.  They were highly motivated and performed well.  Their quality of work was exceptional, and their presentation delivery was high.  There were minimal classroom disruptions, and the collaborative nature was high.  Student engagement was extremely high.

By incorporating the exit interview, students provided comments to improve the process for other students.  This lends credence to the assumption that students feel good when they are involved in the process.  It is truly participatory.  They have greater control and can be more emotionally invested in the process, projects, and deliverables.  As such, the process improvement in my practice continues as an endless cycle.  If students can provide meaningful feedback to their academic activities, my plans and experiences will benefit the next time I deliver the unit.  It is a two way street if you will.  I heard several times during the interview comments that I thought were very indicative of student engagement and learning.

The teaching model of “Model, Coach, and Fade” will become my standard for introducing all units and projects.   It is a powerful tool for my designer’s tool bag.  Using this process ensured the success of this unit especially since the unit was so broad and the deliverables so varied.  It is just the best approach and fits my teaching style very well.  It produces a better learning experience with far fewer questions and classroom confusion.  Several of the students commented on this as well.  They appreciated it when they could see me do an example first by working through the process helped them be more confident and successful during the unit.