"I am done, What do I do now?": The most hated question in tech/engineering class

The question I hate most in my classes is "I am done, What do I do now?". I hate it more than kids who choose to play games on the computers when they are finished (and sometimes before they are finished). I know I am a teacher but I see myself more as a project manager than an entertainer. I know there are some teachers out there that see themselves as a entertainer but that is not me. I know that some presentations & articles I have read equate teaching to entertaining because we have to compete with the likes of sensationalized TV and Games as well as easy access to music. It is hard to complete with the immediate feedback and gratification from these entities as well. However all that being said I do have a tool I use to help combat that question and also help students start to build some of the soft skills employer's look for in a potential future employee. The idea is what I call Leadership Points.

I got this idea from a fellow teacher who used something similar in their class as a way of keeping kids busy if they finished work early. Now I know that some of you will automatically start thinking of these things a just busy work. The idea is that students have a series of tasks to choose from that they can do with minimal to no help from me or others. The tasks fit into 5 areas of Employ-ability skills:

• Professional development
  

• Taking Initiative
  

• Management
  

• Career Prep
  

• Community Service
  

I have run these by employers and most feel these are good soft skills for students to start working on at a middle school level. I know there are more than just these 5 employ-ability skills; I choose these 5 as they are easy for middle school kids to understand and relate to. Within each of these areas are tasks kids can do that earn them a select number of points. Tasks range from easy things like: 

• tracking daily work in planner
• cleaning the classroom
• filling out an application

to harder ones like:

• designing a new job
• reading a book or article relating to subject of class and reporting back on it
• 1 month of community service
• teach the class (with lesson plans and assessment)

The harder the task the more points it is worth. I try and make it easy for them to get the points by just requiring that they show me or an adult over 18 evidence of completing the task. The one catch is if they loose the form before completing the 300 points they loose the points unless they can show evidence of completion. This is probably the biggest issue I haven't found a way to resolve is kids loosing the form but it is a good lesson for them to learn when the stakes are low.

I have heard from both students, parents, and other teachers many issues with this assignment. When I first started out a lot of people saw these as just busy work which yes they kind of are but when coming up with list of tasks I tried to think of ones that not only fit the category but also were relevant to both the class and it's operation which helps add value to them and makes them seem less as busy work. I get 3 big complaints from students and parents when it comes to this assignment. The first one is that there are too many, I require 300 points in a semester. However when I break it down in terms of how long they have to do them, 1 semester or about 4.5 months, that tasks the wind out of that complaint. Also once people see the type of activities and how easy some of them are it also helps to minimize this complaint. The second biggest complaint I get from both parents (although not so much once I explain/remind them when assigned) and students is I didn't get them enough time. This is mainly because students wait till the last minute to do them and find they don't have enough time to complete 300. The third biggest complaint I got was that they had too much of an impact on student's grades. This one took some time to figure out as I wanted the kids to take the assignment seriously but also didn't want it to cause them to fail the class if they didn't do them but did the other work for the class. What I have settled on is making them 20% of the grade in my class and making sure to have points they can get for doing everyday tasks in class.

All in all over the last 4+ years I have been doing Leadership Points I have found them to be beneficial for both me and others. Some of the changes I have made over the last 4 years to make the experience easier and more motivating are to give parents and other teacher the ability to sign off on points, the willingness to let students negotiate what they can to do to get points, and the newest thing creating a Leadership badge students can earn and proudly display if they complete their 300 points before the due date.  I have posted a copy of the form I hand out to students as well as a link to my podcast on this topic. Feel free to make a copy of the form and use it in your classroom. You have my permission to modify and change the form to fit your unique situation. I also welcome your thoughts on the topic and ideas of tasks I can add.

As always:

Go Forth & Do Great Things!
All pictures are in the public domain

Files/Links:

Leadership Point form.
Link to Podcast
Interland by google
Codecombat

Being social: Increasing productivity

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As I wrap up my reading of the book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect by Matthew D. Lieberman. I want to write 2 posts in relation to work in schools and how we can help students and teachers tap into our social nature. The first of these 2 posts focuses on the work environment especially in schools. 

I was struck by how in this country we equate job satisfaction with more income as pointed out in the book. I myself am guilty of this way of thinking. However after reading the chapter entitled "The business of social brains" I am inclined to rethink this a bit. We hear phrases like "Money is the route of all evil." or "The best things in life are free" or many others. It turns out these phrases are to a certain extent true as pointed out by numerous studies on economics and job satisfaction and on productivity in the work place. My goal here is not to talk about all these studies an what they show but to focus on my thoughts on how to improve productivity in schools through social endeavors. 

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In the book they cite research that shows as income increases the feeling of social well being stays the same. They also cite research that shows the most effective ways to increase productivity is not to give out more money (it actually decreases it in some cases) but to bring in a social aspect. Help your employees make a real life connection to the work they are doing. As an example they talked about the job of students calling Alumni for donations. What they found was when they brought in a student who was or did benefit directly through Alumni provided scholarships the callers were more productive and motivated to work their callers for money and actually brought in more donations. 

In teaching we get to see this day and and day out with our students. However I believe we can do better. I believe it would be helpful to be able to see how our work impacts families and communities. Some of us get to see that but I think we could do better by attending community events and working with our community leaders to see what events/meetings/ etc. we can attend as teachers. Also I know that we as teachers are feeling overworked and underpaid and don't feel we can sit on another committee or meeting beyond our contract. However there is meaning in accepting that request to sit on a volunteer committee. I have served on a few committee's for my children's school district. While I don't work in the district it has reminded me of the importance of doing so as well as the intrinsic reward/value by doing so. I am not a overly outgoing person and prefer to the the social butterfly on the wall watching others have good time. However the more I have started to include myself I am able to take more satisfaction from the work I do and share the knowledge I have. I think we as teachers and administrators need to focus both on giving teachers opportunities to sit on community boards as well as support that interaction. Also it is important for admin to provide those opportunities and encourage teachers to take advantage of those opportunities not out of requirement but out of helping to fulfill that social need. 

Lastly as schools we need to look at ways of making the work we do during the school day more social. Whether that be time to work together on a cross-curricular project, time to talk with colleagues about what ever comes to mind, time for students to talk while working (possibly more on this in a later post 😃), and time to "break bread" together. The last one is the hardest for me as for reasons I stated above. However, I think the past emphasis on high stakes testing forced us back into silo teaching based on subject areas. You would see math, science, and language arts teachers huddle together in teams to talk about their practice which was OK for their curriculum but not for the overall child. Children need to see how curriculum is social in that it all works together to make one successful.What I am thinking/proposing is taking a page out of the elementary playbook but instead of having 1 teacher teach all subjects you have 4 teachers teach all subjects together in a team teaching concept. I know this may have been or is being tried and I welcome your thoughts/comments on how it is going/working.

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this brings me to my final thought, the importance of communication. I think this is the essence of being social. We often times feel that social media is bane of our existence and ruining our ability to be social. I have found myself totally agreeing this statement until I read this book. I still have my reservations but when you see how we are wired to be social and also put social media in the context of being a tool, it opens up some possibilities. For example 5 years ago I would never have thought of using a tool like email to communicate with my students. It was a barrier that I felt shouldn't be crossed. Along with that I wouldn't imagine being a "friend" on Facebook with my students or tweet with them no matter how much they begged me (again barriers). However now I use email and google classroom (what I call social media for the classroom) to communicate with my students and dare I say it is working out for the positive. With proper instruction on how to both use the tool and respect boundaries social media can be and is a powerful educational tool. 

As always thanks for reading and commenting and remember:

Go Forth and Do Great Things!