Monday, March 20, 2017

Use an online recorder called https://online-voice-recorder.com/

Use an online recorder called https://online-voice-recorder.com/

This is how it works CLICK HERE

Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Entrepreneur skills in school

Teaching Entrepreneurship in Secondary Schools

Where should entrepreneurship be introduced and taught in the high school curriculum? As could be expected, there are several courses and levels into which entrepreneurship can be integrated. While a full unit on entrepreneurship could be taught as a stand-alone, independent course of study, this is not the only approach, or necessarily the most effective. Even if a freestanding course is provided in the curriculum, its effectiveness will be enhanced if entrepreneurial insights are provided throughout the entire curriculum. If entrepreneurship education is isolated in a single course, apart from the whole curriculum, it may be missed by many students who then would not profit from their potential development as enterprising individuals.

Placing entrepreneurial concepts and the entrepreneur into
the standard economics course not only makes the course more reflective of the real world, but it also can help to
improve students' comprehension and enjoyment of the economics course.

Economics. The discussion above has outlined some of the key entrepreneurial concepts that should be integrated into the typical economics course. Illustrations of how these concepts might be taught are contained in the lesson plans in Part 2 of this Master Curriculum Guide. Placing entrepreneurial concepts and the entrepreneur into the standard economics course not only makes the course more reflective of the real world, but it also can help to improve students' comprehension and enjoyment of the economics course.

Business education. Perhaps the next most obvious place where entrepreneurship should be included is in the high school business education curriculum. In addition to the creative and enterprising attributes, the business education course will introduce the financial and human management skills that are necessary for the formation and survival of a new enterprise. The business education course should also have the students think of themselves as employers rather than employees in the market system. This view will enable the business student to identify with the important issues with which the entrepreneur must grapple as part of the development of a business plan. These issues include new products, process innovation, employee training and management, financing the enterprise, and assessment of the marketplace. The desired outcomes of the business education course should include the students' ability to deal with the unknown in an enterprising way.

Government. The action of government in creating and limiting the environment for entrepreneurship should be included in courses of high school government. Government regulations and taxes have an impact on the entrepreneurial environment. Regulation is a burden for all businesses, but more especially for small entrepreneurial ones that generally have less ability to bear the costs of compliance.

History courses are a natural place within the curriculum to discuss how entrepreneurs have helped determine the course of human events.

Comparative studies should be undertaken about the role of entrepreneurs under alternative political systems. Why has there been a movement toward the free market in command societies? To what extent is the existence of one kind of liberty essential for the presence of the other? Can government bureaucrats be entrepreneurial? These are just a few of the questions that might be posed in a government class with entrepreneurial content.

Psychology. A course in psychology is an excellent place for students to understand the psychological characteristics of the entrepreneur and to assess their own characteristics and capacities to be entrepreneurial. A psychology course that allows students to develop their own concepts of self-worth and inner control would be a welcome addition to the process of entrepreneurship education.

Sociology. The study of the sociology of entrepreneurship is in its infancy, but there are several ideas that are consistent with the thrust of entrepreneurship education. Students should realize that entrepreneurs shape and are shaped by the culture in which they live. Why do some ethnic groups seem to be more entrepreneurial than others? How does entrepreneurship permit minority groups to enter the economic and social mainstream? These are but two of the myriad questions that link entrepreneurship and sociology, and high school courses can now begin to explore them.

History. History courses are a natural place within the curriculum to discuss how entrepreneurs have helped determine the course of human events. History courses too often focus on politicians, rulers, and military leaders. History teachers can do a great deal to expand the horizons of their students by focusing on case studies of entrepreneurs who have contributed to the betterment of humankind. Case studies are particularly valuable if a variety of alternative stories are included that allow the students to relate to entrepreneurs of their same race and/or gender. Entrepreneurial history can help students understand that most progress is made in small steps. While the "mega" innovations are important, progress really happens as ideas are adapted and refined. The cumulative process of improving and changing old ideas in an incremental way to better satisfy consumer or producer needs is the form most entrepreneurial activity takes and in so doing makes history. Science. Entrepreneurship can also be a thread woven into the fabric of science courses. Since technological advance often begins with scientific insight and continues because of entrepreneurial persistence, students should understand the relation between scientific discovery and entrepreneurship. Many of the great scientists were also entrepreneurs. They not only invented the product or technology but also brought it to the marketplace. Students should understand these relationships between the laboratory and the market.

Vocational/technical education. For many years, entrepreneurship has been an integral part of many vocational/technical programs. The majority of American high school students are enrolled in some vocational/ technical course or program. These offerings present an excellent opportunity for the spreading of entrepreneurship education over a significant number of students.

The focus of entrepreneurship education in the vocational/ technical curriculum has been narrow and limited to the teaching of skills needed to start and sustain a small business, but most vocational/technical programs contain at least a module on basic economics. In this module the links between the market and the entrepreneur need to be stressed. The curriculum should be broadened beyond skills training to include an understanding of how employees can be enterprising as well as units on the nurturing of entrepreneurial traits and characteristics.

CONCLUSION

Those who design secondary school curricula should make sure that entrepreneurship has its place in economics, business education, history, science, psychology, sociology, and vocational/technical education. Entrepreneurship is neither a separate nor an alien concept, but one that can enrich the students' understanding of a variety of subjects in the regular curriculum. Perhaps more important, the study of entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship can demonstrate how enterprising behavior can have a positive impact on society. Entrepreneurs are good models for students to emulate.

Adopted and used with permission.
Master Curriculum Guide: Economics and Entrepreneurship
© 1991, National Council on Economic Education, New York, NY.
All rights reserved.
For more information visit www.ncee.net
or call 1-800-338-1192.

We can build a Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship -- Big Picture can do it.

Perhaps the easiest way to build a group of people who support a Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is to:

a) show this video and
b) show photos and the website of the Big Picture Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at the Met in Providence, RI.

Go ahead, look at the website. http://ei.themethighschool.org/

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y Jodie Woodruff

To some teachers, personalized learning sounds like a way around the basics that so many students want to avoid. I get it, I really do. Labels aside, let me tell you what it is I think we’re aiming at: authentic learning experiences that are based on student interests and designed to challenge and engage students in real environments.

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that there is not one “right” way to motivate students to take control of their own education. As someone who teaches entrepreneurship, the crucial step is giving student-partners the strides and strifes of learning. I say student-partners because as their teacher or advisor, I work with them in what I consider a learning partnership for both sides.

For 21 years, a network of six public high schools in Rhode Island has provided an advisory-based program wherein all students have opportunities to build relationships and learn from mentors in the field of study that interests them. Students spend time in internships where they work closely with a mentor on real problems and experiences, learning in real world settings. Parents and families also play a role in the learning process, helping to shape students’ learning plans and acting as resources to the school community.

Save

Photo courtesy of the Allen Distinguished Educators program

This design results in student-centered learning, where students actively invest in their learning and a supportive community of educators, professionals and family members challenges students to pursue their interests.

A crucial step to genuine personalized learning is to avoid approaches that are pop culture labels or buzz words. For instance, I am not the leader of the Dead Poets Society. It’s never enough to ask a student to break out, be bold and seize the day. That carpe diem language is similar to a coach’s locker room pep talk. Successfully seizing the day requires that students know what they are grabbing and why, and once they’ve seized it, what to do with it.

Individualized learning also isn’t cracking the code where, with minimal directions, one individual working alone has to find all the answers. Personalized learning should grow out of the three R’s coined by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: rigor, relevance and relationships.

Save

Photo courtesy of the Allen Distinguished Educators program

When students are at the center, they are learning about what truly engages and challenges them, and that makes learning authentic and relevant. They create their project proposals based on their interests, skills, knowledge and resources, and match these plans to learning objectives and goals. They create an essential guiding question for their project. They conduct primary and secondary research. And they create a timeline and explain how they think they will apply and benefit from their efforts.

Also, when students develop their projects they consider social capital, a topic we don’t often talk about in schools. Students may ask questions such as: Who do I know that can help me? What resources do I need from others and how will I obtain them? They learn through this process how to ask for help, and they do it because they’re invested and interested. And when they ask, I ask questions too, reinforcing the value of this real-world skill: Did you do X? Did you do Y?

Believe me, the process is powerful—but that doesn’t mean it’s seamless. Like all of us, students get discouraged and want to give up. This is where initial dialogue, strong relationships and learning teams with mentors, parents and advisors can help students stay committed. Personalized learning isn’t completely independent—there’s guidance and coaching along the way.

Throughout the time I have shared with student-partners, I have had to continually reevaluate each student’s capacity. How much has he grown? How much more can she take on? And when the process truly works, I become the student, and it is wonderful. So, I have come to the conclusion that individualized learning is, in fact, vital for real student growth and I urge all teachers to embrace it.

For more, see:

Jodie Woodruff is the director of the Met Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at The Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical Center in Providence, Rhode Island, and was recently recognized as an Allen Distinguished Educator for her pioneering work in entrepreneurship education. Follow the Met Center on Twitter: @MetSchool.

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VISIT

The Met School Opens Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship

The Met School (Metropolitan Regional Career and Technical School) celebrated Young Entrepreneurs Day by opening the doors for a new center for entrepreneurship in Providence, which is the first such freestanding center for high school students in the U.S. The 3,600-square-foot Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship officially launched on Thursday at the school’s main campus. It will provide a new home for a course of study in which students write business plans and then present them to potential funders. The classes help students learn math, financial literacy and other skills needed to run a business.

The event included an introduction to the entrepreneurship program at the Met, a ribbon cutting, and an impressive showcase of 14 student-run and school-owned businesses, such as a dorm cleaning service and a cupcake company that utilizes low calorie recipes. The program also featured a performance by Music One, students at the Met School who write their own music, have their own television show and perform at various venues throughout the country. The keynote address was delivered by entrepreneur Scott Case, CEO of the Startup America Partnership, an alliance of entrepreneurs, corporations, universities, foundations and other leaders joining together to fuel innovative, high growth U.S. start-ups.

Johnson & Wales University was also on hand to present a scholarship to Rebecca Sheeler, a senior from Coventry and a graduate of the Met School E360 Entrepreneur Program. Rebecca has been accepted into Johnson & Wales University’s School of Technology, where she will major in Graphic Design & Digital Media. She will receive a scholarship of $5,000 per year for four years.

How to get CHEMISTRY and SCIENCE more negaging. HOW ABOUT DYNAMIC PERIODIC TABLES?

55 Tables

Dynamic Table

Tuesday, March 7, 2017

Key PIECES from the Littky RADIO interview

The Met, the 10-year-old model for the schools, in Providence, R.I.

Students are encouraged to discover their passions, interning two days a week with mentors in the community who relate those passions to the real world.

The student might work at a hospital, a bakery, or an architectural firm. School projects are designed by the mentor, the adviser and the student together -- and are presented orally, along with a portfolio, every nine weeks.

Our job with narratives is to give kids feedback about how to get better. The job for the transcript is to help colleges know what's going on.

In theory, I believe I can get most people to see that we learn when we’re involved in something. There is no learning theory that says that lecturing to adolescents is the way to get people to learn.

The way to get people to learn is to get them to be motivated and interested. The more you are involved in something, the more you construct knowledge, the more you learn, we know all that. The problem is every human being went through a regular school, so we keep falling back on that model.

Creating Big Picture schools around the U.S., and the difficulty of getting good teachers

If you have the right philosophy, every child has a learning plan, you find real work, you find their passion, it works. We put a big emphasis about training the teachers for a year before putting them into schools. If you get the combinations together, it can be a success. It's hard to find adults who are certified to be teachers, who are generalists and want to give up teaching their subject matter to really truly teach kids. As a teacher, you have nothing to protect yourself. There's no textbook to get in the way or to guide you, it s raw.

Every school says that they respect kids. If you give kids work that is not important, you're not respecting them.

I appreciate the accountability part of No Child Left Behind. There were some school districts that were not clear about standards and the law is helping them focus. The law is not going to help poor kids really achieve. Taking tests is not going to help improve kids. We have to engage them, help them find their passion, we have to respect who they are and where they come from.

=======================

each school has no more than 120 students.

9th grade two classes of 15 students = 30 students

10th grade two classes of 15 students = 30 students

11th grade two classes of 15 students = 30 students

12th grade two classes of 15 students = 30 students

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TOTALS 120 students

Key points

We learn when we’re involved in something.

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The full text:

Speech to a Conference about High Schools,

May 2005 By Bill Gates

The idea behind the new design is that all students can do rigorous work, and – for their sake and ours – they have to. Fortunately, there is mounting evidence that the new design works.

At the Met School in Providence, Rhode Island, 70 percent of the students are black or Hispanic. More than 60 percent live below the poverty line. Nearly 40 percent come from families where English is a second language. As part of its special mission, the Met enrolls only students who have dropped out or were in danger of dropping out. Yet, even with this student body, the Met now has the lowest dropout rate and the highest college placement rate of any high school in the state.

Two years ago, I visited High Tech High in San Diego. It was conceived in 1998 by a group of San Diego business leaders who became alarmed by the city’s shortage of talented high-tech workers. Thirty-five percent of High Tech High students are black or Hispanic. All of them study courses like computer animation and biotechnology in the school’s state-of-the-art labs. These are not isolated examples. These are schools built on principles that can be applied anywhere – the new three R’s, the basic building blocks of better high schools:

The first R is Rigor – making sure all students are given a challenging curriculum that prepares them for college or work;

The second R is Relevance – making sure kids have courses and projects that clearly relate to their lives and their goals;

The third R is Relationships – making sure kid s have a number of adults who know them, look out for them, and push them to achieve. The three R’s are almost always easier to promote in smaller high schools. The smaller size gives teachers and staff the chance to create an environment where students achieve at a higher level and rarely fall through the cracks.

Students in smaller schools are more motivated,

have higher attendance rates,

feel safer, and

graduate and attend college in higher numbers.

WHY do I mention Bill Gates? Because he got the “New Three Rs” from Dennis Littky’s book.

=====================

TRANSCRIPT of the Interview and Radio Report

Dennis Littky and The Big Picture schools

Interview with Margot Adler.

All Things Considered, April 25, 2005 ·

TinyURL.com/LittkyRadio

(It’s free to listen)

It’s hard to imagine a school with no tests, no grades and no classes. But those familiar elements of education are missing at two dozen Big Picture schools in six states, each with no more than 120 students. They emphasize work in the real world, portfolios, oral presentations and intense relationships between students and advisers.

Margot Adler visits one of the schools, called The Met, the 10-year-old model for the schools, in Providence, R.I.

Students are encouraged to discover their passions, interning two days a week with mentors in the community who relate those passions to the real world.

Vimar Rodriguez, an 11th grader interested in medicine, has a neighborhood pediatrician as a mentor. Dr. Hector Cordero says she knew little when she started interning at his office. "I think she s learning a lot," Cordero says. "I think it is motivating her to go to medical school, which is the most important thing." Rodriguez contrasts her own life with those of her friends at other schools. "They don t know [what college they are going to], if they are going to get financial aid, and here I can look at different opportunities and different choices."

The school measures its success in many ways -- standardized achievement scores are higher than those at the three largest Providence high schools -- but parents are most excited by these statistics:

Almost every senior gets into college, 80 percent go to college, and five years later, most of those students are still in college or have graduated. The core idea of a school is so embedded in everyone. I had a kid say to me "You’re not a real principal." (Charlie Plant, one of six principals) Comments by Dennis Littky, founder of the Met School

Students have a hard time adjusting to a school that they don’t know. You put 15 students in a room with an advisor, you let kids discover and follow their passions, interning two days a week with mentors in the community who relate those passions to the real world. The students might work in a hospital or an architectural firm. School projects are designed by the student and advisor together and are presented orally in a portfolio every nine weeks. Students meet three days a week with advisors about their projects. Projects are tailored to get academic rigor into the presentation. "We're looking at how do you look at the world scientifically, how do you look at the world mathematically, do you communicate effectively, what are the skills we can get out of this?"

Dennis Littky: "Students have been told what to do for nine years. When they enter ninth grade, it's rough. We are saying, Follow your interests and passions, make choices. They are not ready, they don't trust adults." Admission is by lottery and most students qualify for free lunch. Student scores are higher than the average scores of the three local high school but even so, fewer than half are proficient.

Almost every senior gets into college, 80 percent go to college and five years later, almost all are still in college or graduated.

Students are followed for ten years. They are welcome to drop in, get some advice, the advisors are there for you. Advisors send letters and care packages to graduates in college. The dropout rate at the Met is 3 percent. There are kids that want a big school where they can be anonymous. It s not perfect.

We separate kids from adults in our world. So of course there is this generation gap. -- Dennis Littky

It’s a struggle to get trained teachers.

==========================

Dennis Littky is co-founder of the Big Picture schools and is director of one of them, The Met Center in Providence, R.I. Hear Littky on: The challenges of creating a school like The Met and in creating rigor in the student’s projects.

There is no harder job than a new 9th grade advisor. I haven t figured out how t o help them have a successful year. You get 9th grade kids who are angry at school, don't trust adults, and have been told what to do for 9 years and we are saying, follow your interests and make choices. They are not ready. We continue to struggle about how to get them involved, give them some structure but not too much structure. We are trying to make them learn to make decisions in life. What d o we do in the first 9 weeks. One of our solutions was have them come in for 2 weeks in the summer and start learning the culture. It s easier to do in the summer and there's less pressure for academics. When teachers ask me how to prepare for the first 9 weeks in 9th grade, I tell them, Go bowling to get to know the kid, to get to know their passions. We struggle so much with it that I almost want them in their internships before they start school with us.

Once they find their passion and interest and start to work in the internship, the rest takes over. They change, it’s not school any more. "I love this doctor’s office. I'm going to read about this. I love this architect’s office, I'm going to design this." So until you get the passion, it s too much like school.

The second big problem is how to get the rigor and get the rigor ... how do you find mathematics working in a radio station. how do you find the good projects? The reading and writing is easier, but how to go deep in the analytical reasoning is the challenge.

How do you do a transcript for colleges? We give our kids narratives, we don’t give our kids grades. These are two-page detailed reports about strengths and weaknesses, every 9 weeks for four years. Colleges can't look at that. We put the a reas that the colleges want to see, English, History, Math. The transcript can say English and it has the kid s project in there. Admissions officers can see that there are 4 English and 3 science credits and that's how we do it.

Our job with narratives is to give kids feedback about how to get better. The job for the transcript is to help colleges know what's going on.

The question: How do you make the outside world understand what you do? I believe deep down when you ask people, "What do you remember from chemistry class?" or trigonometry class, they don’t have any answers. "Where did you learn to be a writer?" I ask them. "Did you learn it in journalism school, did you learn it from guidelines?" The answer: "No, I really learned when I was working and writing. People were being critical with my writing on the job."

Critics laughed when they saw we had internships. Then they saw that we had the highest attendance rate in the state . We had the lowest dropout rate in the state. But they really became believers when they see that every kid got accepted to college. Five years later they're still in college or graduated? Sometimes you need to show those results so that people can accept the method. Every test that the other kids are taking, our kid s are taking. We keep pushing ahead and trying to show that this is a way to help kids get educated. We outscored the three largest high schools in mathematics and we don't teach a mathematics course. The kids learn to think like mathematicians, to solve problems and use their minds. The scores are not great, but they are moving up. Colleges are impressed with how articulate and passionate our kid s are.

Creating Big Picture schools around the U.S., and the difficulty of getting good teachers

If you have the right philosophy, every child has a learning plan, you find real work, you find their passion, it works. We put a big emphasis about training the teachers for a year before putting them into schools. If you get the combinations together, it can be a success. It s hard to find adults who are certified to be teachers, who are generalists and want to give up teaching their subject mat ter to really truly teach kids. As a teacher, you have nothing to protect yourself. There's no textbook to get in the way or to guide you, it s raw.

You have to have that relationship with that kid. It s very hard work to do. Our schools vary in how good they are. It's the hardest work in the world because you are dealing with kids lives, you get so deep with them. Many teachers tell m e, "I've taught for seven years, I’ve been a good teacher, but I've never got so close to kids as I have here." When you have 150 kids, you can't get that close. By the way, critics say, "You just have 15 kids." Well, we get the same amount o f money per student as the rest of the state gets. It's how you use your money. The ratio in most high schools of adults to kids to around 1 to 15. The classes are 1 to 30 because you have department chairs, you have guidance counselors, there are people around. We do it with the same amount of money that California gives out, which is less than what Rhode Island gives out. 40 percent of our students are Latino, 30 percent are African American, 5 percent Asian. The free lunch population ranges from 60 to 80 percent, 70 percent of the kids have never had anyone in the family go to college. All of our kids are accepted in college, about 80 percent go, 75 percent of our kids are still in college or graduated from some program. The national statistics are if you enter college as an African American or Latino, there is less than a 20 percent chance that you will graduate. One of the things we try to do is beat that. How do you get the kids to have such skills and passion that they overcome the barriers that the other 90 percent don’t make it? How kids in good schools are losing out too, and why

(The Met s accomplishments)

What makes me cry daily is when I hear a kid describe how he or she was before, and then how they found their passion and it changed their life. It’s really about the environment that we built to help the kid find his passion. That comes from having respect for the kid and giving the kid time to learn. Half of our great work is because the kid got there when the kid grew up and got more mature. We were just patient. But in most cases, the kids never get to, they get stopped before they did something stupid or they weren’t interested. By having the faith that the kid will learn and by struggling with that through the years, we can see how far they've come. Our secret is that we have the patience and the belief that anything is possible. Whatever you need to help you get passionate about something is what we do. it’s the true belief in the student.

Every school says that they respect kids. If you give kids work that is not important, you're not respecting them. I think my frustration with the world is that in many suburban districts where parents move to send their kids and the students come home with their As and Bs, the parents are satisfied, but they never look deeper, so they think those are good schools. They have the highest SAT scores, they have the most kids going to Ivy League colleges. Those kids are losing, too. They are not dropping out because they are playing the game. When you ask them, "Have you made any decisions in school? Do you care about anything, are you passionate about anything that goes on during the day besides drama club or football after school?" They're getting the short end. They aren't allowed to get engaged with their work and go deeper.

"My kid did well at that school." Yeah, but where could your kid really go if your kid got to work with a doctor in 9th grade, following her around, and really going in depth?

The other frustration is kids are dying daily. They are dropping out daily. In some cities, 20 percent graduate high school. Nothing is changed drastically enough.

=======================

each school has no more than 120 students.

9th grade two classes of 15 students = 30 students

10th grade two classes of 15 students = 30 students

11th grade two classes of 15 students = 30 students

12th grade two classes of 15 students = 30 students

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

TOTALS 120 students

Key points

We learn when we’re involved in something.