Slightly Off KIlter

I volunteered for Junior Achievement in November #151; five Tuesday, half an hour each, in a local second grade class. You can read the whys and wherefores my regular weblog (
Part 1 and Part 2) and about the previous activities here: (Activity 1, Activity 2, Activity 3, Activity 4, and Activity 5

As I will now be writing up the entire experience – and sending feedback to JA – here are some of the primary things I’ve concluded:

1. Involve all of the kids, most of the time.
   
   Several of the exercises were written to involve less than all of the students. The exercises should involve as many of the students as possible.
   

2. KISS
   





• Don’t confuse the issue of choosing a new business by adding the distraction of “three mayors”
  



• a two-minute exercise for 7-year-olds is not the place to try to teach about Assembly Line production
  



• Let the students drive the activity when possible. It’s not necessary to fill in all of the blanks ahead of time.
  

  
  For example, for activity 4, I covered over the pre-chosen businesses on the decision tree and let the kids brainstorm possible businesses for the empty store; then I chose three for us to talk about. I also threw out the mayors discussion and reprinted the ballots to vote for Business 1, 2, and 3.
  



• Keep to the concrete. Much of Activity 2 and Activity 4 was overly abstract.
  Design and Test the materials better for 7-year-olds
  



• Materials should be easy to use (The perforated donuts were difficult to punch out, even for an adult)
  



• Use colored stickers, not black and white (activity 2).
  



• Be sure the stickers are easy to distinguish from a distance. The “milk”, “eggs”, and “flour” stickers were difficult to distinguish from each other (activity 2).
  



• Use larger props. Several of the stickers were too small (activity 3). I personally think a “real” quarter is not nearly as much fun as the “quarter” I made for my class (activity 5).
  






3. Consider the audience at all times
   





• This is second grade, yet the Community poster doesn’t even feature an elementary school!
  



• The jokes and vocabulary in the Money Moves “song” are beyond second grade.
  



• Second graders do not excel at small group consultation work.
  



• Second grade handwriting skills are… not to be counted on (the decision exercise as designed was beyond the scope of second grade)
  



• It is not necessary for the volunteer to “place a sticker on your shirt to get the students excited about volunteering”. If the students are alive, they are excited. If for no other reason than they get to wear a sticker.
  



• 7-year-olds are very literal.
  
  They had excellent suggestions for defects in donuts but the abstract ideas of defects in paper donuts were too complex. (e.g. they suggested: it only has one side, it’s not cooked, we can’t eat it). (activity 2)
  






4. Things I did that I believe were helpful
   





• I printed vocabulary words in 108 pt type, 3 to a sheet of an 11 x 8.5″ landscape mode paper, then cut them out and hung them on the board. I asked if anyone knew the words and we talked abut the (many, large, new) words in the activities.
  



• I quizzed in later sessions about previous words.
  



• I asked kids to come to the front and point things out on the posters.
  



• I cut way back on the scope of several activities after the Debacle of the Donut Shop in Activity 2; I didn’t let the kids “work on their own” much but kept them participating in a class activity.
  



• I moved kids around. I walked around the room.
  



• In the 5th Activity, I printed out “name tags” for the players and asked for volunteers to play the roles. I asked kids to participate by reading or by getting up and walking the quarter to the next player
  









5. There was nothing in the Activity Guide about writing a Thank You note but I realized as I drove away after the last session that, of course, a Thank You note is very important.
   

I filled out the online survey. At least the “Program Content and Instruction” survey is better than the misnamed “Program Materials” survey. The latter asked four questions: 1) what region are you in? 2) which “course” are you teaching? 3) was anything missing? 4) if so, what?