Enhance the student's business perception, appreciation and skills

There are huge MUTUAL LEARNING benefits when students and business experts and volunteers work together!

We take a physical event such as a  student-business workshop or visit or event and  maximise the IMPACT  OVER TIME AND GEOGRAPHY.

We design and delivery an engagement programme involving both face-to-face and on-line communication and collaboration.The COST BENEFIT can be multiplied. LATEST: In today's economic climate, see how  you can STILL achieve your objectives and targets with a reduced cost, self-funding business model.

Introduction

Typically a student  (or indeed adult) may have a vague perception of what business does:...business is working at a desk...the Telco just does phones...the  IT company just sells boxes...a Drinks company just sells...a Logistics company just delivers stuff on lorries...

In a nutshell: business is boring. However, if a student gets the opportunity to work with business people, she or he may get an Expectation shock! They just were NOT expecting these people to be interesting...and...actually listen to them!!! This can cause a positive Perception  Shift:...'I thought they only did...' shifts to... 'I just didnt realise just how much they do!'...'I thought it would be boring'...shifts to...It much more interesting than I thought!'...

This enhanced perception provides the motivation to flex business and PLTS skills, which can be assessed.  Assessment too, can go beyond a 'dry' paper or interactive on-line form to contain a wide range of multi-media evidence (such as below) to back up the assessment and to continue the positive feedback, perception and motivational loop.

Engagement Process and Lesson Plan

Here is an example Engagement Process and Lesson Plan. You may find these rather simple. Indeed they are! So below them in the videos and images underneath we see just what young people can achieve: (1) Our young students are asked to work with real experts! They are asked to flex their personal, learning and thinking skills. (2) We see a terrific presentation of the idea that they came up with! Below these we see just how far this can lead:

How far can our students go?

Look at these remarkable images:

In summary, look at the opportunity for the students to flex their business enterprise and/or PLTS skills and variants, look at what they have achieved...and look at what they can put in their Self Assessment!

Evaluation and Self Assessment

Here is an example of the output from the self assessment: a downloadable or printable one page summary containing links to multi-media evidence. NB The form is not rocket science (!) On the contrary, it is  as simple and quick to produce as possible - what it DOES contain however, is EVIDENCE. The self assessment criteria and form content can be easily modified to suit a given set of skills, limit itself to a Self Review...and so on.

Offer

Starting from the business organisation, or the academic, or a mixture of both,  we design an engagement process process  of:

> Intensive workshops in which schools and other partners come together to communicate and collaborate on a challenge, whether it be social issues or business or indeed a combination - indeed a particularly powerful approach is where business skills are used to address a social issue

> An Expectation shock - this might range from an exciting high profile event...to low key' working with a business expert  on site, at school or in the community...students love working with real experts...who actually listen to them!

> Global Communication and Collaboration Website allowing users (adult and children) to use ultra safe-and-secure software to create their own multi-media content on-line including video clips, communicate and collaborate with others by WIKI, Forums and Videoconferencing locally and globally

> Mentors or volunteers from the organisation working with the students -  parents and activity leaders.

> Pre- and post physical and virtual activity to 'stretch' the impact of the physical events

> Self, peer and teacher Assessment framework going beyond the dry 'form' to include multi-media evidence: NOTE A one page text based, printable assessment form is indeed produced, for example, for dialogue with an employer BUT it contains links to a rich bank database of multi-media evidence, the responsibility and opportunity of which rests with the child.