Understand the theory, engagement process, lesson plan and evaluation

We take school business, social and community projects - and inject an Expectation shock to provide a high impact, memorable, enduring experience which also drives enhanced self esteem, aspirations and achievement. Expectation shock runs through all our work. It can range from an exciting or amazing experience such as the following videos OR it can be the equally stimulating experience of working with adult local community heroes, business or technology expert volunteers as we see further down the page.

An Expectation Shock is simply something you just DON'T expect! It does NOT have to be a spectacular, mind-blowing event or involve a famous celebrity footballer role model! It COULD BE something as simple as children talking to a member of the local community or a business person - who the children are amazed to find is actually interesting and listens to them! (Children often cite this...) But before going through it in detail, let's start with some educational Expectation Shocks from our past and current projects - imagine you are a child working with these people and on these projects!

In the first video we see children of Buhumba, Uganda school talking to their UK school parter children about the global future school! UK students see their global friends from a school in Uganda with no electricity speaking both in their local language and in...English!

In the second video, we see the Chinese girl telling us about her 4000 student primary school! Click on the videos to see!

Below is a  terrific presentation on zero cost energy bikes from  Mujuni of Buhumba village, Uganda on his first visit to England's Stoke High School! In the second video we see the result of our UK students working on zero cost energy bikes being used in an Indian dwelling to provide light!

Imagine the effect on the children! You just DON'T expect this! Tthe impact can be profound - it raises the barrier for children seeing what their global partners can achieve! It raises their aspirations and, as they achieve remarkable things - both here and in the other sections - so it enhances their self esteem.

Theory

Expectation shock has its origins in customer service. It is tempting to think that excellent customer service should be delivered everytime. But this can be costly and indeed sometimes impossible.  Expectation shock research found that (perhaps counterintuitively) It does NOT matter how good or bad customer service is in absolute terms - what matters is how far it is better than what the customer expects! So:

• People leave a tip in a restaurant based not on how good the food and service was - but on how better it was than they expected.
• You might not be impressed by the reliability of a new car - because you expect it. But you might love your £500 old runaround because...it starts every time you use it - what a bargain!
• A Call Centre customer was surprised and pleasantly shocked at being dealt with immediately, without music, by an  advisor who knew what they were talking about and actully did something about it. Now you could say you have a right to expect this...but...

Applying this to education: The experience of working with other schools, individuals and organisations, local and global, offers great opportunities for an Expectation shock! Sometimes this can be a high profile event... but not always: in the videos below - it is the sheer surprise and excitement of students working with experts in an organisation... who listen to them. It can have a huge impact on students - causing large enduring...

Perception Shifts Typically a student  (or indeed adult) may have a vague perception of what an organisation does, for example:

a school just teaches within its four walls...a University is just academic

the Telco just does phones...the  IT company just sells boxes

a Drinks company just sells...a Logisitcs company just delivers stuff on lorries.

Working together with people in the organisation however, the student may get an Expectation shock causing a positive Perception  Shift:

'I thought they only did...' shifts to... 'I just didnt realise just how much they do!'

Similarly, there is a Perception Shift in their view of communication technology and business :

'I thought it would be boring'...shifts to...It much more interesting than I thought!'

Perhaps the most important Perception Shift is in their self perception and learning, local and global:

'I just didn't think I could do that!'

Engagement Process and Lesson Plan

Here is an example Engagement Process and Lesson Plan copied from our Business Enterprise activity. The Community Cohesion example is just a variant on the theme. 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:

In the videos below, we see just what these young people can achieve: Our young students are asked to work with real experts! We see a terrific presentation of the idea, and for fun (!) a market research activity on the ensuing product (see the young customers at the end of the video!):

Evaluation

Perception Shift in the Individual Over and above bouquets from children, teachers and community partners, our formal evaluation methodology enables us to benchmark and MEASURE our young students Perceptions pre- and post event. We can ask questions on a five-point scale, for example, 'To what extent do you think  technology is cool?' In the example below, the graph shows a large Perception Shift in both business and in communications technology: Pre-event nearly all 14 children had a low or average view of both organisation and technology (2-3), whereas post-event their Perceptions had shifted - and were much higher (4-5):

Expectation shock has been applied to a large number of project challenges including business and social issues, local and global community, anti-social behaviour and anti-bullying - engaging both adults and children. It has been externally validated by University of Essex (ethics, questionnaire, statistics) and University College London (overall process and validity of results). You can download an extract from the Validation Report.

Perception Shift in a Corporate or non-Corporate Organisations

There is a big lesson for corporate or non-corporate organisations: Working with young people can produce big Expectation shocks and corresponding Perception Shifts:

An organisation can achieve HUGE positive Perception Shifts in...

...what you DO...
..how cool you are...
...whether you 'listen'...

...and of course this can be measured and valued against the cost of the engagement. I am thinking here particularly of Corporate Social Responsibility departments who, although altruistic, nevertheless have to consider obtaining best value and impact for the money.

Business Enterprise Skills (PLTS and variants)

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

Together with in-house expert educationalists/teachers we initiate or enhance programmes, activities and events by combining the physical and the virtual with a Programme Engagement Plan (or enhancement) combining

> 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 - an experience that the student is just not expecting - this might range from an exciting high profile event...to a 'low key' working with an expert in an organisation...to a global videoconference with a partner pupil seen for the first time...to talking with an 'ordinary but not ordinary at all' role model member of the local community: the real heroes

> Pre- and post physical and virtual activity to 'stretch' the impact of a high impact Expectation shock focusing on Community Cohesion and/or Personal, Learning and Thinking Skills and/or business - all supporting the build-up of self esteem and aspirations

> Quantitative and qualitative measurement of change in Perception and Student Self Assessment