Ok, so things are going really well in the personal finance class I am teaching. I am developing interactive and interesting (so I think) lessons on budgeting. We had a guest speaker yesterday who talked about her coupon binder and how much she saves using coupons. (It was amazing…she had a reciept for $260 worth of groceries from Albertsons and ended up spending only $40). The students were really attentive and interested in the presentation she gave. We are also going to do our own budget for grocery shopping and take a field trip to Albertsons on Thursday to see how much it would cost to plan for a week of grocery shopping. Yay…I feel good about this class.
So what about per 6 then? It is a computer applications class where we spend 4 weeks on Word, 4 on Excel and 4 on PowerPoint. The students who had keyboarding last year are sooooo bored. “They already learned all of this” they tell me. Their grades and overall quality of work would, however, suggest otherwise. I am at a loss in trying to make it interesting. I won’t lie, the content is pretty dry. They come in every day and do 10 minutes of keyboarding warm-up (yes I know, not exciting, but 20% of their grade comes from timings.)
We then move into the new concept for the day. We are working in Excel now, so I explain new tools or features they will need to understand about Excel. I work with them on the overhead (I have a computer that hooks up to it so they can see what I am doing and follow along on their computers.) I find that although they seem attentive during this part, when I ask them to apply the knowledge to assignements, they have a billion questions because they were, in fact, not following along.
When we worked in Word, I would give them assignments where they would create their own content, and I will do so for Excel, once they know what they are doing. This does help, when they get to make up their own content they like it much better (or when I give assignments where they have to research answers). This class is all about learning the computer programs, and i am struggling to focus their attention. I just feel like I am teaching the class once and the students brains wander, so when I give an assignment, I am required to reteach students individually.
I am trying something new today. I am going to do a class assignment together but not hand it out. I am going to give the instructions verbally, one step at a time and make sure all the students are following along (instead of doing from the book where they can work ahead, then don’t end up paying attention and doing sections wrong.) I will see how this goes. The hard part is giving the instructions, doing on the overhead and also checking that they are doing it.
If anyone has any suggestions, please share. Also, if anyone has any good computer activities that could relate to the topic of computer applications, I would love ideas to break up the monotony of the content.
Thanks all…hope everyone is having a fantastic week so far 
1 response so far ↓
McKenzie,
I think your idea of having the students actually “do something” instead of listen to instructions will be helpful. Maybe give one step, have them do it, then check for understanding.
When I got my students to create a Word document, I printed out clear step by step instructions. I still had to go around the whole class period and help them figure it out.
Is there any way you could have the more advanced students work on a more advanced aspect of Excel? Let them explore something new to them?
It was interesting working with technology with students. Some type very fast and know how to enter a heading, other students have never even saved a document.
Good Luck!
Mariah
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