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Encouraging Entrepreneurial Students-Classrooms of Tomorrow

3/6/2016

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Encouraging Entreprise-Students Garner Real-World Skills from Entrepreneurial Undertakings

Remember when you were young and wanted to make some money? It was easy to open a lemonade stand and make of profit. Of course, it was only nickels and dimes with an occasional $1 tip, but it began as a career to make extra money. These entrepreneurial skills have been used over time and continue to be needed with jobs leading in to the 21st Century. Today's digital world lets students create apps, make a profit and share them on social media. The classroom is changing and teachers must embrace new skills in order to foster successful entrepreneurs of tomorrow.
How does the classroom teacher utilize these skills and create mindful students and successful entrepreneurs? It is all about the hook! Classroom teachers must engage students by giving them a purpose for learning. This purpose should relate to student passions, needs and interests. Instruction should lead them to discovery and to understand learning, while gaining knowledge to find a solution. Classroom teachers must learn to be facilitators rather than instructors. It is no longer important for the teacher to have "ALL" the answers, but rather guide students to find solutions using problem solving techniques. This will enable students to utilize resources better and collaborate with their peers what is being taught. Students gain a deeper understanding of material.
Lastly, classroom teachers should ensure that students get feedback from as many sources as possible. This feedback should foster encouragement from both customers and experts. Feedback helps students realize that Failure is a part of Improvements and therefore a necessity. Feedback teaches students ways to improve their ideas.
Want to make your classroom Entrepreneurial Ready? It begins by building relationships between students and teachers, providing a purpose, facilitating lessons, and providing feedback. By teaching these entrepreneurial methods, our students will become financially independent thinkers for years to come.

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What Does Your Classroom Learning Environment Look Like?

2/22/2016

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Seven Strategies for Building Positive Classrooms

Today, An Educator wears many hats. On a daily basis teachers must assess student progress, capture hearts, create meaningful experiences relevant to learning, and introduce rigor at all levels that challenge students academically, socially and mentally. This challenge has led many classroom teachers to leave the profession and look for more meaningful employment. If this crisis is not addressed soon, it may lead to a mass reduction in qualified teachers who actually care about the “Whole child”. Teachers can only be responsible for what takes place in their classroom. This article greatly sums up what the teacher can do to make each day inside the classroom worthwhile. It includes three concepts that are reinforced daily in all of my classes. These concepts are a classroom code of conduct, reinforcing positive behaviors and always being positive.
     Entrepreneurship is perfect for a Positive Learning Environment. The whole idea is to motivate children to be a positive influence in the classroom, around the school and in society. It is important for any teacher to establish this positive role from the beginning. To accomplish this in my classroom, my students view daily motivational videos that encourage positive mindsets, displays positive words, and reviews positive themes about success.
     Establishing a positive atmosphere for every child to enter daily is key to my success. It requires me to respond with positive remarks, redirect negative thoughts, and encourage every student to adopt these concepts. Positive attitudes are contagious and when practiced daily can change lives.
     Once these three concepts are incorporated, the classroom is healthy and surrounded by positive vibes. It enables students to help each other, teachers to teach more, and the school environment changes for the better. This positive behaviour reinforces academic achievement and creates healthier children. It reduces stress, and helps children accept responsibility for learning. It is the key to producing caring, understanding, and well adjusted children of tomorrow. It becomes one of the most powerful tools in any teacher’s toolbox.

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