Management Examination

The final day in the first week of the project revealed the need to come up with more management tools for the students and further clarification among the team of teachers. One student revealed to me that they were not told to complete the survey questions as I instructed. At first, I didn't really take this students word to heart because they are hardly ever at school. However, events that occurred later in the day let me know there was more work to be done on the communication side of this project.

During the last class of the day, I scanned the actual questions of the students and saw how they were still asking questions for the cafeteria manager or principal instead of the student body. I also was missing so many questions. Some of the students explained that Ben (English) teacher told them to put them on their gaggle blog. I thought this was weird since as a team we never discussed putting anything on gaggle. I also thought I mentioned to have them write it on a sheet of paper but I could not be for certain. This let me know we really needed to tighten up expectations for each week.

DeAnn (science) and I talked at the end of the day and revealed even more need for management of the project. She explained that many of the students didn't understand the look of an online survey. I thought I had did a great job of explaining this in the class but I didn't include a visual which is what was probably needed to help the students. I assumed that since they completed a paper survey before in another project, they would just know that it is the same as the paper but online.

I realized I would have to spend the weekend finding other management tools and how we can better communicate as a team. It is interesting how you think everyone is on the same page in a meeting but the actions after the meeting shows what everyone really understood. I am going to spend the weekend reading the management tips in the Reinventing Project-Based Learning and Buck Institute for ideas on how to better manage this project before we get any deeper.
I also discovered as I looked at some of the