Common description: The student…
- Doesn’t like school
- Lacks social skills (sullen, rude. stays in background in group work)
- Comes home and stays home
- Gets engrossed in video games/internet
Common environment (with technology classes)
- Limited funds, thus group work is a must (4 kids per station or camera)
- Kids in groups don’t want the "spare tire"
- All spare tires end up together—no engine
Exploring Solutions
- Finding motivations for the student
- Assignments that will address those motivations
- Humor in everything
- Real-life clients (ads for local stores, etc.)
- Double-dipping: Projects for other teachers’ classes (e.g. video catalog of lab experiments for science teacher, )
- Projects for a real-audience (e.g. YouTube)
- People beyond the school yard
- mentorship
- job shadowing
- client-projects
- Parental involvement
- Contracts for support
- Regular meetings for updates (beyond teacher-conferences)
- Electronic portfolio
- web portfolio (myspace, web site, etc.)
- DVD of work
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