Management & Leadership Students Have an Impact

Challenge-based learning at it's best in the Management & Leadership class at Glenbrook North High School.  This year I gave my students an essential question, "How can leaders have an impact in their community or society?"  Students brainstormed coming up with 20 or more ideas and then choose which project they were most passionate about to work on during the semester.  Project ideas ranged from volunteering to raising awareness about a topic, click here to see the full list of what the students brainstormed.


For those not familiar with challenge-based learning, here's a great explanation from Apple's website:

"Challenge Based Learning is an engaging multidisciplinary approach to teaching and learning that encourages students to leverage the technology they use in their daily lives to solve real-world problems. Challenge Based Learning is collaborative and hands-on, asking students to work with other students, their teachers, and experts in their communities and around the world to develop deeper knowledge of the subjects students are studying, accept and solve challenges, take action, share their experience, and enter into a global discussion about important issues."

What I love about a challenge-based learning classroom is that students drive their learning and I am a mentor, coaching them along through the process.  I should also mention that the process is a big part of what I teach.  Since this is a Management & Leadership class, we naturally discuss important concepts like collaboration, leading and working with different personality types.  But I also put a big emphasis on pre-planning which includes thinking about what they need for their project and how to research the answers.  Students also need to reflect on the implementation process and self-evaluate.  As I explain to my students, these critical thinking skills and project management is extremely valuable in the real-world.  Depending on the occupation, most employers don't expect you to do test-taking memorizing but rather they want them to think and do!

So how did this whole challenge-based project turn out as far as answering the essential question of having an impact?  Great results!  Students this semester choose various topics which included entrepreneurship projects, creating a website to help students find jobs, raising money for the GBN Special Olympics team, increasing volunteers for a book reading project at the library and helping an elementary school in a low income community.  Working with the elementary school, Glenwood, in Waukegan, Illinois turned out to be one of the most value experiences in my classroom this year.  I presented the idea of helping this school to my students but they took their passions and decided how they would help.  From an entire class field trip that was eye-opening for GBN students, three groups evolved with various goals.   

Josh Kerman with Principal of Glenwood School

• Sports Group: This group set out to organize a 3-on-3 basketball tournament over Memorial Day weekend to raise funds for sporting equipment.  Despite their hard work, the tournament was cancelled because of lack of pre-registered participants. While my students were disappointed, they learned a hard lesson they sometime you can plan and plan but yet something might night turn out the way you hoped and so you need to use your "failures to move forward" to quote from another leadership field trip we attended.  One Senior, Josh Kerman from the group was so passionate about still helping Glenwood he donated his $500 scholarship he earned at graduation and his parents were so moved by this they matched the donation.  Glenwood in considering using the $1000 donation to build something on the playground in the upcoming year.
• School Supplies Group: This group coordinated with the administrators at GBN as did the sports group to get approval for promoting and using the facilities at school.  The group created advertisements, emails, and announcements to get the entire school involved in donating gently used school supplies.  Over 12 boxes were filled with donations along with two boxes of books from the Northbrook Public Library.
• Music Group:  Just like the Sports group, this group used their passion for a cause.  They called it "Music through Music."  The group approach the Tri-M Music Honor Society at Glenbrook North about making a donation.  Three members of the group also performed at Via Gelato in the Glen to raise money.  Mitchell Green, a member of the group and a classically trained guitarist, was able to work with his employer Gand to purchase 13 guitars for the school.  Tri-M has also pledge to donate again next year if another group plans to take on this project. 

The music group with Principal and Music Teacher at Glenwood School

As you can see a lot of community was involved in making all of these projects happen.  Students worked in their community and use their leadership abilities to have an impact on society! For any teachers interested in hearing more about the project let me know.  And to all my students, feel free to comment on this blog and share with the community about your experience.