Report: How would you use $5Million to improve your school?

Applying concepts from Business Studies to write a report on how to improve your school. This kind of application of theory to better some aspect of the world you live is a major goal for the IB (after all that's what CAS programmes and the Group Four project is targeted towards).

You have been allocated $5m to improve the quality of teaching and learning at your school: write a report on how you would invest the money

In less than 500, please identify specific areas in which funding would help better the school.

A way to improve the quality of teaching and learning at XXXX  could be to use investment into technology to improve interaction. Investment into clicker technology improves the interaction of teachers and students. Clicker systems are systems that give the student remotes that allow them to respond to questions projected onto the screen. It allows the teachers to ensure understanding of the topic, and if questions are answered wrongly then the concepts can be taught in more thorough detail to ensure all students understand. This can eliminate problems caused by large class sizes where teacher to student communication is limited and also human dynamics where some students are more proactive in answering questions than others. If certain questions are misunderstood then these problems can be identified and addressed. It also allows class quizzes to occur in a more environmentally friendly way where the marks are directly connected to a Microsoft excel mark book.

Smaller class sizes can maximize the attention given to each student, thereby allowing the student’s queries and problems to be properly addressed, which potentially improve the quality of learning. Perhaps this can be adapted into only classes of the upper years, for GCSE or for IB so that the students can address the problems properly before the public exams where quality can be checked. The money will be used for the administration costs and also the costs of implementing smaller class sizes. This is good because more attention given to students, therefore more opportunities of quality teaching and learning. Also there is improved quality assurance as quality can be consistently checked. Teaching can be tailored to a small number of students rather than a large group in ways that are beneficial to the specific students in the class to ensure better quality of learning. Better communication channels between teacher and student where problems can be communicated more efficiently.

The quality of learning can also be improved by using communication channels that students are familiar with. A prominent number of students at school use youtube, where discussion can take place on the youtube videos. It allows students to communicate on a less formal level, taking away the pressure in the classroom. Perhaps assigning tasks that allow the students to use videos to present their understanding could help ensure the quality of teaching but also ensure understanding of the content. The money can be invested in the training of teachers in methods that involve interaction over the internet, and these skills learnt can be implemented into the development of communication channels through youtube.

Word count: 424 :)

& just touched upon 3 different concepts - investment into technology, improving the quality of education/training (and hence the quality of human capital in school), and widening methods communication to include more of the student population. Yays.