School Name: Bear Creek Elementary

Date: May 27, 2016
School Name: Bear Creek Elementary
School District: Surrey School District
Contact Name: Carmen Lyne, Miya Sueyoshi
Contact Information (optional):
Story Title:PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs Leads Bear Creek Students to Success
Did you receive an:
Activity Grant
Inquiry Grant – Inquiry Grant

Tell us about your focus.

Bear Creek Elementary is an inner city communityschool located in the central Newton area of Surrey. The school has been an integral part of this multiethnic, socioeconomically diverse neighbourhood for over 50 years. Many Bear Creek students come from families that have recently emigrated to Canada; other students have parents and grandparents that attended Bear Creek as children. Areas of challenge for our students include communication, numeracy and social emotional learning.

As grade six teachers seeking to improve our students’ academic outcomes and foster classroom connectedness, we often wondered whether a real world project would be an effective way to motivate our students and encourage self-directed learning. We both have little experience with project-based learning and for this reason, were reluctant to get started. However, having access to a comprehensive resource package gave us the comfort level we needed to move forward and gauge the effectiveness of a project-based program with our own students.

If you received an Inquiry Grant, what was your inquiry question?

How can we use meaningful real world projects to increase student engagement and encourage self-directed learning?

What did you do?

We chose to implement the program PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs in our two grade six classrooms. This program is a six-week experiential learning project in which students learn and practice key numeracy, communications and 21st century skills within the context of developing their own small business ventures. They develop business plans, conduct market research, create products and design marketing materials, and then sell their wares at an exciting real world event called the Young Entrepreneur Show. At this school-based event, the young entrepreneurs earn real money and donate a portion of their profits to a charity of their choice.

The comprehensive PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs resource package made it easy for us to introduce project-based learning into the classroom. It includes a teacher manual with lesson plans, tips, activity sheets and games as well as business planning workbooks for each of the students. An information package for parents also came with the resource package. It had a clear explanation of what to expect and advice about ways they could support their child as they moved through the learning modules. Finally, we had access to a series of educational videos that inspired the students and introduced each of the topics in the program, from coming up with a product idea to pricing, advertising and sales.

To help us evaluate the impact of this project, we used both formative and summative assessment. The young entrepreneurs not only showcased their work at the final showcase, but they also reflected on their experiences at key points throughout the project. In fact, experiential learning activities made it easy to observe the students in action at every step along the way and directly engaged students in assessing their own learning. In addition, our two classes completed a survey before and after the final Showcase event regarding attitudes and beliefs about starting a business, and their attitudes about learning.

Representatives of PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs visited our school to interview students and teachers about the project. They developed two videos that showcase student achievements and capture our reflections as educators. The links for the two videos are:

What were the outcomes?

PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs has clearly laid out curriculum connections to multiple subject areas made it possible to completely integrate the program into our class schedule. We could see that when our students were working on their Young Entrepreneur projects they were also covering important outcomes in subjects like math, language arts and social studies. They were also actively engaged in developing core competencies such as social and personal responsibility, creative thinking, problem-solving and communications.

Our students’ attention was captured with the real-world, holistic nature of this entrepreneurship project. They enjoyed and clearly grasped the concepts taught by the games and activities. Excited by the challenge of making their own businesses succeed, they were eager to learn new skills (e.g., designing advertisements, setting prices and calculating change in a financial transaction) and to complete the business planning steps to the best of their ability.

An exciting feature of this project is that students were naturally drawn to assessing their own progress and then taking action to master new skills so they could achieve their individual goals for their enterprises. For example, our students were determined to learn how to use market research when designing their product ideas. They understood that gathering feedback from potential customers was an important factor in their business success. In our years of teaching we had never seen our students as engaged as this group was with learning math operations like data collection and surveying. Many of our past students had not understood why this kind of mathematical knowledge was important but this group found it engaging and relevant because they understood its significance to real life.

Our young entrepreneurs surveyed a primary and an intermediate class in order to answer key questions about the product prototypes they were developing. When the research showed they needed to change some aspect of their product to better appeal to customers, they were forced to reevaluate and problem solve. For example, one of our students discovered through his survey that his potential customers preferred natural wood stain to the red, blue and yellow paint he was going to use for his key chains. Because market research allowed him to realize this in time, he was able to adjust his product.

The business planning process taught our students important life skills such as problem-solving, organization and time management. It showed them the importance of perseverance in overcoming obstacles. There were many times students found that the product they had envisioned was not working out. Instead of giving up, they learned to use critical thinking to come up with a workable solution. They used their creativity to design advertisements, posters, displays and sales pitches. The overall experience helped then realize that entrepreneurship is a viable career option for them in the future. Our survey results actually showed a significant increase in the number of students that felt they were capable of starting a business after participating in their experience.

As the date of the final Young Entrepreneur Show approached we were concerned that our students would not be prepared but when the day arrived we were amazed at the amount of follow through. All the students brought tablecloths, products and displays and were very focused on being as professional as possible. You could see the pride on their faces as they interacted with customers and sold their products. Our pre- and post-survey clearly demonstrated that the students felt extremely proud of their accomplishments.

Perhaps the most rewarding part of this project for us as teachers was to see our most reluctant learners jump on board. One student in particular who had lacked interest in other school activities was captivated by the real world nature of PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs. Of all of our students, he was the most engaged with the project and at the final sales event he demonstrated a high level of responsibility. In his written reflection after the Show he stated, “Maybe I could do this.” We feel that PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs really helped all our learners experience success.

School Connectedness:

This experience has helped our students build new relationships and strengthen existing ties with peers, staff and other members of the school community. Doing market research and promoting their products gave even the quietest kids an impetus to step out of their comfort zones and interact with people they might not have otherwise approached. With practice came increased confidence and an improvement in their communication skills, culminating in the Young Entrepreneur Show where they showcased their achievements and used sales techniques to engage customers and draw them to their table. One of our students who was typically sad and aloof came to life at the Show. He chatted with teachers and called customers over to his sales table, showing a side of himself we had never seen before.

The program’s flexibility enabled our classroom support workers to truly personalize the learning experience so that all of our students could fully participate and achieve business success regardless of their backgrounds and interests. Our Educational Assistants (EAs) tailored the program to the unique needs of our students with learning disabilities and an Aboriginal support worker provided extra guidance to our First Nations students when needed. Students who did not receive much home support were given assistance in selecting their products and allowed extra time in class to work on them. These strong connections helped all our students experience success alongside their peers. It also helped reinforce the awareness that there are lots of adults in our schools to help them achieve success.

The realization that they could make an impact in their own community by donating a portion of their business profits to a favourite cause was very powerful for our young entrepreneurs. Many of them have set aside more than the minimum requirement of 10% to give to charities like Jumpstart, the Heart and Stroke Foundation, the Make a Wish Foundation and the SPCA. We expanded on this valuable experience by having them write personal letters to the charities to be included along with the donation.

Finally, a favourite part of this project-based experience is the opportunity it gave our students to bond with family members. With PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs students build on the classroom sessions by developing their products at home. This is an occasion for parents and grandparents to spend quality time with students and in some cases, to pass on traditional crafts or skills like sewing or woodworking. It was exciting when one of our students would tell us that they spent the weekend with a family member learning how to make a product or they had fun discussing displays after dinner instead of watching television.

The PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs project brought our school community together, culminating in our Young Entrepreneur Show in June. The parent turnout at this event was the highest we have ever experienced (including parents that we typically do not see at parent conferences and other school events). Parents, teachers and school administrators were deeply impressed by the quality and professionalism shown by our group of grade six young entrepreneurs. Younger students wanted to know when they could have a turn as young entrepreneurs and their parents asked if the program would be continued so that their children could also participate. Our principal and vice principal were approached repeatedly by parents thanking them for bringing the program to Bear Creek.

What are your reflections and how can you build on your efforts?

We launched PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs with our two classes to see if a project-based learning initiative would inspire our students to be more engaged, self-directed learners. The results have been a success in every way.

Together with our students, we learned that they were capable of planning, launching and following through on a significant real world project. Along the way they took charge of their learning process, gained confidence, became more financially literate and acquired a variety of new skills. They formed strong connections with both adults and other students and felt supported in achieving their goals. This project also connected our school in rich and meaningful ways.

For our part, we have gained valuable hands-on experience and are far more comfortable with the project-based learning approach. The other grade six teachers at Bear Creek Elementary want to get on board next year with PowerPlay Young Entrepreneurs and we have already started that planning process. Having seen how easy it was to integrate this program with core curriculum, we are also excited to build on the experience by developing other real world projects on a variety of themes, using the principles we were introduced to through this learning resource.