B&M+Journal+(GS)


 * Monday, 14.2.2011**

Today was the first day we tried the new approach to learning. I explained why I called it SOCIAL, what the time frame was for completing the course, how I expected them to take more responsibility for their own learning, and for their self-assessment of that learning (to be recorded through oral grades for which they need to develop a rubric or adopt the one I had provided them). I reminded them that I would continue to set the tests and assignments for the written grades, provided they told me when they were ready to be tested, and on which topics. Finally, I sent them the [|learning intentions] for the first unit to which we would apply SOCIAL.. I also added that we would need to complete the first module (The Business Environment) by March before deciding how we would continue.

The class seemed particularly resistant to expressing what they thought are the aims and objectives of the course. So I asked them to look it up on the Subject Guide. I started them off on their initial task of planning what they wanted to do, and how they wanted to organize themselves. I expected many questions, but there were surprisingly few.

This is the feedback I gave the cIass at the end of the day:

"I thought that the class time today was not used as efficiently as you need to if you want to accomplish commonly agreed goals. This is probably because you are not accustomed to working in this independent manner, leaving it to the teacher to set the pace. So please treat this as my feedback on my observations today. "If you are unclear about what to do, you are meant to take the initiative to organize your own learning, by getting together in groups or singly to clarify what you nee to do, and planning out a course of action. If you are stuck, you should brainstorm among yourselves BEFORE you come to me for help. When you ask me for help, you should show me what you have done and tell me why you need my help, or where you are stuck. "I also should not have to point out that you really do need to bring all available resources such as your textbook and your computer with you from now on, if you want to make the best use of your time."


 * Tuesday, 15.2.2011**

Tuesday 15 Feb

Period 1-2

Four students absent out of 17.

After attendance, only one student working alone, the rest staring at their screens, I'm waiting for them to ask questions or get started with their planning and research tasks. This silence lasts for about 20 minutes, before Rana asks what they are expected to do. I ask them what a business does to achieve its objectives, and remind them that what it does NOT do is sit around wondering what to do. I ask them whether they know what the objective is for this unit, and whether they know by when they need to demonstrate reaching them. They do. Rana again asks whether they can study a topic from 1.6 parts of which I have decided to have them omit for now because it's not directly useful to understand the next few units. I ask her to focus on 1.7. What do you do when you don't know what to do?

In about twenty more minutes, the class (except for Yagizhan) is on its way talking to each other, changing partners, and planning what they want to do, and how they want to do it. Many requests for advice about whether it's better to present, or just write a commentary. Even Tugce, who initially wanted to work alone, has invited Ayca as a partner, and is continuing to plan her activities in a very focused way.

Only one or two students leave during the break, most continue working.

I ask what they hope to achieve by the end of the class. Further questions arise about how they can choose topics, how they can present, when.

Rana lists on the board three decisions that need to be made by the end of the period:

1. Who is doing which topics 2. What resources they will use 3. By when they will present.

I receive this only from two groups, one without a date for presentation.

Major sources of questions: Tugce, Rana, Bora, Murathan.


 * Friday 18.2.2011**

Today, CK was absent, chaperoning a Junior Achievement team to Belgium. I took his classes, including his 11J in period 2, and combining his mixed 11 class with mine in period 7, the last class of the day.

CK had already discussed SOCIAL with his students in outline, and decided to defer the commencement till next week when he would be back on a regular basis. But I took this opportunity to discuss the experiment more fully with his students, and so asked the three students in the class who were already in Rasmus's HL maths class to start off with a description of how it was going for them. Apart from Mert, who is still opposed to the experiment, the other two gave a fairly favourable account of how they had begun the experiment in the maths class. This almost convinced many of the others, who nevertheless had some misgivings about assessments and grades, that I was able to allay. I reminded them that they would be essentially grading themselves for the oral grades, and for the written grades, they would need to ask the teacher to prepare a test or an assignment for them to do, which the teacher would then grade. They would use the rubrics, and the teacher would have the fınal authority to decide the grades. As the discussion progressed, more and more students expressed themselves in favour, led by Hamdi, Doruk and Selin. Doruk was arguing with his more sceptical or ambivalent class mates, trying to convince them, reminding them that the course would resemble the way they would actually have to work in their professions. One of the naysayers, Berke Tinaz, gave an interesting reason for opposing the experiment. He said he found it too risky, and was not prepared to invest the time and effort required to make it work for a subject which was not related to his intended career as a genetic engineer. If this were Biology, he might have agreed. I asked him what he hoped to do as a genetic engineer, and how he intended to work. I suggested to him that he would need to develop the same habits of work - self-organized collaboration, interactive learning - that I was offering an opportunity for, but he was not persuaded. One student

With the period 7 classs, things were altogether more chaotic. Students were drifting in long after the class had commenced, because they had not read the notice to combine classes in their e-mails. Each time, the attendance record had to be amended, a painfully slow procedure when you have to deal with someone else's students. Besides, it was the last class of the day, and there were more than thirty students in the classroom, which makes it difficult to control. Few students were prepared to do any work at all, including some of mine and many of CK's, who had failed to bring either their laptops or their textbooks, or in some cases both. Yet some students appeared to be busy in their own groups, actually proceeding with the tasks they had planned for themselves. A large number of the more serious students in my class were absent, or away in Belgium.

My attempts at generating a discussion on SOCIAL were not very successful on Friday. I had a fleeting moment of despair, when I began to realize that these moments of chaos would repeat themselves often, simply because students were unaccustomed to work on their own in a systematic manner. I have begun to appreciate some of the reasons that SOCIAL may prove challenging for me as a teacher. It would be difficult to deal with a class NOT used to planning and thinking proactively about their learning. It may demand reserves of patience and flexibility that I may not have. Besides, are Rasmus and I the only teachers trying to foster habits of active learning, planning ahead and taking responsibility? Surely not! So what was it in our system of education that encouraged such passivity and indifference to the possibility of learning?

Perhaps I was despairing too early. After all, most students had been quite active on the previous day. Besides, Friday last period + combined classes = recipe for inactivity, so perhaps I shouldn't be too harsh on myself or on my students.


 * Monday 21.2.2011**

Students worked on their own. Quite a few were absent, so their partners who were present lost time for planning. Not good evidence of self-organization when students casually stay away (as they often do). But I didn't comment or remind them.


 * Wednesday 23.2.2011**

Bora, Oya and Rana were the first group to make a presentation to the rest of the class on economies and diseconomies of scale. No PPT. Some misconceptions had to be clarified (wish I had kept my notes). Explained why unit cost fell with increasing volume, using a simple linear cost function. More time needs to be spent on exploring how diseconomies might set in beyond a critical volume. Rest of the class not very participative. What can be done about this? Must get them to do a quiz on different kinds of internal and external economies. But should I intervene, or should I leave the students to figure out what happens if they don't pay attention? I think I'll warn them next class.


 * Friday 25.2.2011**

Class cancelled (unexpectedly?) because of Vehbi Koç memorial assembly. How could I have foreseen this?


 * Monday 28.2.2011**

Had a reasonably successful class, with Ecem, Eslin, Cisil and Cansu presenting on Horizontal and Vertical integration. As expected, Cisil an Cansu were much less active than the other two. (Yasemin was absent, without notice to her group members - something I warned my students about quite emphatically.) One positive observation: the students were much better prepared this time - not just because they used Powerpoint - but because they had come prepared with questions to ask the class.

I began by having the class read Rana's journal and mine. Rana's journal is a good example of reflective thinking by a student, especially creditable for one writing this for the first time. I tried to link integration with economies of scale, and the students themselves brought up other advantages. Merthan Gencer was especially active in class, with sensible examples, which is a good sign. Students initially seemed to miss the connection between vertical integration and the concept of the supply chain. The dsitinction between horizontal and vertical integration seemed to elude some students well into the class...what was going through their minds? In fact, I now wish we had more time to discuss more examples of horizontal integration.


 * Monday 14.3.2011**

I have regrettably fallen behind in my journals. In the last few weeks, students seem to be gradually getting used to the pace and style of SOCIAL. A number of students are clearly emerging as "shakers and movers", taking initiatives, suggesting plans and resources. I too am resisting the urge to help them too much, and getting them to figure out ways in which they can collaborate, and share their knowledge with each other. For instance, last week, I reminded the class of Bora's observation in his journal that they are not quite sure whether students are "getting it" - understanding the presentations. He suggested that students take on the task of presenting case studies in class that would display their understanding and help clarify misconceptions. After some discussion, the class decided that each group would each bring a case study related to the topic they had chosen for teaching the class, but they would then exchange these case studies with other groups, so that each group ended up with a case study on a topic they had NOT presented on. They spent the class organizing this today, and what emerged is displayed in [|this table]. One worksheet shows the previous presentations of each group, the other one the case studies they have taken from the previous presenting groups.

Notable contributions and questions came from Rana (as always), Ecem, Merthan, Tugce (who offered her father's fitness center Taçspor as a case study). A suggestion I offered was to examine the possibility of Taçspor establishing a chain of small fitness centers under a franchise with MAC (their existing strategic alliance partner). They agreed to role play the directors of Tacspor and MAC, and discuss the feasibility of doing this either as a joint venture, a strategic alliance or as a franchise.

Reminder to class: start figuring out a way to evaluate your performance. Mid-semester grade entry will soon be on us.

**Monday, 28 March**

The 21.3.2011 entry by Deniz was actually written on 25 March. My response by e-mail was as follows:

**"...Basically, I agree with your analysis of why SOCIAL may not be working as well as i expected, but that is no reason to abandon the experiment. In fact, it's a good reason to change behaviour to help it succeed.**

**This is a unique opportunity to either prove right those who expect only the worst of young people, or to demonstrate that they are capable of behaving with much more responsibility, initiative and resourcefulness than most people want to believe.**

**Which one of these two possibilities do you want for yourself?..."**

In reply Deniz agreed that he would like to choose the latter, and would try to change his behaviour accordingly. Also, the class too neededto become much more participative and collaborative, instead of working in isolated groups.

We spent a great deal of time today - nearly two periods - discussing what the class should do to involve themselves more actively. I even gave them the opportunity of going back to the earlier days of comfortable passivity. All those who spoke - mainly Rana, Ecem, Deniz, Bora, and later Oya and Merthan too - came up with excellent suggestions to try and carry the experiment forward. But the majority preferred to remain silent, and not commit themselves one way or another.

The suggestions were really about structuring their interaction to make the discussions more engaging and interesting, and more varied (most sounded bored with powerpoint presentations). For the initial topic, Oya suggested breaking up the class into pairs or groups of three, each dealing with one of the indicators of globalization, but in the context of "globalizing the Koc School". (See her entry for today. While I'm writing this, the students are being very active on wiki, I can hear their messages coming in!)

Merthan also suggested that discussions could be centered around decisions to be made for a real or imaginary company (I suggested Junior Achievement, and the Taç Spor - MAC alliance from Tugce's father's business to create a Starbucks model for fitness centers).

The discussion today delayed the progress with learning the content, but I think it was useful in sharing some insights about the borders between freedom and responsibility, between passive and active learning, between safe and comfortable conformity to the teacher's agenda, and active and risky collaboration in an agenda created for and by the students.


 * Wednesday, March 30, 2011 **

Today, the technology failed again. If someone paid me a lira for each time the technology fails in class, I would probably be able to offer a scholarship to a student. This time there was no internet connection, and as far as I know, no notification was sent to anyone. Merthan knew about it beforehand (how?), but not me! Did I not read the e-mail? Was there one?

Anyway, I was also in a panic for a variety of reasons: I had to start the mock exams in two different locations, help the Visual Arts examiner resume his interviews, and take the class. In addition, I had forgotten to create the mock exam cover sheets that serve also as place markers for the students in the exams. If it hadn't been for DE taking on more than her share of the load, I would not have been able to start the exams on time.

The students meanwhile were left alone to decide what they could do. Oya's group was ready to start their activity, which was to have the students apply their allotted measure of globalization to the Koc School. I got them started on it, because they seemed doubtful what to do in the absence of the internet. I hope I don't have to keep doing this, and they develop the resilience to snap out of the immobilizing failure of technology, and quickly devise their own solutions when the technology fails.

It turned out to be a fairly interactive session. Unfortunately, I fell into my usual bad habit of talking too much, but usually to extend something originated by students, or to pose provocative questions. So perhaps that was useful. This is where my experience and authority seem to count. The students cannot make the connections that I can, simply because I have lived longer, read more, and thought about these matters longer. So should I leave it to students to figure out what has taken me years to realize and understand? I worry about "brainwashing" them too much if I do. So perhaps I should restrain myself more.

I also had my Theory of Knowledge (ToK) class right after my B&M. See here for what happened.