Week 3: The Concerns of the Business World

I sat down in a meeting with my employer on Monday of this week. After about one and a half weeks have gone by, I watned to hear about any of his concerns, and I hoped for feedback from him on the projects I was assigned. Progress looks good, and my employer was happy with no concerns for the actual projects themselves. I feel content in the work I have done, for it has shown him my willingness to take the projects he gives me and complete them with quality and efficiency.

The partnership here is working perfectly. I am accomplishing tasks for the company and alongside of my work I do, I have been able to develop lesson and activity ideas that will bring relevance and meaning to my students. I am so appreciative of the help I have received from the employees here as well. They are always willing to help any cause I am trying to go for.

As I said, my employer had no concerns with the work I am doing for the company, but he did have a concern for sharing and passing along information about the business world and its demands to students. This resulted in interviews with him and some of his other employees including an administrative assistant and a web developer.

The jobs and tasks spoken of ranged from performing conversions in order to figure out costs of imports or revenues of exports overseas; to communicating with costumers about list prices, mark-ups, and/or discounts; to ordering freights of needed materials and supplies to keep the business running, to being responsible for programming web sites, to positioning graphics and objects on a page so they can be viewable from a variety of devices (a computer screen or a mobile phone); to designing a water hydrant that will work throughout the year and not freeze in cold weather; to managing vacation times and bonuses. The range of tasks and responsibilities were endless, but one thing was constant. Math was present. Mostly, the ability to problem solve was a must.

When you do not know how to do a certain task, do you know how to problem solve, use resources, and have the drive to find the solution?

The thoughts and needs for students seem universal and of course aligns with the skills outlined in the Iowa CORE 21^st Century Skills. Once again, it is clear what we need to do as educators, as we know too well the frustration to try to get students to overcome a challenge to become problem. It is the not so simple desire that students will not just sit there when they do not know how to do it or skip over all of the word problems in a math assignment.

Here are some profoundly simple quotes that came from the interview:

“No business will work without [math].”

 “Calculators can’t always help you if you do not know what to push”

            “Employers look for people who are willing to figure things out.”

             “Someone will not do your work for you.”

This is yet another trumpeting of why the 21^st century skills, UbD, and all of those standards are important, so I apologize. But, this is the perspective of those in the business world.

I will be honest and say I have a lot of students who will not push. They skip the word problems; they do not even read them. I am slowly producing two lessons from this experience. The goal is to provide students with a relevant problem or set of problems that spark a drive of curiosity; to give them the skills to see a possible routes and tools to the solution; and to give them the time and push to explore their routes and arrive at a solution themselves. Problem solve- this is their expectation.