Project Sample & Commentary: School Store

Page 1 | 2

The Story Behind the School Store

It seemed as if, at the start of every teaching period, a few minutes were wasted by students who needed to borrow supplies from others. This triggered a class discussion during which the students suggested that they create a school store in the school for the purpose of selling school supplies. Their Language Arts teacher saw the opportunity to approach this as an Applied Learning project. The students were responsible for all aspects of the process of establishing the store. They organized themselves into teams each with a different set of responsibilities. This allowed the whole class to take an active part in the project but it also produced the need to develop strategies for coordinating tasks and timelines.

The establishment of the store was completed over the course of one semester, but the operation of the store is on-going.

The students judged the success of their store in terms of their profit margin and whether an increased number of students were coming to class with the supplies they needed. In order to make a profit, the students had to price their items low enough to attract business and yet maintain a margin. They calculated this based on what surrounding stores were charging for similar products and how much they were being charged by wholesalers. They managed to negotiate this successfully.

This project illustrates a standard-setting performance for the following parts of the standards:
a	Problem Solving: Design a product, service, or system
a	Communication: Make an oral presentation.
b	Communication: Conduct formal written correspondence
c	Communication: Publish information using several methods and formats.
a	Information: Gather information.
b	Information: Use information technology.
a	Learning and Self-management: Learn from models.
b	Learning and Self-management: Develop and maintain a schedule of work activities.
c	Learning and Self-management: Set learning goals and review progress.
a	Working With Others: Take responsibility for a component of a team project.
b	Working With Others: Coach or tutor.

The overall success of the project was evaluated through a survey that was distributed to teachers at the end of the year. They were asked if they had noticed a difference in students’ preparedness since the opening of the store and the responses were very positive.

The written work produced as part of Applied Learning projects commonly contains some errors. Documentation of these projects includes notes, journal entries and plans that students produced as working documents for their personal use. These kinds of documents were not prepared with the expectation of eventual publication and they have not been revised for inclusion in this book.

It is expected that finished work produced as part of an Applied Learning project will contain virtually error free writing.

What the work shows
a Problem Solving: The student designs and creates a product, service, or system to meet an identified need; that is, the student:

develops a range of ideas for design of the product, service, or system;
selects one design option to pursue and justifies the choice with reference, for example, to functional, aesthetic, social, economic, or environmental considerations;
establishes criteria for judging the success of the design;
uses appropriate conventions to represent the design;
plans and carries out the steps needed to create the product, service, or system;
makes adjustments as needed to conform with specified standards or regulations regarding quality and safety;
evaluates the quality of the design in terms of the criteria for success and by comparison with similar products, services, or systems.

Having identified the need for a school supply store, the students discussed how they would go about getting permission to open the store. They decided to write letters to the principal asking for his permission to go ahead with the project.
In preparation for writing to the principal, the students compiled a list of advantages and disadvantages or problems involved in opening a store.

The students also studied the structure of a persuasive essay (consistent with the New York City Language Arts Performance Standards writing standard) as a part of their preparation for writing to the principal.

This sample of the letters the students wrote to the principal states the students’ proposal, presents arguments in support of the proposal, and employs some persuasive strategies in presenting the students’ case.

c Learning and Self-management Tools and Techniques: The student sets goals for learning and reviews his or her progress; that is, the student:

sets goals for learning;
reviews his or her progress towards meeting the goals;
seeks and responds to advice from others in setting goals and reviewing progress.

The students established the practice of developing criteria for success for each part of the project. This work shows the criteria they established for their letters to the principal and a student evaluation of the draft letter shown in .

a Problem Solving: The student designs and creates a product, service, or system to meet an identified need; that is, the student:

develops a range of ideas for design of the product, service, or system;
selects one design option to pursue and justifies the choice with reference, for example, to functional, aesthetic, social, economic, or environmental considerations;
establishes criteria for judging the success of the design;
uses appropriate conventions to represent the design;
plans and carries out the steps needed to create the product, service, or system;
makes adjustments as needed to conform with specified standards or regulations regarding quality and safety;
evaluates the quality of the design in terms of the criteria for success and by comparison with similar products, services, or systems.

Click to Enlarge

The students planned and carried out the steps needed to create the store (a service). They:
brainstormed the steps they would need to accomplish;

formed teams to complete each of the identified steps; and

created a master “task sheet” to keep track of all of the work for the store.

At the team level, the students held meetings frequently to determine where changes and adjustments had to be made. This is reflected on the team sheets and in the team meeting minutes.

The students planned and carried out the steps needed to create the service. They set up “task sheets” for each of the teams to catalog the work they needed to do and to record when each step was accomplished.

b Learning and Self-management Tools and Techniques: The student develops and maintains a schedule of work activities; that is, the student:

establishes a schedule of work activities that reflects priorities and deadlines;
seeks advice on the management of conflicting priorities and deadlines;
updates the schedule regularly.

Each of the teams established a work schedule in the form of a task sheet. These examples demonstrate how each team determined its purpose, goals, and specific activities necessary for achieving those goals. Along with a schedule of deadlines, the sheets recorded exactly which team member would be responsible for each specific task. The sheets also recorded when each of the specific activities was accomplished.

a Tools and Techniques for Working With Others: The student takes responsibility for a component of a team project; that is, the student:

reaches agreement with team members on what work needs to be done to complete the task and how the work will be tackled;
takes specific responsibility for a component of the project;
takes all steps necessary to ensure appropriate completion of the specific component of the project within the agreed upon time frame.

The whole class maintained a master “task sheet” that recorded all of the work tasks of all of the teams.

The task sheets and team meeting minutes provide evidence of the students’ team work. These documents demonstrate the process of reaching agreement among team members on the work to

be done and of taking steps to ensure completion of each part of the project. They also reflect the students’ awareness of the need for careful coordination of the various tasks and the effectiveness of the strategies they adopted to achieve them.

Page 1 | 2

Back to Index