Fulbright Capstone Project

One of the main components of the Distinguished Fulbright Awards in Teaching Program is the design and completion of a Capstone Project.

My Capstone Project:
It’s My Business: Improving Financial Literacy through Entrepreneurship

Description
My project is to design a comprehensive hands-on financial management education curriculum to be delivered by trained classroom teachers of intermediate grade students.  The curriculum, based on researched teaching techniques and pedagogy, will be designed to represent an experiential “living textbook” allowing students to discover how to save, spend and budget efficiently. Additionally, the curriculum will include the students planning, managing and implementing their own small business enterprise. This project has the potential to transform lives, both in South Africa and the United States. Ultimately, the project arms young innovators with real-world experience helping them to discover and develop their enterprising talents, propel their decision-making skills, improve their lives and develop their country.

Week of January 23, 2011

The host university that I have been assigned to is the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN)~ Edgewood Campus, one of five campuses. UKZN was formed on January 1, 2004 as a result of the merger between the University of Durban-Westville and the University of Natal. The new University brought together the rich histories of both universities which serve 42,000 disadvantage and advantage students respectively.

This week I was officially welcomed into the School of Social Science staff at UKZN Edgewood Campus, one of five of its locations. After settling into my office, I immediately began to become acquainted with information relative to teacher preparation and South Africa curriculum, particularly in the areas of Economic Management and Sciences (EMS).

Enrolling and participating in EDBU605: Economic and Management Sciences Learning Area Studies course was another of this week's accomplishments. Chosen for its close alignment to my capstone project, this course is offered to Post Graduate students who will be exposed to different strategies for teaching EMS, including financial literacy and entrepreneurship. It was not long before I realized that I had struck gold!! This course, I envisioned, could be the catalyst for fulfilling my entire capstone project. I left the class eager and excited to share my vision with the Department Chair.

Week of January 30, 2011
My capstone project, It’s My Business: Improving Financial Literacy through Entrepreneurship , consists of three phases: (1) curriculum development, (2) teacher professional development, and (3) classroom implementation. 

The weekend was spent combing through the course guide for EMBU605, South Africa's new EMS Curriculum and Assessment Policy which is to be implemented in 2012, and Wisconsin's (my home state) Academic Standards for Teaching Personal Finance. Each guide held objectives that mirrored my project objectives making the proposal to the Department Chair simple to draft. The course could serve as the dwelling for modeling lessons, activities, and assessments found within my developed curriculum and the preservice teachers the audience for which I could model lessons that could ultimately be implement during their 6 weeks of required teaching practice within area schools. I could then visit their school site during the time of instruction to collect observational data and support the teaching of the lessons, if needed. Finally, upon return to class following the 6 weeks, the preservice teachers could provide formal and informal feedback on ease of implementation, student engagement, and impact on learning. Surprisingly, this time frame fits perfectly into the window of time that I will be in South Africa.

The Department Chair met with me this week, and I provided him with a detail of my capstone implementation vision. Accepting it as a integration within the course, he gave me permission to forge ahead.

Week of February 6, 2011
With the EMBU605 students out in the field this week observing in area classroom, I thought it would be advantageous for me to do the same. Observing instruction during EMS lessons would definitely inform my curriculum development. See the School Experience page to learn more about these classroom visits done during this week.

This week time was spent designing a survey for the purpose of gaining insight into the entrepreneurial knowledge held by the EMBU605 students, as well as their background and comfort with entrepreneurial instruction. Knowing this information prior to the creation of the curriculum will allow me shape and model it in a way that best meets their current level of understanding and teacher practice. From the survey data, I learned that, in general, the students have had limited exposure to entrepreneurial education and personal experience running their own businesses. More strikingly, although required to teach entrepreneurship when licensed, the large majority feel unprepared to teach it and feel that their comfort levels will increase substantially once curriculum is provided and modeled.

Also, I was introduced to a student organization at the university called Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) during their Open Session meeting.  SIFE is a student organisation reaching out to youth and stimulating economic growth. I was most intrigued by the Learn Entrepreneurship Challenge (LEC) that works with high school students  who are aspiring entrepreneurs.  Organized by UKZN’s SIFE, the high school students exchange entrepreneurship knowledge and experience. I look forward to learning more about this organization, and how it may potentially influence my work.


Week of February 13, 2011
Each day I spend a great deal of time researching information related to the teaching of entrepreneurship and financial literacy. The information gained helps to shape and strengthen the comprehensive hands-on entrepreneurship curriculum that I am currently developing as my Fulbright Capstone Project. After meeting with my advisor, it became clear that adding a social justice lens to the curriculum would not only strengthen it make deepen its long-term potential impact. Social justice also happen to be another one of my passions, so this suggestion seemed ideal.

Having learned of the focus of my work, one of the student representatives from SIFE asked if I would serve as their guest speaker during their recruitment meeting. This week I spoke during this meeting about my background and commitment to business integration into my various professional roles for the purpose of empowering others. From in my own middle school classrooms to within the nonprofit organization that I founded, I shared how business principles were taught to children who then implemented them in their communities by launching their own business enterprises. I concluded the presentation by applauding SIFE for the wonderful work that they have done and the strong leadership they are providing young people of South Africa.

The EMBU605 course was cancelled today, so I was unable to teach my first lesson.

Week of February 20, 2011
The university students were on strike this week and all classes were cancelled.  Although warned not to come on campus, I drove by it to witness  it since I had never experienced this before but was unable to see the full aspect of it. I later learned that the strike was related to school fees but did not gain additional details. Teaching my first lesson within the EMBU605 must be postponed again. Better luck next week. Of course the continued development of my curriculum forges ahead!

Week of February 27, 2011
My first day actually teaching during the EMBU605 course took place this week. Armed with an eye-catching PowerPoint presentation and the first lesson from the curriculum that I am writing, I launched into action. The academic focus of the lesson centered around the understanding and teaching of the word, entrepreneurship. Within the interactive lesson, I integrated and discussed various teaching strategies including proximity, transitioning from large to small groups, and wait time. The lesson went quite well, and I could tell from the expressions and attentiveness of the students that they enjoyed it. I LOVE teaching and often thank God for the gift!

Week of March 6, 2011
This week's lesson in the EMBU605 course centered around social entrepreneurship, or recognizing a social problem and uses entrepreneurial principles to organize, create and manage a venture to achieve social change. The course outline targeted learner-centeredness and differentiated instruction, so these elements were also woven within my lesson. I modeled the jigsaw strategy within the lesson where the class was broken up into smaller "expert groups". Each group was given a case study of an invention created by a social entrepreneur. Together, they were to become experts about the inventor, invention, and invention impact. A member from each group was joined with one other member from each of the other groups to form a "teaching group." It was within this group that each expert taught the others about his or her studied invention.

Week of March 13, 2011

I had the honor of meeting with the Subject Advisor for Business Studies with the KwaZulu Natal Department of Education. Arranged in order to verify my curriculum alignment with the future curriculum outcomes for teaching business studies and entrepreneurship, this meeting proved to be a great first-step to deepening my understanding of 6th - 9th grade economics management science curricular and economic goals for South Africa and how my work supports them.

Social entrepreneurs see a need and then think of an idea for creating and selling a product or service to address or solve the need. With this in mind, my students in the EMBU605 were broken up into groups and given the following task which was as aspect of the curriculum that I am developing:

Need:The people in a small, rural African village have to build their own shelters. In order to build shelter, each family needs the help of several village men to help carry and lift a load of handmade bricks that are far too difficult for one man to do alone.

Social Entrepreneurial Task: Using only the materials provided, your task is to design and build a structure that will lift a series of weights. The weight will be added to a cup that you must securely attach to your invention. The goal is to build the structure that lifts the most weight at least 3 inches (7.6 cm) from the desk or table and stays intact. Keep in mind that the invention and not people on the team must lift the weight. You will be given 20 – 30 minutes to design and build the structure.

They then were given an Inventor's Log, also a part of the curriculum, to chronicle the thought and work that went into the invention. One of the objectives for this activity was to allow students to apply critical and creative thinking skills to design and build an invention that addresses a need. Ultimately, as the lessons within the curriculum progress, the students will launch their own real classroom social enterprise so thinking critically and creatively is a must.

It was at the end of this class when students approached me to tell me how meaningful the lessons and teaching strategies are that I model during class. Knowing theory and pedagogy, as one stated, along side of a visual and hands-on demonstration of it would actually look in the classroom proved extremely beneficial. It is great to know that my work is making a difference. It is my hope that what they learn in class smoothly transfers to their own classroom instruction. This is soon to be seen.

Week of March 20, 2011
This week's lesson in which I taught during the EMBU605 course focused on the teaching of poverty and its relationship to social entrepreneurship. First, to ground the lesson, time was spent discussing the devastating realities that impact the lives of far too many living in poverty throughout our world. Then, by introducing the 5H+W questioning strategies, I modeled how to teach children to write higher-order thinking questions for the purpose of interviewing a public official invited to the classroom, as well as staff and/ or residents in a homeless shelter, a fieldtrip previously arranged by the teacher. Through interviewing, the classroom students would experience first-hand the challenges faced by people living in poverty and use this information to brainstorm possible classroom social entrepreneur ventures that may address one or more of these challenges.

Week of March 27, 2011
In preparation for teaching practice, EMBU605 course was cancelled. The progress of the curriculum development is going quite well. I am positioned well with my work to have it completed on schedule.

Week of April 3, 2011
School Holiday: All R-12 and university schools closed. See New Adventures Page to learn about how I spent this week.