Earn & Learn

Another post I've been meaning to finish off for a while. This topic came about following a conversation I was having on twitter with another teacher about creating online bank accounts for students.

Earn and Learn is a financial awareness program developed by Rob Vingerhoets. This program sees students operate in a way similar to a small town or community.

Initially, students receive a base weekly payment for the work they complete. Students who undertake leadership roles or have extra responsibilities within the classroom are able to receive additional payments. Such responsibilities might include taking the lunch orders to the canteen, cleaning the class library, setting up the computers, turning on and off the lights when we enter and leave our room.

Students also pay tax through the money they earn, make weekly “rent” payments for their seat and locker, take out insurance policies against forgetting their homework or receiving an injury, contribute to superannuation and make purchases. Students operate businesses within the classroom and organise their finances through credit, debit and cheque accounts at our class bank.

This book was originally published in 1990's and utilises a lot of black line masters. Wanting to incorporate 21st century learning, I took many aspects of this and transferred them across to computers; the main one being the setup of the students banking accounts through a series of excel spreadsheets. Students also created sales ledgers and the sign writer used publisher to create the signs for the various businesses  (I don't have 1:1 in my school, but imagine the possibilities !)

This program encompasses many domains of the Victorian Essential Learning Standards and reflects a variety of attributes of PoLT. Students need to ensure that necessary documentation is completed each week to ensure they are paid; this encourages and supports students to take responsibility for their learning (Principle 2.1). Students work together in teams to manage and operate their businesses and to seek support and clarification; this uses strategies that build skills of productive collaboration (Principle 2.2). Students use their visual art skills and publishing applications to generate signage for their businesses. Spreadsheet applications are used to monitor their income and expenditure. This capitalises on students' experience of a technology rich world and has students using technologies in ways that reflect professional and community practices (Principle 3.4 & 6.3)

Since introducing this program, student attendance figures within my class increased, and quality of work and assessment results improved. I have also supported colleagues to implement this program within their classes. As a collective, we are now discussing the strengths and weaknesses of this program and looking at how we can develop this program as we move towards an open plan learning environment for the following year. This links with our school Annual Implementation Plan goal of increasing student motivation towards learning....It's been great fun!

Do you run Earn & Learn in your classroom?

Have you made modifications to the program to suit your needs ?

How have you incorporated the use of ICT to assist you in managing the program ?