Project groups at school to turn theory into experience

Theory is normally a necessary foundation, but perfect knowledge is no guarantee of mastery in the field. That's why it can be very instructive to organize concrete actions in the field.

Here are two real-life examples of group work to take a closer look at what's involved in working together to make things happen.

A Junior-Enterprise in a vocational baccalaureate - administrative management

Setting up a company based on the Junior-Enterprise (J.E.) model in high school means enabling students in their final year of high school to work under real conditions, in the field.

In this experience, the young people are primarily involved in layout and communication work for any class that needs it: organizing a trip, designing a poster for an event, writing a document... In a small group setting, the main interest lies in cooperation, organization around a common objective, sharing experiences and feelings, skills management and collegial decision-making.

The success of this type of action requires good supervision of the group from the outset, to give it consistency and the right climate, in particular by appointing a project leader, who coordinates but does not direct, and organizing it to meet requests as closely as possible, while respecting deadlines.

A few checkpoints are important to make this an effective experience: share the results at the end of each assignment to pinpoint any shortcomings or negative feelings, so that they can be remedied; rotate the group's responsibility so that everyone can get their bearings in management; vary the projects, otherwise you'll get bored and lose interest in the exercise. However, the involvement and motivation of the group is more the responsibility of the teacher than the project manager, unlike a professional project group...

A chocolate sale in STMG

Although the STMG (sciences and techniques of management and administration) stream is often viewed in a negative light, this is often due to ignorance of its content. These students are confronted with precise management concepts, not necessarily natural to grasp at this age: VAT (taxes), margins (profit, time, reserves), communication campaigns...

For example, a chocolate sale, both in and out of school, can be used to illustrate a number of subjects and elements of the curriculum:

• management science: VAT mechanisms, margins, brand image, reputation, interpersonal relations, etc.
• Economics: consumption, economic players, trade-offs, product-related costs, etc.
• law: contracts
• management: cooperation, group work, coordination...
  

In addition to applying the elements of the course to real-life situations, this allows us to launch a competition for the best salesperson, encouraging them to strive for performance and effort. It's also a way of studying incomes and the trade-offs involved in day-to-day life, depending on the social level of each household.

All in all, the operation is an interesting one, especially as it provides an opportunity to work on income differences and their implications for society. In practical terms, the benefits are many: they are organized throughout the sales project, from the delivery of the packages to the sorting and bagging of the chocolates - that's the logistics side; on the sales side, you have to centralize and process the orders, check the figures, meet the deadlines, supply the required number of vouchers, send the necessary documents back to the supplier...

There are a few things to keep a close eye on, otherwise you may find that time is a little short on this type of operation, and the students' motivation is needed to ensure that they don't find themselves managing everything on their own at the last minute...

Photo credit :Sprachschuleaktiv - Pixabay

References

Junior Entreprises - https://junior-entreprises.com/

Chocolate sales campaigns - Suppliers