I need help NOW!

[MisterLove]

I know I'm being a bit rude but I'm totally stressed out and I need ideas for classroom activities (ages 16-19, subject: economy, marketing and tourism).

I have posted countless messages on several forums and sites and so far I only got one decent tip. Everything else was BS because nobody has to clue what teaching is all about and how hard it really is.

I've had these kids for more than 200 hours and it's not easy to innovate and find new things to do.

We've done a music archive, lots of field trips, collective writing, seen lots of videos and we're using Android tablets but I need fresh ideas.

So PLEASE give me everything you got, I can't believe you guys never did anything interesting and enjoyable in school.

[southbiochem]

as for tourism activities, you can separate them into groups, asign them a country or a particular zone and they will have to do a presentation by preparing local food, dressing up in typical local clothing stuff like that. They will have to "sell" the country or the zone by showing all the attractive features..

At least that's what I had to do in High School and it was bloody fun, hehe

As for marketing as businesses you can make the class to be a fictional enterprise, and asign roles for each one of your students within that company (one will bbe the CEO, some in marketing, etc). They will have to develope a product, manage a budget and try to sell it maybe within the school (something like going out there and surveying other students what they like, come up with a product that they have to finaslly "sell", a fictional product.

That way they would be working on a fictional thing but acting as if it was a real business..


hope it helps!

[LONDONER]

Tourism: I suggest that they put themselves in the shoes of a Tour Guide, collect all relevant information about their city that would be of interest to tourists and that should include all points of interest, history, dates, people associated with them, anecdotes etc. They then have to write up how they would present a guided tour with a group of tourists. Don't forget that tourists are humans and they have certain needs so they will need to know the locations of things like lavatories, restaurants (don't forget special dietary needs), pharmacies, even hospitals. A tour guide has to be prepared for any eventuality.

That should keep them occupied for some time.

[Chase]

I guess for marketing you can have them split up into groups and each make up an imaginary business. Then give each group a budget plan and tell them they can only buy the imaginary products of one or two other groups. That way, there will be competition, so each group has to come up with the best strategy to sell their products to the other groups. The group that manages to sell the most imaginary products to the other group wins.

[MisterLove]

Thanks guys, I appreciate your help.

I'm looking for something simple that I can use in the classroom, though.

Android offline apps would be nice, any ideas? So far, we've only used Meme Me, Fast Notepad, Kingsoft Office, the calculator and MXPlayer.

[MisterLove]

I guess for marketing you can have them split up into groups and each make up an imaginary business. [...]

Thanks but it's too vague and too difficult for these kids.

And we've already done something similar on Valentine's Days: they had to read several Valentine offers and make their own special offers and packages.

[southbiochem]

Thanks but it's too vague and too difficult for these kids..

That's hardly too vague. No, no, no. It'sa good idea, but I suppose it can be hard for kids to grasp. (Although it's something my history teacher had us do when I was 15 and it worked out just fine)

[MisterTinkles]

Tourism, marketing, economy.

Have a class project where they have to develop a product or service that is sold to tourists.

They have to figure out a name, a business plan, a plan of action, marketing schemes, how it will be sold, how it will be advertised, and how it will effect the local economy.

You can make this as simple, or complex as you want it to be.

[partis]

So PLEASE give me everything you got, I can't believe you guys never did anything interesting and enjoyable in school.

Believe it!

tbh misterlove didnt you make a post like this before, so i guess none of those replys are any good either so why bother.

You are the teacher misterlove, my schooling consisted of 4 subjects including french and i cannot speak a word of french and my maths teacher refused to talk to me, yeah it was interesting!

[Woollyhats]

I agree with a lot of the advice given.

What is the difficulty level of your class --- behaviourally speaking?

You could potentially use boring course material (definitions and the like) and concepts that could be applied in some way. For example, you could split the class up into groups (probably better if you make the groups yourself, so you know that there are strong and weak students in each one), and they can design a marketing scheme designed to advertise a specified area (like a specific country, city, etc.) for tourists. If the class does not have access to the internet you'll have to provide information on the given area yourself. At the end you could have the class vote on the most attractive marketing scheme for fun.

Obviously they'll be required to explain how tourism, economics, and marketing are connected; they should see why. Marketing gets tourists and tourists get money.

Edit: For the presentation you can consider mediums for them to present. For example, if you have a projector they could make a powerpoint presentation, students who don't want to could use bristoboard, etc. You can even have them required to do a short interactive activity (can't think of anything, but when I presented on budgeting in a class recently I had a bunch of pictures of various objects and had the class designate them as needs or wants). This might help them a bit with other classes too.