The Importance of Planning and Student Work

While at the Connect conference I was lucky enough to see Colonel Chris Hadfield speak.  His message, "impossible things happen" made me think of my students.  I brought the message back to the classroom and linked it to the importance of planning.
Currently, students are working on their Self Advocacy Pamphlets for when they return to their home schools (Click here to see the journey the project took me on last year).  Before students can create a pamphlet, they need to have a solid plan.  Students used their favorite mind mapping apps (Popplet or Inspiration Maps) to create their plan.  The plan that the students came up with, has allowed them to stay on track, reflect on their ideas before they even started the final product and made them realize that with a good plan, anything is possible.

In order to prove to students how important planning is, I used a friend's entrepreneurial start up as an exemplar.  We had Adam Tilley from The Brake Room Face Time into the class to talk about the importance of the planning phase of his project.  Later, the students and I picked apart this real life example in order to shed some light on the importance of planning.

After debriefing with students about Adam's business venture, the students had a much deeper understanding of the planning process.  The plans that students have come up with are amazingly detailed and easy to execute.  I am very excited to look at the students' final products!

Colonel Hadfield is right "impossible things happen" when there is a solid plan in place!