Open Forum

I want to create a document or spreadsheet of some kind that my tech students will have fill out each day. Something where they could document their daily goal, what they accomplished & what their goal is for the next day.

When we work on shows the students work on different crews & we do weekly production meetings to keep everyone on track. As crews are working in class, I travel between the shop, the dressing rooms, the prop room & the drama room to supervise & guide, but it's impossible for me to get to everyone in a 50 min class & I often find it's my hardest working kids, the crew heads, that are doing the work & other kids just stand around talking or are on their phones & only pretend to work when I come into the room. I have two part-time tech assistants, but they are not teachers, so they primarily build, load, hang, focus,etc. So I thought creating a document like this that holds every student accountable for their work might help.

Does anyone use anything like this that they want to share? Or any other procedures or processes you've created over time that has helped? 

I thought a Google doc might be most accessible to all students. Our students have been using these for years. But we also just started using a learning platform called Canvas & are going 1:1 in January, so all students will have their own laptop.

Thanks! 

I haven't had that specific need, but what I've used over the years, which has worked well, is a do-list.

The list says, basically, today's goal is to do such-and-such, and has a way to check off a project when it's completed. It can be broken down by teams or by individuals, or just be one master list that you can copy and hand to everyone, with name assignments. The list then refers back to a master list for the show, which is essentially a project schedule. The students then turn them in at the end of each work period so you have a paper trail.

What I like about do-lists and project schedules is that they spell out the whole job up front and everyone sees it the same way. After a while, people start to ask, "how're we doing," and then you know you have a team. Professional scene shops (and other businesses) often use this idea to keep tack of what's being done, how long it takes --- and who's doing the best work or the worst work. In the case of a high school, I can imagine that eventually it'll lead to one of your best friends: peer pressure.  :-)

I agree with George that having a set of daily / weekly / project goals is a great idea.,  In my program, the TDs have to create an overall graphic plan for the project and post them as a Gantt charts in the shops, and then they must create daily plans for the crews.  These tools keep everyone informed so they can be a part of the team.

However. . . . as Jeana has pointed out, not all who are present are wanting to do the work.  To address this, we have created a paper time sheet for each student who is working in our shop.  The columns include time in, time out, total hours (rounded DOWN to the nearest half hour), a brief description of the work done, and a column for their supervisor to initial.  Each supervisor is tasked with signing off on the information provided on the line, and as the supervisor has a much closer eye on what the student was doing during their work time, they can adjust the information to include what the student actually did during their time.

On the back of each time sheet is a list of "skills" that each student must attempt to complete during the semester of work.  They include fundamental skills such as, "cut a piece of wood with a chop saw", "properly hang 5 lighting instruments", and "properly install more than 12 screws with a cordless drill".  We include this list to address the student who shows up, moves boxes around for five minutes, goes to the washroom for 30 minutes, carries a flat across the stage, goes to the break room for 30 minutes. . etc.  

The time sheets are all kept in a binder in each shop (separate sheets for separate shops) so that the work of each student can be tracked and monitored.  The ones who have done the work get the credit for work done, and the ones who have done minimal work get minimal credit.  Once each week, a production assistant collects the binders and enters the data into a spreadsheet.  As the info is entered, a highlighter is used to mark across each line from the timesheets that are recorded.  This prevents changes from being made without making a mess on the timesheet and alerting everyone in the supervisory chain that something is fishy.  We also purposely keep the spreadsheet out of Googledocs so that info cannot be easily changed once it is recorded.  Only the PA and the teacher have access.

Granted, this is a university setting, but the same could easily be adapted for a high school setting.  Setting up the system takes a bit of doing, but once the system is in place, it runs very well.  The biggest trick is to get your student supervisors and the PA set up so that they are responsible for reporting the info and not for motivating the troops.  The teacher provides the motivation while the system reports the results.  If done well, there is buy-in from all levels.

Oh. .and we don't allow the students to have their cell phones while working.  Its a safety hazard, after all :-).

All my best!!  and Merry Christmas to everyone!

Tracy

I want to create a document or spreadsheet of some kind that my tech students will have fill out each day. Something where they could document their daily goal, what they accomplished & what their goal is for the next day.

When we work on shows the students work on different crews & we do weekly production meetings to keep everyone on track. As crews are working in class, I travel between the shop, the dressing rooms, the prop room & the drama room to supervise & guide, but it's impossible for me to get to everyone in a 50 min class & I often find it's my hardest working kids, the crew heads, that are doing the work & other kids just stand around talking or are on their phones & only pretend to work when I come into the room. I have two part-time tech assistants, but they are not teachers, so they primarily build, load, hang, focus,etc. So I thought creating a document like this that holds every student accountable for their work might help.

Does anyone use anything like this that they want to share? Or any other procedures or processes you've created over time that has helped? 

I thought a Google doc might be most accessible to all students. Our students have been using these for years. But we also just started using a learning platform called Canvas & are going 1:1 in January, so all students will have their own laptop.

Thanks!