Black School outreach website a resource for K-12 teachers
T
he business classes Nicole Wethli teaches at Fairview Middle School begin with the basics: keyboarding, report formatting, and Excel. From there, the curriculum gets trickier: The Pennsylvania Department of Education requires twelve career-exploration activities—and an individualized career plan for every student—by the end of grade 8. Eight more are required by the end of grade 11. Wethli meets those requirements by bringing in guest speakers, including faculty members from the Black School of Business. “When students first think about going into business, they often think, ‘I’m going to have to sit behind a desk all day,’” Wethli said. “Not all careers in business are like that, of course, so it’s important for students to hear different perspectives, with real-life examples of how businesses operate. That encourages them to explore the many options that are available to them.” Last year brought a new challenge: COVID restrictions, which forced many schools, including Fairview’s, into a Zoom-based learning environment. Guest speakers no longer were an option.
The state requirements for career exploration were still in effect, however. To help meet that need, and to create a central platform for business-themed lesson plans, the Black School and a team from Behrend’s Center for Teaching and eLearning Initiatives developed a new outreach website with video and podcast content and classroom activities themed to different business topics, from accounting and economics to finance, management, and marketing. The site, sites.psu.edu/psbehrendbusinesstopics, is a free resource for teachers. It provides a library of K-12 video content and classroom-based activities. “We want this to be a resource for the local community,” said Dr. Mary Beth Pinto, professor of marketing and chair of the Black School’s outreach committee. She led the development of the website, which also includes content from Junior Achievement of Western Pennsylvania. The website features video presentations about financial literacy, student loans, social media marketing, and the costs of using credit cards. There also is a library of video podcasts, or “vodcasts,” which explore the value of networking, internships, and leadership traits, among other topics.
The videos feature Behrend faculty experts, as well as current students and alumni, including Jeff Blackman, a senior vice president at the Bravo, E!, and Syfy networks. In addition to video resources, teachers can download business-themed classroom-based activities—an ad-writing challenge for multicultural markets, for example, or a supply-chain simulation of Christmas-eve deliveries from the North Pole. They also can request customized presentations, including panel discussions with students in the Black School’s Business Ambassadors program. The Black School has made the website available to K-12 school districts across Erie County, including the Erie Catholic School System. It’s also being shared through Career Street, a career exploration network that is part of the Erie Together initiative. “Teachers really want to make these connections,” said Jennifer Nygaard Pontzer, the executive director of Career Street. “They want to provide opportunities for students to have true careerexploration experiences, but they don’t always know where to go. This website gives them options.”
Sites.psu.edu/psbehrendbusinesstopics is a free resource for teachers. It provides a library of K-12 video content and classroom-based activities. 11
