Welcome to the Macedo Mall, where you will find Red Cluster students eager to sell you what their shop has to offer.
How is this possible you may ask? In order to help students practice their math skills, such as adding together money totals and calculating change, Head Teacher Joyce Macedo and Assistant Teacher Jenine Gaynor opened up the mall as a multisensory and project-based learning activity.
In project-based learning, students acquire a deeper knowledge of a subject through the active exploration of real-world challenges and problems.
“Our unit started with the foundation of adding mixed groups of coins and bills, and then built on their computational skills with these,” Ms. Macedo said. “Our ultimate goal was for them to figure out how to add up totals and then subtract them to create change.”
To create the mall, the fifth floor was transformed into a retail space where students set up their shops.
Each shop offered its own unique wares, with products ranging from Pokemon cards to books to video game consoles to refreshing drinks, all of which were created by the students.
Students also created credit card machines that their clientele would use to make transactions.
Once everything was ready to go, “shoppers” were given a Macedo credit card with no spending limit and invited to virtually visit the mall to make purchases.
Ms. Macedo said this activity kept the students engaged and also helped connect what the students learned to real-world situations.
“My class in particular struggles with attention, so getting them to remain engaged requires novel and immersive activities,” she said. “Getting them to connect it to the real word through an engaging activity also helps the information stick with the students more.”