Simple Steps to Implement Spirit Box Curriculum in Your Classroom
Spirit Box is a turn-key solution to teach students real-world business skills before they graduate. Each Spirit Box comes with access to a comprehensive curriculum to teach different aspects of business throughout the year. Below you will find a step-by-step guide to implementing this curriculum throughout the year—including how to become a certified Spirit Box team.
Get started below. If you have questions, feel free to contact us! We are available to answer your questions and talk through solutions with you.
How to Plug Spirit Box Academy Into Your Classroom Today!
Welcome to your “how to” guide to Spirit Box Academy!
Spirit Box Academy was developed with you in mind. As a teacher who goes above and beyond for your students, it’s obvious that you are hungry for new resources to engage them with new learning.
In this guide, you will find suggestions for how to use the curriculum in your classroom. Keep in mind, these are purely suggestions. This curriculum was created with flexibility in mind. You can adjust these resources to fit your classroom and students’ needs throughout the year.
Step 1: Review Spirit Box Academy Units
Visit Spirit Box Team Resources and enter the password (the code to open your Spirit Box.) This is where all Spirit Box Academy modules and lessons will be.
Under each unit there are 5 modules to view. Each module has a “lesson map” that is basically your key to any document in the module.
You can get a breakdown of the curriculum here: Curriculum Overview.
Step 2: Adapt the curriculum for your classroom
You can use the curriculum as it is or you can work it into your existing curriculum.
Take out the parts you don’t need from the curriculum if you’ve already covered certain topics in your classroom.
Step 3: Develop a process for how students will complete assignments
Establish whether they will complete the activities and projects as a class, individually, or in a small group.
All assignments can be submitted to you to be graded.
Step 4: Make a schedule for how to utilize the curriculum in your classroom
You can decide the pace at which you want to teach the various concepts. Based on experiences with schools across the country, we recommend the following schedule:
Unit 1 completed in quarter 1, Unit 2 completed in quarter 2, Unit 3 completed in quarter 3 and continued growth in quarter 4.
This is not required but we recommend this timeline so you are planning your year in the first quarter, creating a strong operations plan in the second quarter, and planning for growth in your Spirit Box business the last two quarters.
Following this schedule is not required or necessary to run a successful Spirit Box. This curriculum can be plugged in and utilized in your classroom however you need to use it.
Every classroom is different and students are constantly rotating in and out of the classroom. This is also similar to a business. Business doesn’t start over when a new team is in place. Establish how you will incorporate new students into your business when the previous team graduates or leaves your class. You can incorporate the students into this process and work with them to design a training process for newcomers.
Step 5: Prepare your students for certification
This Certification aligns with Spirit Box Academy and is the perfect post-assessment for each unit. You’ll need to complete a business plan, an operations plan and a marketing plan. There are a few different ways you could approach these plans, depending on your students:
Option 1: Assign each student to submit a business plan, operations plan, and marketing plan individually. Choose the best one to be submitted for certification. This can be used as a final project/post-assessment.
Option 2: Assign student groups to submit a business plan, operations plan, and marketing plan individually. Choose the best one to be submitted for certification. This can be used as a final project/post-assessment.
Option 3: Break the sections up and work on it as a class.
Certification can be broken up into three parts with different deadlines:
Business Planning: Complete by October 15th
Operations Planning: Complete by November 15th
Marketing Planning: Complete by April 1st
This timing is recommended, but your team can complete the assessments at any point throughout the academic year.
To achieve certification, submit one document complete with these three sections by April 1st to the link at the bottom of each certification.
Step 6: Await Notification After Review
Once you submit your document, we will gather a panel of volunteers to review each of the school submissions. The schools awarded with certification will receive Spirit Box graduation cords and a Spirit Box Certificate.
Getting Started
Now that you’ve seen the process mapped out for how to plug Spirit Box curriculum into your classroom, it is time to get started! You can plug these elements in at any time of year and adjust them according to what works best for you and your students.
Need additional insight or assistance? Contact us! We’re happy to help!