Erv: Often we are more concerned with proving growth and giving marks than we are with providing opportunities for students to learn. Feedback is very important to improving these opportunities. I prefer, at times, to allow students to give this feedback orally and in their journal entries. I also ask them if they learned something by their involvement in an activity. These comments are more important to me than a mark. It would be interesting if these student comments could be included in their report somehow.

Erv had his middle year students simulate a mall spending trip with $100.00 to spend. They had to list their purchases, percentage-off discounts and they had to include PST &GST, to spend as close to $100 as possible. The following are some of his students' comments about the experience:

• I liked the trip to the Mall because it was different from our every day class and we got to go and talk with the other kids in the class. I think the game would have been better if we had $200 rather than $100. I like the game and thought it worked good.

• I thought that this trip to the mall was good. I liked it because it taught us how to buy things that are on sale so that we don't get ripped off. It didn't help that it was in the class and we only had $100 to spend. The thing that was interesting was we got to make a price list and we had to get as close to $100 so we could win.

• The trip to the mall was fun because it was something different and helped with math. It wasn't boring like doing assignments out of the text book and it gave a picture of what it would be like in a real store.

• It helped me get quicker when doing percentages. It showed us how the first price differs from the total price and we learned how to budget our money. It made us better sales people.