Nancy Dickmann, Rock Valley School District

Nancy Dickmann is the new business teacher for the Rock Valley School District. She teaches middle school exploratory classes as well as two new courses at the high school level, entrepreneurship and digital media.

ROCK VALLEY—Now fully incorporated in the enterprise, Nancy Dickmann is buying into her school’s investments.

The new 6-12 business teacher had been a substitute in the Rock Valley School District since 2018. This is Dickmann’s first year as a full-time instructor, and she brought two new high school classes: entrepreneurship and digital media.

“What I’m hoping they’re getting is little nuggets or low-hanging fruit they can use when they get out of school,” Dickmann said.

The entrepreneurship course lets students conceive their own small business. The rest of the lessons revolve around that ongoing project.

Most of the coursework is through a curriculum developed by the University of Iowa. This lets those in the program earn three credits through the postsecondary school in Iowa City.

“I have my students dream big. No idea is a dumb idea. If they want to look at a product or service, I have them look at that and put it on paper,” Dickmann said.

Digital media also leaves pupils with a tangible accomplishment, a marketing certification from Stukent, a web-based curriculum.

The lessons focus on the internet’s role in the modern commercial landscape. Stukent’s main feature is its social media simulation. The young businesspeople have an advertising budget to spend on posts on various online platforms. They learn from themselves and each other on what is best for their project’s company, just like they would as professionals.

“They get to look at what demographic, what target market, so they get to see in real time what is working, what isn’t,” Dickmann said. “Each time they go through this simulation, they get to see where they’re ranked against their classmates. It’s a ton of competition for them.”

Dickmann also teaches business at the middle school level. Those 6-8 classes focus on more rudimentary skills such as typing and office computer applications. Dickmann uses the Google set of products such as Docs and Sheets to give students distinguished digital dexterity.

She said those lessons are valuable regardless of what the students plan to do in the workforce.

“It’s those kinds of basic things that they may not know why we’re doing this right now, but as they get older, everything they do is going to be in the Google Suite. As they get out of school, they’re going to be utilizing those types of things,” she said.

Dickmann’s first career influenced the new courses. Before she got into teaching, she was the marketing director at Hegg Health Center, just a few blocks down from the Rock Valley school.

The 44-year-old said her nontraditional path to teaching has been an asset thus far in the classroom.

“What I’m trying to do is give my students an opportunity to learn something that they can use when they get out of high school. If they’re going to go into some sort of business, they need to know these things. They need to be able to keep up with technology,” she said. “With my business background, I feel like I can give them a lot of real-world experiences that are going to be helpful.”

Originally from Sioux Falls, SD, she crossed the state line to attend Northwestern College in Orange City.

Dickmann has long been active with Rock Valley youth, and she is on the coaching staff of the high school girls and middle school boys soccer teams.

She is two years into a three-year education program at Morningside University in Sioux City. The “fast track” curriculum gets new teachers into classrooms sooner.

Whatever period it is, Dickmann said her “project-based” philosophy covers everything.

“I want to give them real-world experiences so when they leave my classroom they may think twice when they try to do something, remember that these are easy skills they can use and when they are thinking about these things they’re thinking about those next steps in their career,” she said. “They did learn this. This is something they can use.”