Lesson Plan for Implementing

NETS•S—Template I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name Mr. Jason Guzzardo

Position General Education Teacher

School/District Gwinnett County Public Schools

E-mail Jason_Guzzardo@gwinnett.k12.ga.us

Phone 770-990-4476

th
Grade Level(s) 12

Content Area Economics

Time line 10 class periods, 5 individuals (15 days total)

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills, and strategies do you
expect students to gain? Are there connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks? ) Please
put a summary of the standards you will be addressing rather than abbreviations and numbers that indicate which
standards were addressed.

This lesson was developed out of my innate desire to provide our young learners with the skills necessary
to make real rational decisions with their finances. I want to provide them with a meaningful lesson that they
connect with through technology and learn not only the required content standards for the course, but also quality
life lessons in regards to their finances.

Content Standards (AKS)

 Apply rational decision-making to personal spending and savings choices (GPS) (SSEC_G2007-31)
o explain that people respond to positive and negative incentives in predictable ways
o apply a rational decision making model in selecting one option over another
o create a savings or financial investment plan for a future goal
 Explain that banks and other financial institutions are businesses which channel funds from savers to
investors (GPS) (SSEC_G2007-32)
o compare services offered by different financial institutions
o explain reasons for the spread between interest charged and interest earned
o evaluate the relationship between risk and return
o evaluate a variety of savings and investment options, including real estate, stocks, bonds, mutual funds,
CD, and savings accounts
 Explain how changes in monetary and fiscal policy can impact an individual’s spending and savings choices
(GPS)(SSEC_G2007-33)
o identify and define the various kinds of taxes levied by federal, state and local governments
o evaluate the costs and benefits of using credit (GPS) (SSEC_G2007-34)
o compare interest rates on loans and credit cards from different institutions
 Describe how insurance and other risk-management strategies protect against financial loss (GPS)
(SSEC_G2007-35)
o list various types of insurance such as automobile, health, life, disability and property

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 o explain the costs and benefits associated with different types of insurance; include deductibles, premiums,
shared liability, and asset protection
 Describe how the earnings of workers are determined in the marketplace (GPS) (SSEC_G2007-36)
o identify skills which are required to be successful in the workplace
o explain the significance of investment in education, training and skill development

ISTE Standards (NETS)

 Creativity and innovation

o Create original works as a means of personal or group expression
 Communication and collaboration
o Interact, collaborate, and publish with peers, experts, or others employing a variety of digital
environments and media
 Research and information fluency
o Locate, organize, analyze, evaluate, synthesize, and ethically use information from a variety of
sources and media
 Critical thinking, problem solving, and decision making
o Plan and manage activities to develop a solution or complete a project
 Digital citizenship
o Exhibit a positive attitude toward using technology that supports collaboration, learning, and
productivity
 Technology operations and concepts
o Select and use applications effectively and productively

Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)

This project is designed for students that are in are in their fourth year of High School and/or have had Math that
involves finance. The Senior Economics/Budget Project is designed to assist students in considering their
financial future. The project consists of various “real world” situations/decisions one will be faced with once
entering the workforce. The student will create a budget that demonstrates what they feel is the best use of their
income. Many of the activities require the student to research information and some may even require them to go
into various institutions to obtain applications. Students are required to show tangible evidence of your research
by composing their information on an online presentation application (Prezi or E-Maze) or will be given the
opportunity to work with a partner if they choose to display their information on a webpage (Weebly for students).
Students will also use a discussion board (Padlet) to post their findings as they work through each part and
receive feedback from their peers. Documentation may include online sources, newspaper clippings, bill receipts,
apartment, utility estimates, etc. The project consists of 5 parts in that the teacher will provide resources and
guidance to complete the requirements for each task and/or scenario. Tutorials will be provided to students using
the video tool YouTube. 2 of the 5 parts comprises of student’s obtaining a simulated loan for their house and
vehicle they must have approved by the loan officer (teacher). Student’s income level for the project will be
determined by their average at the time the project is assigned. This allows students to draw parallels between
education levels and income levels as well make their research truly unique. After the product is completed
students will complete a two minute screencast (Jing or Screen Cast-O-Matic) briefly explaining their project,
their findings and what they learned.

Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing? What would students care or
want to know about the topic? What are some questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate
interest about the topic? Additionally, what questions can you ask students to help them focus on important
aspects of the topic? (Guiding questions) What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring
to this topic and build on?) Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking inquiry.
They should not be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” and should have many acceptable answers.

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The Essential Question addressing this lesson is Why should you know how to make a personal budget an
essential component of your individual future?

Topic Interest:
Education Income Level
Credit ScoresInterest RatesFinancing a Car and a house
Unexpected Maintenance Cost
Insurance Requirements

Questions to consider:
How does your Education level correlate to your personal income?
What do we have to include when organizing our budget?
Can you live the life you want with the US per capita income?

Guided Questions:
What do you consider to be a good standard of living?
What items do you feel are the most important to have? A good home? Car? Food?
What items are you legal required to have when becoming financially independent that you need to budget for?
Analyze your income and rationalize your decisions of how and why you spend money of specific items

Assessment (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What can students do to generate new
knowledge? How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)? How will you assess
what they produce or do? How will you differentiate products?) You must attach copies of your assessment and/or
rubrics. Include these in your presentation as well.

Product:
Create a budget for one month using monthly and annual data based off your assigned income level. Preferred
documentation of your Budget Product will may be created using Prezi, E-Maze or web page/electronic portfolio
using www.Weebly.com.

Formative Assessment:
Students will be assessed using progress checks in 5 out of the 6 parts of the lesson. In conjunction with their
Budget Product students are also required to complete 9 modules on EVERFI.net to demonstrate their knowledge
of personal finance. EVERFI allows students to work at their own pace and become “certified” by complete all of
the 9 modules with a 70% or better assessment score at the end of each. If student’s do not pass the module
assessment they are required to “re-test” as their remediation.

Below you can see where EVERFI generates an online grade book to track their progress.

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Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools, and resources—online student
tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etc—help elucidate or
explain the content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology skills should students
have to complete this project?)

This lesson revolves around technology and variety of internet resources and tools available to students to
uncover their higher order thinking and processing skills. Students must access various websites such as
Salary.com and Bankrate.com to gather specific information for documentation in their product. Along with other
website resources students access online product tools such as Prezi, E-Maze or Weebly Education. Peer to peer
collaboration is provided through the course Padlet discussion page. Students allow are given access to teacher
generated video tutorials uploaded to Youtube and Screen cast-o-matic they can access on their course page
platform.

Instructional Plan
Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this lesson? How can
you find out if students have this foundation? What difficulties might students have?)

Each student will likely be in their fourth year of Secondary Education and most will not have any formal Personal
Finance or Basic Economic Concepts schema (background knowledge). Student foundation on the topic can be
assessed through an assessment online such as USATESTPREP.com . This assessment site has questions
banked by domain and aligned to the End of Course State Assessment. The assessment can also be used to
establish the student’s income level for the lesson if desired. For instance, students performing well receive a
higher income level for the lesson than those that perform lower (eluding to the education level and income level
essential questions).
Management Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your students and the use
of digital tools and resources. How and where will your students work? (Small groups, whole group, individuals,
classroom, lab, etc.) What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this
lesson? Describe what technical issues might arise during the Internet lesson and explain how you will resolve or
trouble-shoot them? Please note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as well as
throughout the process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and work through the issues that
occurred as you implemented and even after the lesson was completed.

This lesson is designed to meet the needs of all learners allowing the management of the process to be fluid and
flexible. Students are given the opportunity to work individually or with one other peer depending on what product
they choose to complete as discuss previously. Students should be given approximately 2 weeks or more of
class time with access to a computer and the internet. For this lesson 15 specified days were scheduled for the
computer lab with classes lasting approximately 53 minutes each totally approximately 800 minutes of equitable
access to technology and the internet. This amounts to approximately 135 minutes per Part (6 parts) of “class lab
time”. The 800 minutes does not include the mini lessons taught be the teacher. Mini lessons for each part
should be taught the day before scheduled “lab time” to allow the student to maximize their access to technology
and the internet. Students are also encouraged to work on their product outside of “lab time” to demonstrate
exemplary knowledge of the standards. Examples of previously completed projects are made available for
students to review as they navigate and complete this student-centered learning lesson/project.

Predictable troubleshooting:
Reference websites down-upon specific reference and website resources being down or involved in a technical
issues students may consult the instructor for other acceptable resources as the lesson is not limited to the ones
provided.

Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities – Describe the research-based instructional strategies you will
use with this lesson. How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the
students' roles in the lesson? How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or
creativity levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy? How can the technology support your teaching? What authentic,
relevant, and meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build knowledge

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and skills? How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with each other
and others? How will you facilitate the collaboration?

Research-Based Instructional Strategies:

1. Pre-Assessment-online & standard based.
2. Authentic Learning-current & accurate measurements of budget management, including interest rates for
car and home loans, homeowner obligations and responsibilities, financial decision making with one
month’s budget.
3. Content management-lesson parts will be taught through modeling and examples through mini lesson
prior to lab time.
4. Skill demonstration and mastery-student will demonstrate their personal finance skills by documenting
their budget parts in an online product generator (such as Prezi and Weebly). Students will also
demonstrate mastery by completing the 9 modules in the “Financial Literacy” content through the
EverFi.net platform.

As the facilitator for the majority of the project the teacher guides student’s to learn through predictable errors and
critical problem solving when student budgets their items based on their limited monthly income. This will require
students to analyze various budgeting scenarios and use their critical thinking skills to create their own original
product. As students navigate through the project and create their own original work they will use a teacher
generated discussion board via Padlet to collaborate not only with all peers taken the Economics course. The
chat feature of Remind will also be available for students to access the teachers during office hours should they
have a specific question or encounter a technical issue.

Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and
abilities? How will you help students learn independently and with others? How will you provide extensions and
opportunities for enrichment? What assistive technologies will you need to provide?)

This lesson is designed with students of various learning styles in mind. The lesson promotes differentiation
through the creation of the product to the lesson being broken into parts to make the product content manageable
to learn through mini-lessons and video tutorials. Students who obtain the content relatively easily can work
ahead independently by navigating the product outline and viewing tutorials while slower learners can use the
same resources, but work at the pace of the whole group with the mini-lesson instruction schedule.

Extension will be reviewed based on the individual academic and personal needs of the students. Enrichment will
include a student made video about their product and advice messages to future budgeters!

Assistive Technologies that will need to be considered are correlated to computer use and navigation. These
could be but not limited to screen enhancement, fine motor assistance via mouse and keyboard, and voice
recorder for product documentation.

Reflection (Will there be a closing event? Will students be asked to reflect upon their work? Will students be
asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself? What will be your process for answering the following
questions?
• Did students find the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
• In what ways was this lesson effective?
• What went well and why?
• What did not go well and why?
• How would you teach this lesson differently?)

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Part 6 of the lesson is the student’s “Conclusion/Reflection”. Below is this required section by all students into
their product.
a. Students must include a reflective write up (3-4 paragraphs) about each major section of the budget.
b. Students must include a final budget spreadsheet. Students reflecting a negative balance after all
numbers have been entered can only achieve a maximum of a 69 for their grade.
c. Students must address the following questions at a minimum:
1. Why you used the numbers you used?
2. What you expected about the items before you started the project.
3. Why you purchased the items you did?
4. Did you have money left over? If so, what will you do with it? Buy something? Save? Invest?
5. What did you learn?
6. What would you have done different (budget and purchase wise)?
7. How can you apply this to your future life expenses and having a good balanced budget?

The conclusion portion of the Lesson is an important piece for the teacher to review as it demonstrates the
successful understanding of the content standards as well as the engagement level of the individual student into
the lesson’s product and skills demonstration.

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with
implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to implement the lesson? Please
provide a quality reflection on your experience with this lesson and its implementation.
I believe the lesson still has some adjustments to be made. I truly found the creation of the video tutorials
removed a lot of headache and stress for the teacher and student alike. The biggest success I found was to break
this lesson up throughout the semester instead of jamming it into 2 weeks. For example, since there are 6 parts,
but one being the conclusion, we organized our course calendar to allow for approximately 2 lab days per part.
We would give a mini-lesson the day prior, let’s say covering “how to calculate your taxes”. We would then post
the video tutorial allowing students to have the whole 53 minutes to work on their product’s part and ask the
instructor questions.

Overall, this is a great lesson that has evolved from a binder turned in with various handouts to a technologically
driven authentic learning experience for students. The biggest challenge is the amount of time and equitable
computer/internet time the student requires. It is a rewarding experience for students when it is all said in done as
they purchase a car, a house, manage utilities and select various needs that are required to survive They truly
feel they have accomplished something and realize budgeting is not that easy and is an eye opener for many!

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