Concept: Personal Financial Choices
June brings the chance to take a vacation. With time running out participants must consider how this opportunity fits into their budgets.
This could be the only chance in a lifetime! And then there is the question of how to pay for the vacation. Will it be cash, loan or credit card?
Objectives
Learners will:
- Evaluate monthly income/expense statements
- Make a personal choice based on financial implications
- Evaluate payment options
- Financial planning
- Payment options (credit card, loan, savings, cash)
- Financial choices
- Evaluating financial options
- Financial decision-making
- Financial independence
- Financial planning
- Financial choices
National Standards: Mathematics
- Uses basic estimation techniques effectively (e.g., overestimate, underestimate, range of estimations).
(Benchmark, procedural; Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989, 94; Mathematics Content Specs, 8, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 6; Mathematics Assessment Framework, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 26.) - Solves real-world problems involving percents.
(Benchmark, procedural; Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989, 87; Benchmarks for Science Literacy, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993, 291; Mathematics Content Specs, 8, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 8; Mathematics Assessment Framework, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 27.) - Selects and uses appropriate type of estimation (e.g., overestimate, underestimate, range of estimate) to solve real-world problems.
(Benchmark, procedural; Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989, 94; Mathematics Content Specs, 8, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 6-7; Mathematics Assessment Framework, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 26.) - Interpolates or extrapolates from data presented in various forms
(Benchmark, procedural; Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989, 105-107; Mathematics Content Specs, 8, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 21; Mathematics Assessment Framework, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 36.) - Constructs, reads, and interprets data in charts, tables, plots, and graphs.
(Benchmark, procedural; Curriculum and Evaluation Standards for School Mathematics, National Council of Teachers of Mathematics, 1989, 105-107; Mathematics Content Specs, 8, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 22; Mathematics Assessment Framework, National Assessment of Educational Progress, 37.)
National Standards: Economics
- Understands that since people cannot have everything they want, they must make choices about using goods and services to satisfy wants.
(Benchmark, declarative; Framework for Teaching Basic Economic Concepts with Scope and Sequence Guidelines, K-12, Saunders & Gilliard, 1995, 78; Colorado Council on Economic Education, 4; Economics: What and When, JCEE, 15; Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies, NCSS, 1994, 41.) - Understands that choices usually involve trade-offs; people can give up buying or doing a little of one thing in order to buy or do a little of something else.
(Benchmark, declarative; Framework for Teaching Basic Economic Concepts with Scope and Sequence Guidelines, K-12, Saunders & Gilliard, 1995, 92; Colorado Council on Economic Education, 3; Economics: What and When, JCEE, 17; Expectations of Excellence: Curriculum Standards for Social Studies, NCSS, 1994, 41.)
National Standards: Life Skills
- Understands basic banking services (e.g., checking accounts, savings accounts).
(Benchmark, declarative; Workplace Basics: The Essential Skills Employers Want, Carnevale, Gainer & Meltzer, 1990, 281.) - Uses a balance sheet to evaluate the costs and benefits of various alternatives within a decision.
(Benchmark, procedural; Geography for Life: National Geography Standards, Geography Education Standards project, 1994, 55.)
Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards: Language Arts, E. Media and Technology.
Students in Wisconsin will use media and technology critically and creatively to obtain, organize, prepare and share information; to influence and persuade; and to entertain and be entertained.
Learners will:
- Use computers to acquire, organize, analyze. and communicate information (E.8.1).
- Collect information from various on-line sources, such as web pages, news groups and listservs (E.8.1).
Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards: Mathematics
Learners will:
- Use reasoning abilities to
- evaluate information
- perceive patterns
- identify relationships
- formulate questions for further exploration
- evaluate strategies
- justify statements
- test reasonableness of results
- defend work (A.8.1.)
- Communicate logical arguments clearly to show why a result makes sense (A.8.2).
- Read and understand mathematical texts and other instructional materials and recognize mathematical ideas as they appear in other contexts (A.8.6).
- Use reason and logic to evaluate information (A.12.1).
- Communicate logical arguments and clearly show
- why a result does or does not make sense
- why the reasoning is or is not valid (A.12.2).
- Analyze nonroutine problems and arrive at solutions by various means, including models and simulations, often starting with provisional conjectures and progressing, directly or indirectly, to a solution, justification, or counter-example (A.12.3)
- Read and understand
- mathematical texts and other instructional materials
- writing about mathematics (e.g., articles in journals)
- mathematical ideas as they are used in other contexts (A.12.6).
- Perform and explain operations on rational numbers (add, subtract, multiply, divide) (B.8.2).
- Apply proportional thinking in a variety of problem situations that include, but are not limited to
- ratios and proportions (e.g., rates, scale drawings, similarity)
- percents, including those greater than 100 and less than one (e.g., discounts, rate of increase or decrease, sales tax) (B.8.5).
- In problem-solving situations, select and use appropriate computational procedures with rational numbers such as
- calculating mentally
- estimating
- using technology (e.g., scientific calculators, spreadsheets) (B.8.7).
- Compare real numbers using
- order relations (>, <) and transitivity
- arithmetic differences
- ratios, proportions, percents, rates of change (B.12.2)
- Perform and explain operations on real numbers (add, subtract, multiply, divide) (B.12.3).
- Create and critically evaluate numerical arguments presented in a variety of classroom and real-world situations (e.g., political, economic, scientific, social) (B.12.5).
- Routinely assess the acceptable limits of error when
- evaluating strategies
- testing the reasonableness of results
- using technology to carry out computations (B.12.6).
- Determine measurements indirectly using estimation (D.8.4) (D.12.3).
- Work with data in the context of real-world situations by
- formulating questions that lead to data collection and analysis
- using technology to generate displays, summary statistics and presentations (E.8.1).
- Use the results of data analysis to
- make predictions
- develop convincing arguments
- draw conclusions (E.8.4)
- Determine the likelihood of occurrence of simple events by
- using a variety of strategies to identify possible outcomes (e.g., lists, tables, tree diagrams)
- conducting an experiment
- designing and conducting simulations
- Work with data in the context of real-world situations by
- formulating hypotheses that lead to collection and analysis of one- and two-variable data
- using technology to generate displays, summary statistics, and presentations (E.12.1).
Wisconsin's Model Academic Standards: Social Studies, D. Economics: Production, Exchange and Consumption.
Learners will:
- Explain the operations of common financial instruments and financial institutions (D.12.9).
- Describe and explain the role of money, banking, and credit in every day life (D.4.1).
- Describe and explain how money makes it easier to trade, borrow, save, invest, and compare the value of goods and services (D.8.1)
Illinois Learning Standards: State Goals 6-10: Mathematics
Learners will:
- Solve practical computation problems involving whole numbers, integers and rational numbers (6.B.3a).
- Select and use appropriate arithmetic operations in practical situations including calculating wages after taxes, developing a budget and balancing a checkbook (6.B.4).
- Select computational procedures and solve problems with whole numbers, fractions, decimals, percents and proportions (6.C.3a).
- Show evidence that computational results using whole numbers, fractions, decimals, percents and proportions are correct and/or that estimates are reasonable (6.C.3b).
- Solve problems involving recipes or mixtures, financial calculations and geometric similarity using ratios, proportions and percents (6.D.4).
- Solve problems involving loans, mortgages and other practical applications involving geometric patterns of growth (6.D.5).
- Apply formulas in a wide variety of theoretical and practical real-world measurement applications involving perimeter, area, volume, angle, time, temperature, mass, speed, distance, density and monetary values (7.A.4b).
- Apply the properties of numbers and operations including inverses in algebraic settings derived from economics, business, and the sciences (8.C.3).
- Construct, read and interpret tables, graphs (including circle graphs) and charts to organize and represent data (10.A.3a).
Illinois Learning Standards: State Goal 15 U. S. Economic Systems
Learners will:
- Know that barter is a type of exchange and that money makes exchange easier (15.D.1b).
Minnesota--The Profile of Learning: Preparatory Standards (High School Level)
Mathematics
Learners will:
- Translate between real-world situations and discrete mathematical models using verbal descriptions.
- Use properties of mathematics to justify reasoning in a logical argument.
- Translate between real-world situations and mathematical models using:
- graphs
- data tables and/or spread sheets
- verbal descriptions.
Personal and Family Resources Management
Simulations should require students to manipulate unexpected factors which complicate real-life financial management.
Managing Resources:
Learners will:
- Apply the fundamentals of personal/family resource management through informed decision-making.
- Know personal finance terminology.
- Know the use of banking services.
- Analyze a household budget.
- Analyze how to manage household resources considering broader economic and environmental systems.
Minnesota--The Profile of Learning: Preparatory Standards (Middle School Level)
Mathematics
Learners will:
- Use number concepts, relationships and computational procedures to communicate, solve problems and evaluate results.
- Select appropriate methods to estimate or compute.
- Apply proportional reasoning to solve a variety of problems using rates, ratios, proportions and percents.
- In problem situations connect verbal, symbolic and graphical representations, identify constraints, propose and justify solutions.
- Use properties of mathematics to informally justify reasoning in a logical argument.
Learners will:
- Access and evaluate information from electronic sources.
Learners will:
- Effectively manage personal resources to meet a goal or solve a problem.
