I have not learned about economics since 12th grade in high school. We learned how to write checks and balance check books, played the stock market game, learned various economic terms and made an economics video. I had a fantastic teacher, Mr. Zupan who made learning about economics fun. But, since I have been out of high school for almost six years, anything dealing with economics has slipped my mind...except the thought of money. Most of my world revolves around money. Gas money. Toll money. Money for my life-saving coffee. Money for my car loan. Money for my college loan. Money for bills. Money for food shopping. Money to buy things with. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY! Sometimes I wish we still used the barter system. Going into chapter 13 was like re-learning the entire economics topic all over again, but better. Because it directly related to how I would teach my students about economics.
Most of the rap songs I used to listen to talk about money and wow money is everywhere. Chapter 13 opened my eyes to teaching economics. Prior to reading i understood that there was this bell thing that gets rung at wall street that has to do with the stock market and traders. I sorta understood that you can buy a stock and if it grows you make money, but if it crashes, you lose money-like the Great Depression. I also understood that money is different all over the world. The american dollar is not worth a dollar every where and that different countries have different values and styles of money. Chris showed me a Canadian bill the other night in class. It was impossible to rip and it was blue with a clear plastic like see through spot on the bill. It was awesome! I also understood that if you do not pay your bills you can lose a lot of you stuff or file for bankruptcy. Otherwise, I do not know much more in depth about economics.
From the chapter I learned a lot. First off, economics is based on resources that people want. "Scarcity is the term economists use to indicate the imbalance of wants and resources" (Sunal, p. 413). When there is something in high demand, the amount of availability affects the price of the demand. This reminded me of the gas shortage. When there was a high need for gas, but many places were out of gas due to the hurricane, a lot of gas places raised their prices to make money. I think this is called gouging. The text book also mentioned national Social Studies standards related to economics, voluntary national standards in economics, and national standards in personal finance. Until reading this chapter, I never knew there were direct standards on economics that could be used.
When I was creating my unit plan, I looked at the efolio's on economics units. I really enjoyed reading the blogs and seeing how students applied economics to various grades. I would definitely recommend checking out the economics units!
The text book cites that students can understand economics by creating and organizing graphs, tables and charts and using percentages and averages (Sunal, p. 428). As an educator, it could be easy to relate math topics of graphs, tables, percentages and averages to a economics project or economics topic. Economic decision-making skills could be taught to students via the decision-making chart presented in the text book, or through various activities. I would consider using a money system in my classroom. Students would get "Raich" money for working hard and doing the right thing in class. Then the students could "buy" things such as: food, candy, pencils, homework pass, extra credit etc... As a school-wide economics program, the students could have a bake sale, or each classroom could represent a different type of store. The students would get money from different teachers and could go to the different stores to buy stuff. The students could also be introduced to the game of monopoly to learn about buying and selling. This site offers some valuable links for teachers and kids to look at for economic ideas.
There are eight important goals in the economy that could be taught to students: economic freedom, economic equity, economic efficiency, economic security, full employment, price stability, and economic growth. Students should be taught without having the teacher's personal values infringing. Students will be able to make their own economic values based on reasoning.
Students of all ages and abilities are capable of learning economics. Because economics is everywhere it can be related and should be taught to all students. Some resources for teaching economics includes: field trips to businesses and the bank, having business people come in to talk to the students, visiting governmental agencies and videos. Making learning economics fun and exciting is beneficial for the students.
Resources: This site is the foundation for teaching economics: provides teacher resources, program ideas for students, similar to Bizworld.
This site provides links that explain various ways to teach economics and how to teach in various settings using a variety of strategies.
Another site with helpful teaching methods
Classroom ideas: economy classroom: this is a fun experimental way of teaching students about economics. It is a program that can be adapted into any classroom.
Ideas K-12: I really liked this site because it is original ideas listed by a teacher who uses the ideas in her own classroom. Some of the ideas include: "life on minimum wage" and "Captains of Industry". She explains how she used the various ideas so any teacher could easily try them in their classroom.
Each of these sites are valuable teacher and student tools that can be used in the classroom.
Economics is everywhere. It is highly valuable, valuable like a million bucks, to teach students about economics. I really enjoyed reading chapter 13, learning about economics and how to teach it.
Christie I love reading your blogs your so informative! You have great resources that I will use after this class ends!
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