Products and Performances
The “You Can’t Have Your Cake And Eat It Too" Project Based Learning project will encompass four major parts:
Mini-lessons on Financial Literacy teaching key economic concepts and vocabulary (this is considered front-loading financial literacy information using activities to give students content needed to explore, question, and form opinions needed to make connections).
Inquiry and Research - Using our driving question of "Is Saving Money Important For Our Future?", students will form wonder questions using their newly gained knowledge of financial literacy. The questions student form individually, will be sorted (maybe revised) to become their choices of inquiry. This will then become their formed group to further their research on the topic. Appropriate citing and notetaking of material will be directly taught during this time. The information they find will aid in their creating of the final project.
Culminating Activity -In the culminating project, the final activity will be their group’s public service announcement that will educate their audience on the driving question. All project activities will encompass the provided knowledge that the students will need to present their PSAs to authentic audiences. Since the PSAs will be recorded, that will provide access to share them with any audience. The survey attached to the PSA will help the children decide if their information was heard. Hopefully, this can start a movement on financial literacy within our school and the community. Our dedicated day with annual support from JA (Junior Achievement) is much appreciated, but additional standards need taught beyond one day. The reflections, activities and research paper will need to be completed for the final projects to have content value.
Mini-lessons on Financial Literacy teaching key economic concepts and vocabulary (this is considered front-loading financial literacy information using activities to give students content needed to explore, question, and form opinions needed to make connections).
Inquiry and Research - Using our driving question of "Is Saving Money Important For Our Future?", students will form wonder questions using their newly gained knowledge of financial literacy. The questions student form individually, will be sorted (maybe revised) to become their choices of inquiry. This will then become their formed group to further their research on the topic. Appropriate citing and notetaking of material will be directly taught during this time. The information they find will aid in their creating of the final project.
Culminating Activity -In the culminating project, the final activity will be their group’s public service announcement that will educate their audience on the driving question. All project activities will encompass the provided knowledge that the students will need to present their PSAs to authentic audiences. Since the PSAs will be recorded, that will provide access to share them with any audience. The survey attached to the PSA will help the children decide if their information was heard. Hopefully, this can start a movement on financial literacy within our school and the community. Our dedicated day with annual support from JA (Junior Achievement) is much appreciated, but additional standards need taught beyond one day. The reflections, activities and research paper will need to be completed for the final projects to have content value.
Reflection Methods
- Journal/Learning Log/Kidblog
- Kagan Structures like: Think-Pair-Share -This type of activity first asks students to consider a question on their own, and then provides an opportunity for students to discuss it in pairs, and finally together with the whole class. The success of these activities depend on the nature of the questions posed. This activity works ideally with questions to encourage deeper thinking, problem-solving, and/or critical analysis. The group discussions are critical as they allow students to articulate their thought processes.The procedure is as follows:
- Pose a question, usually by writing it on the board or projecting it.
- Have students consider the question on their own (1 – 2 min).
- Then allow the students form groups of 2-3 people.
- Next, have students discuss the question with their partner and share their ideas and/or contrasting opinions (3 min).
- Re-group as a whole class and solicit responses from some or all of the pairs (3 min).
- Learning From Student Work
- Whole-Class Discussion
- Mini-lessons
- Surveys
- Focus Group
- Fishbowl Discussion
- Group Evaluation of Teamwork
- List of Reflection Questions