An Interdisciplinary Approach to Teaching the Causes and Consequences of Unemployment

In this teaching exercise students will extend the conventional economic framework for analyzing the causes and consequences of unemployment to incorporate insight from psychologists and sociologists. Thus, the exercise adopts the hierarchical approach to interdisciplinary learning. Students will explore theories from psychologists and sociologists that link joblessness to emotional well-being and discover how economists then connect the psychological status of a nation's workforce to their productivity. These linkages are then built into standard economic models for analyzing aggregate output and prices (i.e., aggregate supply aggregate demand) and for employment determination (i.e., marginal productivity theory of labor) to obtain a richer more complete understanding of the impact of a recession. The analysis reveals that recessions are expected to be deeper and of greater duration when an interdisciplinary analysis is conducted. Moreover, alternative (i.e., non-neoclassical) paradigms within the discipline of economics for explaining joblessness are briefly described and brought into the discussion. Finally, policy options for eliminating a recession are re-considered given the interdisciplinary framework offered in this exercise.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Art Goldsmith

Dictionary of Economics Videos: Stagflation

This video is 2 minutes long and will define stagflation for students. It will enforce the standard EPF. 5 (b)

Material Type: Lecture

It's Your Paycheck Curriculum Unit

It's Your Paycheck! is designed for use in high school personal finance classes. The curriculum contains three sections: "Know Your Dough," "KaChing!" and "All About Credit." The lessons in each of these sections employ various teaching strategies to engage students so that they have opportunities to apply the concepts being taught. Each lesson includes black-line masters of the handouts and visuals needed to teach the lesson.

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan

Time Log Workbook (Template)

This Google Sheet was created to support a Time Management module in a Strategies for College Success course. The plan is for the instructor to share one copy of the Sheet with each student for an assignment lasting 2 or 3 weeks. Students estimate the time they spend each week on common daily tasks, such as sleeping, working, or attending class. Space is provided for students to enter up to three custom tasks. After estimating how they spend time, students track their time spent for a full week. Through the magic of spreadsheet formulas, time spent per task is color-coded to help visualize large and small blocks of time. Time for the week is tallied on the summary tab, where a warning message appears if less than 24 hours are logged for any given day. After comparing their estimated hours to their actual recorded hours, students propose changes they can make in how they spend their time to increase their scholastic success. A tab with five questions is included for student reflection. Instructions for how to use the Sheet are provided for faculty on the Info & LIcense tab. Cell formulas are editable only by the document owner; students cannot accidentally overwrite. Colors are selected from a palette known to be perceivable by people with most forms of colorblindness. Author contact information is available on the Info and License tab.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Homework/Assignment

Author: Cheryl Colan

Cards, Cars, and Currency Curriculum Unit

Cards, Cars and Currency is a curriculum unit that challenges students to become involved in three specific areas of personal finance: credit cards, debit cards and purchasing a car.

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan

Adjusting for Inflation

As inflation raises the overall price level in an economy, the purchasing power of the dollar decreases and both borrowing and lending costs increase. The January 2023 issue of Page One Economics® discusses how price indexes can be used to transform nominal wages and interest rates into real, or inflation-adjusted, values.

Material Type: Lesson, Reading

Author: Diego Mendez-Carbajo

Electronic Money

Electronic money is money which exists only in banking computer systems and is not held in any physical form. In the United States, only a small fraction of the exists in physical form. The need for physical currency has declined as more and more citizens use electronic alternatives to physical currency.

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Author: Geeta Kesarkar

Mutual Benefit - No-Frills Money Skills Video Series, Episode 5

In the fifth episode of the No-Frills Money Skills Video Series, "Mutual Benefit," students learn what investment companies are and how mutual funds work. The video shows the difference between savings and investing and the importance of understanding risk versus reward.

Material Type: Lecture

Teaching About Money, Spending, and Inflation Using a Classroom Inflation Auction

Students participate in two auctions: The goods in each auction are identical, but the amount of money given to students increases from the first to the second auction. Students learn that if spending grows at a faster rate than the economy’s ability to produce goods and services, inflation will result. This is inflation caused by “too much spending chasing too few goods.”

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson

Author: Scott Wolla

Get Into Stocks - No-Frills Money Skills Video Series, Episode 3

Get Into Stocks is the third video in the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis series, No-Frills Money Skills. Through the story of a local ice-cream cart owner trying to expand her business, students learn about the process by which companies become publicly owned and traded by issuing stock. Students learn key terms, such as capital gains and dividends, and discover how the prices of stocks are affected by how successful a company is in its respective industry.

Material Type: Lecture

Standard of deferred payment and legal tender

A fourth function of money is that anytime you take on a debt, when the time comes to repay it, you can use money. This is highly related to the idea of "legal tender", which you can also learn about in this video. Created by Grant Sanderson.

Material Type: Lesson

Author: Grant Sanderson

Let's go to the Bank Part 2,English Template, Intermediate Mid

In this lab, students will continue to practice using terms and vocabulary regarding banking. They will build off of the vocabulary learned in the previous lab, such as banks, banking, money saving and transactions.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Amber Hoye, Camille Daw, Mimi Fahnstrom

Let's go to the Bank Part 1, English Template Intermediate Mid

In this lab, students will continue to practice using terms and vocabulary regarding banking. They will build off of the vocabulary learned in the previous lab, such as banks, banking, money saving and transactions.

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Authors: Amber Hoye, Camille Daw, Mimi Fahnstrom

Making Cents: Financial Literacy Videos for Young Learners

With this video series, teach teens and pre-teens how to manage their money and foster an entrepreneurial spirit. Visit PBS Learning Media site to download a handout, discussion questions, and view alignment to additional Washington learning standards. Permitted use from PBS Learning: Stream, Download and Share

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: KSPS Public Television

Intro to the Bond Markets (Video)

In this 6 minute video, students will be introduced to what bonds are and why they are sold and how they help raise money. This will aid in the mastery of standard EPF. 18

Material Type: Lecture

Personal Finance - Budgeting Tools

This lesson will help students explore different budgeting tools that will identify where their income is coming from and recognize the different categories they will need to budget their expenses to manage their money wisely.

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Lesson, Lesson Plan

Author: Angie Palmer

INTRODUCTORY LESSON TO PERSONAL FINANCE

 What is Personal Finance?  A great question to start off a lesson on managing and maintaining money.  Have each student write down their idea of what they think Personal Finance means.  You will be surprised at the different answers and ideas that students will come up with.  Have students share some of their thoughts they may have on the subject of personal finance and how it determines their future success.  High School students need a good understanding on how to management their money because a lot of these students have started to work part time jobs. 

Material Type: Homework/Assignment

Author: Lisa Osborn

Market Basket

Students will compare the price of goods from one time period to another and through discussion and role play interpret the effects of inflation on consumers. They will categorize goods and services according to the eight major groups of the consumer price index and be able to determine the difference between the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and the core CPI.

Material Type: Lesson, Lesson Plan

Author: Jeannette Bennett

Spreadsheet - Production Test

The goal of this lesson is for students to test concepts they have already worked with; creating formulas and functions in a worksheet, and formatting for money. The assessment is a production work where students look at the candy bar sales from each class. It requires them to put in functions like minimum, maximum, totals, and figure revenue.  There is also an additional activity for review of revenue, formatting currency, and totals prior to the production test, if needed. 

Material Type: Activity/Lab, Assessment, Lesson Plan

Author: Jamie Taylor

Unit Review for the 1st Unit of Personal Finance

This lesson plan can be used as a review for the first unit test. The product created by the students (either a PowerPoint or poster) can be graded and/or used as review material for the 1st unit test (cheat-poster maybe?). 

Material Type: Activity/Lab

Author: Ali Alsaadi