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Afterschool Lesson Plan Database

Lesson Plan

This lesson was excerpted from the Afterschool Training Toolkit under the promising practice: Finding Math

Description:

This sample lesson illustrates how life skills can be incorporated into a mathematical situation in which students analyze a variety of scenarios involving credit cards and the financial decisions that can lead to debt. Students use computational and problem solving skills to analyze data, and algebra skills to represent the information they generate. Students are also encouraged to discuss their work and report their findings to the class.

Learning Goals:

• Communicate about mathematics (e.g., use mathematical language, compare their own thinking with other student thinking)
• Use strategies to understand new math content
• Develop efficient solution methods
• Extend solution methods to other problems
• Explain relationships among different representations of problems
• Use a variety of computation procedures to find answers
• Use formulas to model and solve real-world problems
• Solve problems involving rate
• Select and use the best method of representing and describing a set of data
• Use a variety of models to represent patterns, and relationships

Materials:

• PDF - Teacher's Guide (PDF)
• PDF - Student Worksheet (PDF)
• Pencils
• Paper (graphing and other as needed)
• Calculators available

Preparation:

• Print out accompanying PDFs and familiarize yourself with the scenarios students will be involved with. If necessary, make time to share the lesson with a day time mathematics instructor to converse about the standards and mathematics involved.
• Organize students in small groups that will allow them complimentary discussion partners if necessary
• Make sure all materials are available for all students
• Prepare a brief introduction of the scenarios and problems the students will be involved with and how they are directly related to life outside of school. Clarifying the task and peaking students interest in the problem are the goals of this discussion.

What to Do:

• Give a brief introduction of the scenarios and problems and how they are directly related to life outside of school. Clarifying the task and peaking students interest in the problem are the goals of this discussion.
  • An example question to start this discussion is:
    How many of you plan to use credit cards when you are 18 and how many of you have a plan for staying debt free? (Allow a short discussion to lead in to your introduction)
• Ask students to begin reading through the scenario of Mr. Opportunist. Allow students to ask clarifying questions before beginning and provide an example of how students might move forward if they get stuck. You may decide that students can refer to each other for clarification.
• Circulate and stay involved while students work. Ask questions that generate student thinking while attempting not to give away answers or lead students down a particular line of thinking.
  • For example, you can ask students, "How did you arrive at that answer?" or "What is one way you can get this solution from this number?" Other possible guiding questions include:
    • What patterns do you see?
    • How might you generalize this pattern?
    • In what ways might you convey this information in a graph?
    • I see that you are stuck. Can you explain how you got here? What might be a next step?
    • Be prepared for some students to move forward to the extensions and/or save the extensions for another day. You may decide that some students can take the extensions home to work on if they have a desire to do so.
    • If there is not enough time for students to prepare reports and discuss what they have learned with the class, save this portion of the activity for another day. Do not exclude it as it is ultimately the most important aspect of the lesson. Students need to affirm what they have learned.
    • If time allows, you might lead a class discussion on credit myths and misconceptions and/or the best way to handle a credit card.

Evaluate (Outcomes to look for):

• All students are engaged and actively seeking answers
• Students are communicating effectively about mathematics (e.g., using mathematical language, comparing their own thinking with other student thinking, gaining clarification from each other)
• Students are using strategies effectively
• Students are explaining relationships among different representations of problems
• Students are using a variety of computation procedures to find answers
• Students are using formulas to represent, generalize, and solve real-world problems (during extension)
• Students are effectively representing and describing data
• Students are using a variety of models to represent patterns and relationships

Standards:
Click this link to see additional learning goals, grade-level benchmarks, and standards covered in this lesson.