TITLE: Keeping A Personal Budget
TASK DEVELOPER: Mr. Richard Glueck
CONTENT AREA AND GRADE: Personal Finance - Grades 9-12
SCOPE AND SEQUENCE: This is an initial lesson
SCHOOL: John F. Kennedy High School

STANDARDS:

CONSUMER, FAMILY, AND LIFE SKILLS - GRADES 9-12

STANDARD 9.2 (CONSUMER, FAMILY, AND LIFE SKILLS): All students will demonstrate critical life skills in order to be functional members of society.

Strand E. Consumer and Personal Finance: Building upon the knowledge and skills gained in the previous grades, by the end of Grade 12 students will:

4. Prepare and use skills for budget preparation, making predictions about income and expenditures, income tax preparation, and adjusting spending or expectations based on analysis.

MATHEMATICAL PROCESSES - K-12

STANDARD 4.5 MATHEMATICAL PROCESSES: All students will use mathematical processes of problem solving, communication, connections, reasoning, representations, and technology to solve problems and communicate mathematical ideas.

Strand C. Connections: At each grade level, with respect to content appropriate for that grade level, students will:

4. Apply mathematics in practical situations and in other disciplines.

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PERFORMANCES:
  • The students will write a personal budget.

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SMARTSKILLS:

Level I: Acquiring Data - Data students will acquire in this standards-based task:

Students will be able to define: Budget, Receipts, Payments, Estimating

Level II: Visualizing Information - Data from Level I that are visualized as information in this standards-based task:

Students will be able to organize their personal finances in order to begin the process of developing a personal budget.

Level III: Applying Knowledge - Visualized information from Level II that is applied knowledge in this standards-based task:

Based on their personal budget, students will be able to make decisions regarding where they will cut back spending to improve their financial position.

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PREFERENCES:

Student Involvement - The students will complete the task individually

Instruction - Activities will be organized and delivered as a teacher-facilitated set of hands-on activities

Special Education Accommodations - Students with special needs will require the following electronic devices:

  • Calculator

Special Education Accommodations - Students with special needs will require the following presentation of information:

  • Extra processing and response time

Use of Resources - The school will provide:

  • classroom materials such as pencil, paper, notebooks
  • classroom time to complete the task

Assessment of Student Work - The student's teacher will be involved in assessing student work generated to complete the task:

Assessment of Student Work - The following forms of assessment will be used to determine progress and results:

  • Performance assessment

Reporting Results - The assessment results will be reported:

  • as a score point on a rubric

Timeline - The estimated time needed to plan, teach, and score this task is

  • One to three class periods

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ACTIVITIES:

20-60-20 Teaching Model

Segment One: Mini-Lesson - Estimated Time: 20% of allocated time

During this segment of the lesson:

  1. Teacher will explain that it is very important for people to keep track of their money. Keeping tracking of money coming in  (income) and money going out (expenses) helps you see where your money is being spent and how it is being saved. Keeping a budget, in writing, helps provide a visual picture of your financial status.

  2. I will ask the students if they already have a system in place to keep track of their money. I will ask the students why they feel it is important to keep track of their money. These questions will provide impetus for the lesson.

  3. Teacher will provide the students will sample budgets to show how they are set up, how to read them, and how to interpret them to help make better financial decisions.

Technology for this segment: Overhead projector
Materials for this segment: Handouts with the key vocabulary terms.

Segment Two: Practice - Estimated Time: 60% of allocated time

Describe for this segment of the lesson how you will:

  1. Prior knowledge will be assessed when the students are given the words - budget, estimating, payments, and expenses. Students will be asked to write down what they believe the words mean. From there, teacher will further develop the lesson by giving the children  the textbook definitions.

  2. Students will be advised that after the lesson is introduced and modeled, they will have to develop a list of their income and expenses. The students will then use the list to put their own budget together.

  3. Teacher will take a sample budget and break it down piece by piece. Teacher will start by identifying what income is and the different possible forms of income a student may have. Teacher will then do the same for expenses. Upon completion, teacher will model how to create the budget. After the lesson is modeled, the students will receive a pre-formatted form with a blank budget. The students task will be to fill in the budget with their own figures. Income should equal expenses. It will be noted to the students that if they are spending less than they are bringing in, the excess money they have available should be put into savings. That will make income = savings.

Technology for this segment: Overhead projector
Materials for this segment: Workbook and Textbook
Student product or performance for this segment: A completed personal budget
Scoring tool for this segment: A rubric will be used to score the task.

Segment Three: Feedback - Estimated Time 20% of allocated time

Describe for this segment of the lesson how you will:

  1. Teacher will collect each student's budget and review for accuracy.
  2. Teacher will provide both written and verbal feedback to each student.

Source: Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical Senior High School, Baltimore, MD
http://www.learningfront.com/mergenthaler/pages/teaching.html

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SCORING:

New Jersey High School Proficiency Test (HSPT)

Holistic Scoring Guide for Mathematics Open-Ended Items (Generic Rubric)
3-Point Response

The response shows complete understanding of the problem's essential mathematical concepts. The student executes procedures completely and gives relevant responses to all parts of the task. The response contains few minor errors, if any. The response contains a clear, effective explanation detailing how the problem was solved so that the reader does not need to infer how and why decisions were made.
2-Point Response

The response shows nearly complete understanding of the problem's essential mathematical concepts. The student executes nearly all procedures and gives relevant responses to most parts of the task. The response may have minor errors. The explanation detailing how the problem was solved may not be clear, causing the reader to make some inferences.
1-Point Response

The response shows limited understanding of the problem's essential mathematical concepts. The response and procedures may be incomplete and/or may contain major errors. An incomplete explanation of how the problem was solved may contribute to questions as to how and why decisions were made.
0-Point Response The response shows insufficient understanding of the problem's essential mathematical concepts. Their may be no explanation of the solution or the reader may not be able to understand the explanation. The reader may not be able to understand how and why decisions were made.
Source: New Jersey State Department of Education


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RESULTS:

Organize: I will use the following chart to display student data for each time that I assess and score the same learning standard(s):

Data-Driven Results Disaggregated by Gender and All Students
Keeping A Personal Budget
Students
Scoring Results
Last Name and First Name
Male
Female
All Students
1. Student 1
3
3
2. Student 2
1
1
3. Student 3
3
3
4. Student 4
2
2
5. Student 5
2
2
6. Student 6
2
2
7. Student 7
3
3
8. Student 8
1
1
9. Student 9.
2
2
10. Student 10.
3
3
11. Student 11 1   1
12. Student 12   2 2
13. Student 13 3   3
14. Student 14 3   3
15. Student 15   1 1
16. Student 16   2 2
# Of students at the Advanced Performance Level
4
2
6
# Of students at the Proficient Performance Level
2
4
6
# Of students at the Basic Performance Level 2 2 4
% of Students equal to or greater than the Proficient Level (Total # of students at the proficient and advanced levels divided by the total number of students) 75 75 75
% Distance above or below school Annual Measurable Objective (AMO)     25


Analyze: I will examine the data in the chart to look for trends, contributing factors, and implications of student performance over a series of assessments of the same learning standard.

Trends: As it turned out, both the Boys and Girls scored at 75% proficient or advanced proficient. The students that did not score at the proficient level were special education students. The students that were not proficient and were having problems with the lesson from the beginning were subsequently teamed up with students who had a firm grasp of the situation

Reflect: This lesson was very important because personal budgeting is a skill that these students will use for the rest of their lives. The students interests were peaked when they were asked think about their sources of income. Also, the students were amazed when they stopped to think about how much money they spend. A lot of the students didn't realize the spend more money than they bring in. As a result, a lot of students made a conscious effort to look at the areas in their life were they could  cut back on spending and thus save more.

While I initially had the students work individually, this is a good lesson to have students work in groups. While each person is unique and thus will have their own budget, the procedures will be the same. Thus, the students who don't mind sharing what their spending habits are can help others with ideas about where to spend and save money.

Summarize: I took one class period to introduce the lesson and go over examples of personal budgets. The first of three class periods proved very valuable because a lot of students began asking me about my spending and saving habits. This opened the door for me to give real world examples and explain why I chose to spend and save money in the manner that I do. That set the stage for the next two class periods. The second class period had the students list their own income and expenses. In this period, we discussed where each of the students could cut back on spending in hopes of saving more money. As I stated earlier, income must equal expenses. I wanted to make sure that the students included the money they were saving as an expense. By including savings as an expense, that will help make income and expenses balance out. If a students Income and expenses were equal, but had no savings figured into the expenses, the student was spending too much.

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