Financial Literacy Program Description:



Quincy Public Schools’ Financial Literacy Program Description:

The urgency of financial education in our state has been highlighted by the current economy and the need to equip students with the knowledge and skills needed to become self-supporting and to enable them to make critical decisions regarding personal finances.

After much research and mapping of Quincy’s current financial literacy education offerings, we found there to be a need amongst our special populations, students who are not able to take advantage of the courses offered in the regular education environment. Our plan is to design, develop, and implement a financial literacy curriculum to be used by these special populations: Gaining Opportunities for Acquiring Learning Skills (GOALS), Positive Academic and Social Success Program (PASS), Quincy Teen Mothers Program (QTMP), Quincy Evening High School (QEHS) and English Language Learners Program (ELL).

In addition to the special populations our goal is to also use the developed curriculum with the current Career and Technical Education Business Technology Program. Although the students enrolled in Business Technology are exposed to the course offerings in the regular educational environment, they have chosen to take these elective classes that include basic business curriculum. Business Technology is a Chapter 74 major at Quincy High School that includes curriculum in various business units including: management, office skills, entrepreneurship, customer service, accounting for a service business, and computer skills. It is our intent to bring the developed curriculum into this course of study in order to meet the upcoming standards in Business Technology, currently in draft form, that include a comprehensive unit on financial literacy.

Quincy’s Financial Literacy Pilot Program Components will contain a minimum of 25 hours of classroom/online instruction and include an online simulation, teacher led lesson plans and guest speakers from Quincy Public Schools community business partners.

The Virtual Business-Personal Finance Program is visual computer simulation that lets students learn and practice key personal financial skills they’ll need to succeed in life. Virtual Business-Personal Finance will present students with challenges around bank accounts, credit and debit cards, bills, credit score, taxes, insurance, investing, and more.

The Virtual Business-Personal Finance Program will be supplemented by teacher led engaging and innovative project-based lessons and activities.

Guest speakers from our community business partners including Quincy Credit Union and Quincy College will complement the curriculum through application of students’ knowledge and skills. These guests will discuss the importance of financial literacy, introduce students to various careers in their fields, and help students gain hands on experience.

Students participating in Quincy’s Financial Literacy Pilot program will be required to design and develop a final portfolio or presentation utilizing technology.

Quincy’s Financial Literacy Pilot Program will provide a strong foundation for financially literate students incorporating the following National Standards for Financial Literacy: Earning Income, Buying Goods and Services, Saving, Using Credit, Financial Investing, Protecting and Insuring.

Quincy Public Schools’ Financial Literacy Program Syllabus

Desired Results

Established Goal: To educate students to be fiscally responsible consumers

National Standards:

Financial Responsibility and Decision Making

Income and Careers

Planning and Money Management

Credit and Debt

Risk Management and Insurance

Saving and Investing

Massachusetts Common Core:

Mathematics: Statistics and Probability, Number and Quantity, Modeling

English Language Arts: Speaking and Listening, Language: Vocabulary and Use

QHS School-wide Learning Expectations

Students will:

Think critically and creatively.

Work independently and collaboratively

Share knowledge effectively

QHS School-wide Social Expectations

Students will:

Assume responsibility for their decisions and conduct.

Respect the rights of others and exercise life skills that promote personal growth.

NQHS School-Wide Learning Expectations

Students will:

Think critically

Communicate effectively

Collaborate successfully

Utilize technology

NQHS School-Wide Social Expectations

Students will:

Embrace responsibility

Demonstrate respect

Student Expectations

Students will achieve financial competence through the practices of:

Making sense of problems, persevering in solving them and using mathematics to model real-world situations.

Reasoning abstractly and quantitatively, with attention to precision, structure and repeated processes.

Communicating results as well as constructing viable supporting arguments and critiquing the reasoning of others.

Using appropriate tools strategically.

Making mathematical connections, both within the discipline and across disciplines.

Students will continue their acquisition of 21st century mathematical learning within the strands of:

Number sense and operations

Data analysis, statistics and probabilities

Standards Addressed:

|Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks |Strands |

|Business Technology |2.D.02.01-2.D.03.05; 2.E.01.01-2.E.03.05 |

|History and Social Science |E.1.1-E.1.13; E.1.10; E.6.1; E.6.3; E.6.5; E.6.6-E.6.7 |

|English Language Arts |Speaking and Listening Standards: Grades 9-12-Comprehension and |

| |Collaboration; Presentation of Knowledge of Ideas |

|Technology Literacy Standards and Expectations-Grades 9-12 |1.1; 1.18; 1.19; 1.20; 1.25; 1.32; 1.33; 3.1, 3.5; |

|Mathematics |N-RN.1, N-Q.1, F-IF.2, F-IF.2.b, F-IF.7.e, F-IF.8.b, A-SSE.1.b., |

| |A-SSE.3.c |

|National Standards for Financial Literacy |I, II, III, IV, V, VI |

Course Expectations for the Financial Literacy Program:

Choosing Financial Goals

Time Management and Health

Finding a Job

Budgeting and Saving

Finding an Apartment

Buying a Car

Shopping

Choosing and Balancing a Checking Account

Getting a Credit Card

Fixing Your Credit

Education and Advancement

Using Online Banking

Paying Your Taxes

Introduction to Investing

Risk Vs. Return

Diversification

Investing for Retirement

Buying a Home

Insurance

Enduring Understandings:

Students will be able to explain short and long-term goals and be able to discuss and show the importance of prioritizing and the effects one’s goals may have on others. Student will learn how their goals affect their future through the Course Expectations items listed above. Through evaluation of the above the student will be able to make adjustments and use the information to create a financial plan for their future.

Essential Questions: How does the global economy work and what is the individual’s role in that economy? How does the consumer best manage their finances and make the best possible financial decisions? How does the student make the best choices in regards to their finances?

Knowledge and Skills:

1. Students will learn about long-term goals as those that mu take years to accomplish and short-term goals as ones to achieve in a year or two. The concept of reaching goals by using shorter-term steps in situations that are short in duration

2. Students will learn how to use time management and health skills, shopping, career exploration, education and advancement, and buying a home skills in order to be able to make informed decisions about their financial literacy habits.

3. Students will learn how to make informed decisions about spending and saving habits, checking accounts, credit, online banking, taxes, investments and insurance. These informed decisions will build habits and will help the student see patterns and make specific plans for changes, based on actual data.

3. Students will learn that financial planning is filled with trade-offs. Subjective and/or personal ideas or beliefs both take a roll in decision making. After having learned about goals and tracking income and expenses, student can create a financial plan in order to analyze their habits and make future financial decisions.

4. Students will learn that financial planning is not rigid and restrictive but must be changeable and flexible. Students will learn to adhere to a financial plan but note that there must be flexibility within that plan. This in turn will teach them that long-term goals do change and that is not necessarily a bad thing.

Assessment Evidence

Diagnostic assessment:

Check for previous understanding using large group discussion to review the key concepts of the world economy and an individual’s part in it and how a consumer/business makes the best possible financial decisions.

Performance Tasks:

Students will complete simulations, worksheets, case studies and a financial using technology.

Formative Assessments:

Student summaries of previous learning (beginning of class)

Guided practice exercises and problems

Differentiated additional problems in class (more practice or extension, as needed)

Student summaries of current learning (end of class)

Check your understanding exercises (See curriculum unit/handouts/simulation exercises/case studies)

Additional support: teacher available outside of class time for one-on-one tutoring, small group tutoring, supervising peer coaching

Summative Assessments:

Pre- and Post- Unit Tests

Technology Based Capstone Project

................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download