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 **Teachers know how to manage a classroom.** The teacher uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.

 Investments Basics Unit (Moodle) Economics
 * Evidence **

 Link to SMSA Moodle Economics Course []

The Investments Basics unit was developed to prepare students to participate in the Stock Market Simulation (SMS) sponsored by Economics Wisconsin. Students should understand the asset classes before starting the simulation. The SMS allows students to invest in stock and mutual funds. Balanced mutual funds are a mix of stocks, bonds, and money market accounts, meaning students need to know about several types of investments.
 * Rationale **

The students enrolled in the Economics course are high school sophomores, juniors, and seniors. Investments Basics is made up of five subunits: Saving versus Investing, Investment Terminology, Securities and the Markets, Planning for Your Future, and Creating Your Portfolio. Each subunit has its own step-by-step Sequence of Activities, a list of assignments, and a list of resources specific to that subunit.  The //Investment Terminology// and //Securities and the Markets// subunits were taught as an online hybrid unit. Some of the other material (i.e.—inflation) will be taught in a later unit of the Economics course.

When creating the Investments Basics unit, it was important to differentiate the activities to engage students and give them opportunities for collaboration. Varying the delivery of the material shares ownership of learning between the students and the teacher. The presentation has notes and links to websites for reinforcement. There are websites for information and copies of articles from curriculum resources. Some assignments are to be completed individually while others are a collaborative effort. In addition, there are assignments, quizzes, and discussions that are submitted or held online. Before this lesson I included only small portions of a lesson online. This lesson is complete and should be easy to follow for a student who is absent from class.

This unit challenged me to give up some of the control of the pace of this unit. All of the materials I wanted students to complete were online and always available. They could see the sequence of the unit. Students could anticipate a quiz because they could see when it was scheduled. Once a terminology foundation was built, students applied that information toward selecting sound securities. Each student had the opportunity to collect information about the stocks and mutual funds they thought had potential for earning high returns and then collaborated with their investment club members to select which to invest in and how much money. A competition between the investment clubs in the class and those across the state kept them motivated to find potentially profitable investments.

The teacher gave production expectations but students had to make it work with their fellow group members. Each group had to write ten stock profile reports that were divided up among the members. One student had to take the lead to organize the profiles. For two of the groups, one student didn’t meet the deadline of getting a report finished. One group leader did an extra report to cover for her teammate; the other group took a deduction for a late assignment.
 * KSD **
 * 5.K.3 **The teacher knows how to help people work productively and cooperatively with each other in complex social settings.

Students form investment clubs to participate in the Stock Market Simulation. Each member of the club researches stocks and mutual funds then reports back to the group about them. The group decides which securities it wants to put in its portfolio and how much. Groups have to agree on the security and how much. The goal is to make money and make more money than other investment clubs. Students will have to do this in real life when they try to reach financial goals.
 * 5.S.2 **<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13px;">The teacher engages students in individual and cooperative learning activities to develop motivation to achieve, by (for example) relating lessons to students’ personal interests, allowing students to have choices in their learning, and leading students to ask questions and pursue problems that are meaningful to them.

<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13px;">For the investment clubs, students chose group members rather than having the teacher assign students into groups. This gives students responsibility to each other and themselves to be productive members of a group.
 * <span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13px;">5.D.3 **<span style="color: #548dd4; font-family: "arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 13px;">The teacher values the role of students in promoting each other’s learning and recognizes the importance of peer relationships in establishing a climate for learning.