Planning For Your Future
                                                                          By:  Shanna Meyer

Project at a Glance :

This project has students explore various financial decisions they will need to make as adults. Students are studying compound interest and logarithms.

Driving Question:

How can we create resources to help us make good financial decisions?             

Standards:

•  Laws of exponents with integer and rational exponents.
• Introduction to logarithms with base 10 and exponents.
• Numerical evaluation of logarithms with/without technology.
• Laws of logarithms/Change of base of a logarithm.
• Solving exponential equations, including using logarithms.
• Exponential/Logarithmic functions and their graphs.

Team / Culture Building:

• Creative DNA (start of 2nd semester) to form work groups (not necessarily project groups).​

• Chalk Talk - on 6 main areas of financial decisions:  Mortgages/Rent, College Planning/Loans,  Owning a car, boat, RV, etc., Investments/Retirement, Savings/Checking accounts, and Credit Cards.

Entry Event:

• Elevator Pitch
• Research people who have overcome adversity and “come into” wealth.
• Read article about winning the lottery and subsequently going broke. Why do some lottery winners go broke?
• What percentage of lottery winners go broke article?

Stakeholders:

• West Ottawa Counselors
• College Advisors
• New drivers
• Recent HS graduates
• Students of West Ottawa​​​

Empathy Building:

• Empathy Map- How will your client feel? think? hear? feel? say?
• Ask the question - Who are you solving this for?

Inquiry / Need to Knows:

•  Create a Character Profile of your client.
• Bring in experts in the various areas of finance.  Such as:  Mortgage Lender,  College Planning/Loans - College Advisors, Owning a Car/RV/Boat, etc. - Bank Lending agent, Investments/Retirement Accounts, Savings/Checking/Money Market Accounts - Banker, Credit Cards - Bank representative.

• Dive into the question - Where and how will they learn the math component?

Incubation:

• Idea Quota: generate a 100 solution ideas in 10 minutes​.

• NUF test 

Checking in:

•  Practice “pitch” to experts/admin/counseling staff - poke holes in the ideas.
• What is the product you are creating to share your ideas out?
• Tell it to a Toddler (Meet with SAIL class for an elementary audience to pitch to)
• Top 10 list
• Brainfiring - Re-writing the driving question
• SWOT analysis​

• Start Stop Continue
• Critical Friends

---

Solution Building:

• Dot Voting + Build it (prototyping)
• Elevator Pitch

Critique and Revision: 

•  Story boarding - start with financial decision… end with financial freedom. What are the steps to get there?
• Critical Friends
• Start Stop Continue
• SWOT Analysis​

Authentic Audience:

• Guidance Counselors
• College Advisors
• Successful Living classes

Final Presentation:

•  Build a prototype (trifold, poster, informational video)
• Pitch presentations to experts.

Click here for teacher's full plan.

​Reflection and Feedback:

• ​Rubric​

• SWOT analysis
• Financial Lesson Plan document
• Student Roadmap

Click here for the teacher's Journey through PBL on Padlet . . .

Meet the Educator:
Shanna Meyer teaches math and is an instructional coach at West Ottawa High School.

   "Getting students to be genuinely curious and interested in WHY we learn certain mathematical concepts has always been a struggle.  PBL gets the students out of their comfort zone, pushes them to do some creative thinking, and let's them see what math looks like outside of the classroom walls."