Lesson Plan for

Implementing NETS•S—
Template I
(More Directed Learning Activities)
Template with guiding questions
Teacher(s)
Name Dana Zhun

Position Gifted Education

School/District Cobb County School District

E-mail Dana.Zhun@cobbk12.org

Phone 678-842-5184

Grade Level(s) 4th and 5th

Content Area Economics

Timeline 10 weeks

Standards (What do you want students to know and be able to do? What knowledge, skills, and strategies do you
expect students to gain? Are there connections to other curriculum areas and subject area benchmarks? ) Please
put a summary of the standards you will be addressing rather than abbreviations and numbers that indicate which
standards were addressed.

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 Cobb County School District Gifted Standards-
Evaluative Thinking: Students will apply and adapt a variety of research strategies to determine
their team’s Stock Market Game transactions. And evaluate their effectiveness. The technology
used is the daily news thread from the team’s Stock Market Game page and a variety of finance
websites.
Divergent Thinking: Students will think creatively to plan, design, and produce a multi-media
presentation that will demonstrate their knowledge of the Stock Market Game. Presentation tools
used are iMovie, podcast, Sway, Prezi, and PowerPoint.
Relationships & Connections: Students will research topics that are relevant to The Stock Market
Game and make connections among various topics and disciplines. Research is stored in Office
365.
Communication: Students will effectively communicate to exchange ideas, feelings, information,
thoughts, and knowledge with others regarding The Stock Market Game. Edmodo groups provide
a forum to communicate outside of class.
Collaboration: Students will work toward a common goal in making decisions to increase the
team’s portfolio. The technology used is the game itself, and a variety of financial websites.
Respect For Others: Students will actively listen to team members and respect the input of others
regarding opinions when playing The Stock Market Game and during the creation of the multi-
media tool.
Self-Directed Learner: Students will establish work through short and long-term goals. The goals
are written on their daily agenda and completed the unit lessons.
Content Standards

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 Empowered Learner: Students leverage technology to guide them when making decisions during
The Stock Market Game and create their multi-media presentation.
Digital Citizen: Students recognize and adhere to the Cobb County School District’s digital
citizenship policies and procedures.
Knowledge Constructor: Students critically curate a variety of resources and digital tools to create
their multi-media presentation.
Creative Communicator: Students communicate clearly and express themselves creatively while
designing their multi-media presentation utilizing a variety of digital tools.
Global Communicator: Students use their Edmodo group to communicate and collaborate
amongst their local team. They also have access to view district and state team rankings
NETS*S Standards: including the school and teacher advisor name.

Overview (a short summary of the lesson or unit including assignment or expected or possible products)

This is a ten week unit of study on The Stock Market. By giving students an understanding of the stock market,
this unit prepares them to deal knowledgeably with an area of our society that has a vast effect on their lives.
The unit centers on a ten-week simulation called The Stock Market Game. This is an online simulation of the
global capital markets that engages the students in grades 4-12 of the world of economics, investing, and
personal finances. Every team was given $100,000.00 to virtually invest. Each week students were engaged
in stock market lessons that increased their stock market understanding. The students were divided up into
eleven teams and provided a login and password into the game and a team Edmodo group. This game
allowed them to research, buy, sell, or short sell stock and mutual funds. Each team page displayed every
transaction, a daily newsfeed, and displayed a graph of their virtual portfolio. The goal was to collaborate and
convince other team members to buy, sell, or short sell stocks or mutual funds. They were able to
communicate virtually through their Edmodo team group to discuss future transactions and daily stock market
progress. All along they had to adhere to national and state rules of the game for fear of a transaction not
going through or possible disqualification. Each week the team’s virtual portfolio was ranked in the district and
state. At the end of the simulation, the team with the highest total equity won! The culminating activity for each
team was to choose a multi-media presentation to demonstrate Stock Market Game knowledge and share the
team’s transactions and the justification of the transactions. The students created a multi-media rubric with
criteria for the presentations with an S (successful), P (progressing), D (did not meet standard) ratings. A
Kahoot game was created to serve as a pretest and posttest. As stated previously, Edmodo Team Groups
were created, so teams could communicate and collaborate outside of class since I only serve them once a
week. The Stock Market game provided a real-world multi-media simulation. Students noticed how current
events affect the stock market positively and negatively. The freedom of choosing what type of presentation
allowed students to express various learning styles (iMovies, podcast, PowerPoint, Sway).

Essential Questions (What essential question or learning are you addressing? What would students care or
want to know about the topic? What are some questions to get students thinking about the topic or generate
interest in the topic? Additionally, what questions can you ask students to help them focus on important aspects of
the topic? (Guiding questions) What background or prior knowledge will you expect students to bring to this topic
and build on?) Remember, essential questions are meant to guide the lesson by provoking inquiry. They should
not be answered with a simple “yes” or “no” and should have many acceptable answers.

How does the Stock Market affect our economy?

How can company research and daily news support investment decisions?
How can I demonstrate an understanding of The Stock Market game through a multi-media presentation?

Assessment (What will students do or produce to illustrate their learning? What can students do to generate new
knowledge? How will you assess how students are progressing (formative assessment)? How will you assess

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what they produce or do? How will you differentiate products?) You must attach copies of your assessment and/or
rubrics. Include these in your presentation as well.

A Kahoot game was given as a pretest and posttest. This game presented stock market vocabulary that was the topic
for weekly lesson applications. Weekly, students actively participated in lessons on economics and the connection to
the Stock Market. Students applied the lesson objectives through various activities relating to the topic as a formative
assessment. Students researched, collaborated, and communicated weekly regarding possible transactions. These
transactions had a positive, negative, or no effect toward their portfolio. This evaluative thinking resulted in further
research and even consulting local financial experts personally about buying or selling more of the same or different
stock. It should be noted no financial advisor was at liberty to offer advice; however, they were able to add clarity to
stock market knowledge (ex. compound value and diversification). Some did contact experts in the financial field
outside of class. Each person in the game had a role: director, researcher, coordinator, data entry, and reporter.
These differentiated roles are assigned by the students themselves. Each role was assessed by how productive the
week’s session ended behaviorally and academically. At the start of the session, the director assigns the team a
short-term goal with every member having a role. At the end of the day, each team member completes a self-
assessment on his/her agenda if the goal was or was not met. The teacher confirms with initials. Students created a
multi-media rubric for the culminating presentation. Each team had to decide on their multi-media presentation tool to
demonstrate knowledge of The Stock Market Game and their virtual portfolio.
Multi-media presentation rubric

Resources (How does technology support student learning? What digital tools, and resources—online student
tools, research sites, student handouts, tools, tutorials, templates, assessment rubrics, etc—help elucidate or
explain the content or allow students to interact with the content? What previous technology skills should students
have to complete this project?)

Technology supports student learning throughout this ten-week unit. The Kahoot game served as a
suspenseful hook that introduced stock market vocabulary. The Stock Market Game is an online
simulation. The students had their own login and a multitude of financial links and student digital
resources. Every digital resource needed to play the game was located on their homepage. The teacher
resource page provided digital links and application lesson activities for grades 4-12. The lessons were
ordered sequentially. The first lesson topic was called, What is a Company? Following lessons focused
on stocks, bonds, mutual funds, diversification, short selling, P/E ratio, BETA, and borrowing from the
margin. The technology skills needed to play this game was to purposely research financial links and
company profiles. Students had to analyze, and apply findings from research to justify every
transaction. All of the students learned this game as they played. They reflected weekly, adjusted their
sales, and some took more risks than others. Additional technology skills needed to be those required to
create a multi-media presentation of their choice.

Kahoot The Stock Market Game

The Stock Market Game
The Stock Market Game Teacher Resources
The Stock Market Game Trouble Shooting Resource
Stock Market lesson activities
Stock Market Multi-Media Presentation Rubric
Knowledge of technology skills and presentation skills related to their productivity tool (iMovie, podcast, Sway,
PowerPoint)
Finance links

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 Instructional Plan
Preparation (What student needs, interests, and prior learning provide a foundation for this lesson? How can
you find out if students have this foundation? What difficulties might students have?)

These students have a desire to learn and apply new learning that is relevant and real-world. The Stock Market Game provided
not only a real-world experience but the opportunity to collaborate and communicate effectively. Additionally, the fact that this
was a district and state-wide competition motivated all of the students. These teams were not only competing with other 4th
and 5th-grade students, but they were competing with 11th and 12th grade AP economics students. This provided learning with
purpose and excitement throughout the entire ten weeks. Each week, the first thing they would do when they entered our
room was run by our ranking board in class. Prior to this experience, no student had any previous stock market knowledge.
Knowing these are highly dominant personalities who are also competitive, I knew time had to be allocated for social skill
lessons. These students had to ‘see and hear’ how to speak with each other while when sharing their perspectives. They
needed to hear how to share and receive information when they disagree. The social skills needed to play this game effectively
were to collaborate, communicate, evaluate, and be a self-directed researcher. Every student needed to effectively express
his/her views about desired transactions. All students needed to respectfully listen and respond to team members and
collaboratively evaluate transaction decisions. Additionally, students needed to know how to navigate financial websites. This
navigation was modeled. They also needed to apply new research findings to determine financial decisions. These social
and academic skills are a work in progress, but this game offered the chance for tremendous growth. Students needed to
independently login to Edmodo, Office 365, and The Stock Market Game. All students needed to know how to submit a
transaction online. This required multiple logins and passwords. Once practiced, most students were able to log in, research,
save documents, and communicate effectively. Initially, my role guided and modeled each procedure (lesson applications,
research financial links, submit a transaction, effectively communicate and collaborate). After the procedures were modeled,
I served as a facilitator and differentiated when needed. Some students could comprehend and apply this knowledge by
purchasing a variety of stocks. Some teams did not, therefore, chose to hold their stock and/or stick to only buying from
companies that they considered safe and within the same sector.

Student teams needed to be confident and competent with the multi-media tool they chose. If only one or two students were
comfortable, they were responsible for teaching the other team members and assigning everyone an equal part. I was able
to facilitate the management of time given each session and assist with productive short-term goals for the session.

Management Describe the classroom management strategies will you use to manage your students and the use
of digital tools and resources. How and where will your students work? (Small groups, whole group, individuals,
classroom, lab, etc.) What strategies will you use to achieve equitable access to the Internet while completing this
lesson? Describe what technical issues might arise during the Internet lesson and explain how you will resolve or
troubleshoot them? Please note: Trouble-shooting should occur prior to implementing the lesson as well as
throughout the process. Be sure to indicate how you prepared for problems and work through the issues that
occurred as you implemented and even after the lesson was completed.

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It was advised by the trainers from The Stock Market Game to allow the students to choose their own teams. After much
deliberation with students, this was allowed, and I do feel it was the right decision. Other than small disagreements, each
team worked productively for the majority of the ten-week session. An agenda was provided each weekly session. This
outlined the lesson objective and provided a student self-assessment and self-reflection. The team decided on their short-
term goals relative to the lesson and the pace of The Stock Market Game. Every team member had an active role. This
required my facilitation weekly but did implement purposeful learning with a timeframe. Each student self-assessed after
each session and documented the next week’s goals based on what they had accomplished. This was modeled the first four
weeks, then students completed independently. This agenda provided procedures when researching links when and an
opportunity for me to write redirection anecdotal notes to parents when needed. Prior to sending teams to the Learning
Commons to play the Stock Market Game, I modeled how to login to the game, browsed provided resource links, and clicked
on the link of choice relating to my short-term goal. Together, we perused the information from financial links and had
collaborative conversations about our findings. This ‘I do it, we do it, you do it’ format continued for five of the ten weeks. It
required everyone to have their own laptop. These had to be reserved from either the 4 th or 5th-grade cart and a ‘charger
checker’ was assigned each week to confirm they were readily charged for our session. We reserved three backup laptops
just in case some did not work properly. Every week we had to use some of the backup laptops. The modeling of lesson
objectives proved very beneficial and was affirmed by the media specialist. She shared the majority of the teams were
productive when playing the game in the Learning Commons. The students were instructed to share their short-term goal
with her if needed. The behavior issues dealt with struggles of self-direction, collaboration, and communication. A couple of
my students battle in these areas, and it was predicted they would argue during collaborative Stock Market sessions. To
troubleshoot this predicament I arranged a time to preview the expectations privately and offer the opportunity for these
students to share how they could contribute. These conversations happened outside the classroom during recess or lunch.
Every time I reserved the time to preview the expectations, these students were productive. If I was not able to preview with
some students, I had to redirect these teams more often than not. Edmodo groups were available to those teams who could
schedule a time to communicate outside of class. The computer lab was offered before school for the students who did not
have equitable access to complete their portion of the research or work on the multi-media presentation outside of class.
Some teams did exchange phone numbers to call each other about certain changes of their portfolio and their presentation.
Some scheduled conference calls regarding future decisions. This simulation relied on internet access and accessibility of a
device. We had plenty of laptops; we just needed to schedule use and charge them ahead of time. Fortunately, we never
experienced an internet outage or an issue with The Stock Market Game site. The site provided a troubleshooting resource
if any problems occurred throughout the ten-week unit. If the internet were to have gone down, we would have revised our
daily schedule in hopes that the access would be restored that same day. If not, we would resume next week. I communicated
with the students once or twice using Edmodo. That would have been a week I would have encouraged teams to continue
to communicate and move forward using Edmodo as well.

Instructional Strategies and Learning Activities – Describe the research-based instructional strategies you will
use in this lesson. How will your learning environment support these activities? What is your role? What are the
students' roles in the lesson? How can you ensure higher order thinking at the analysis, evaluation, or
creativity levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy? How can the technology support your teaching? What authentic,
relevant, and meaningful learning activities and tasks will your students complete? How will they build knowledge
and skills? How will students use digital tools and resources to communicate and collaborate with each other
and others? How will you facilitate the collaboration?

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 There were several instructional strategies implemented throughout this unit. Kahoot is a game based platform
that was used as a hook that provided excitement about the subject area. This game exposed the students to stock
market vocabulary. Utilizing this approach to learning provided student engagement and competition. Two qualities
of learning that these students crave. This game set the tone for the unit and provided a preview of stock market
knowledge that intrigued all students. Due to the relevance of this topic, the students felt as if they were contributing
to their future financial freedom. Additionally, learning and competing with AP Economics students across the state
motivated every student involved. There were many Stock Market Game Kahoots already created across grade
levels 4-12. I chose one that was suited for 4th and 5th graders and matched the lesson concepts I had planned to
teach.

The learning environment was required one-two hours of scheduled time each week. Laptops had to be reserved and
the Learning Commons had to be reserved. Students had to understand each week’s short-term goal before the work
independent work session started.

The game offered differentiated roles for a team of four-five students. These roles were a reporter, researcher,
coordinator, director. The Director is in charge of the team. This student coordinates the efforts of the entire team
and ensures that activities are being completed successfully and everyone is treated fairly. The director is in charge
of deciding short-term goals and next steps to continue toward progress. Everyone on the team is responsible for
gathering and sharing research on potential investments and trades. The Lead Researcher is responsible for
coordinating all of his teammate’s findings and summarizing them. The Lead Portfolio Coordinator may not have much
to do at first but a week into the game, he will be busy monitoring his team’s portfolio transactions. He keeps a record
of all transactions made by his team to verify portfolio data being displayed is correct. He reviews his team portfolio’s
Transaction History, Account Summary, Account Holdings, and Gains & Losses reports for accuracy. The Lead Data
Entry Coordinator is responsible for the transactions entered into his team’s portfolio. He checks their portfolio’s
Pending Transactions and Transaction Notes sections for error messages. The Lead Reporter is in charge of compiling
his team members’ meeting notes. His job is to maintain a current journal of his team’s activities and the status of their
portfolio. All members had to analyze and evaluate on a weekly basis. My role was to facilitate the overall progress
of the team. The Stock Market Game provided ample resources. I used the teacher’s guide, a financial link resource,
and the troubleshooting resource.

As a culminating activity, the students chose a multi-media productivity tool for their presentation. They created a
student rubric to use as a guide for the contents of the presentation. This presentation offered each team the
opportunity to choose their tool and divide up responsibilities. They had to analyze five weeks of data, justify each
transaction, and create a presentation to share with the class. One of the criteria from the rubric evaluated if all
participants shared equal responsibility for the presentation.

Differentiation (How will you differentiate content and process to accommodate various learning styles and
abilities? How will you help students learn independently and with others? How will you provide extensions and
opportunities for enrichment? What assistive technologies will you need to provide?)

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 The differentiated Stock Market Game team roles provided a specific job for each team member. As mentioned
earlier, the roles were different but all were important. The roles were decided by the team members. Students
with diverse learning needs were strategically grouped with other students and their role supported their need.
In terms of differentiated content and process, some teams could grasp some of the stock market lessons at a
quicker pace. This provided those that did the opportunity to apply the concept to their choice of transactions.
Some teams did not grasp short selling; the teams that did successfully completed at least one short sell. The
teams that only felt comfortable selling stock decided to do so. Additionally, some teams understood
diversification more than others, and their portfolio demonstrated this evidence. All teams had the choices to sell
and buy mutual bonds, stock, and short sell. Not all teams took the risk of experimenting with a variety of options.
Assistive technology such as text to speech devices could be implemented to help with the researching process
and navigating the Stock Market Game homepage. Additionally annotation tools and display controls can assist
students with diverse learning needs.

The process of creating the multi-media product also demonstrated differentiation. Each team chose what tool
spoke to their learning style. Some teams preferred to create a podcast, some an iMovie, and some chose a
PowerPoint. The product matched not only their learning style but the process of creating the presentation
complimented their style too.

Throughout this process, there were opportunities provided to speak with experts in the field. This provided
enrichment beyond the weekly lessons. Additionally, there were 84 schools in our district who played this game.
Some of the students reached out to neighboring middle and high schools to learn their strategies. This added
excitement and also encouraged them to take charge of their learning.

Reflection (Will there be a closing event? Will students be asked to reflect upon their work? Will students be
asked to provide feedback on the assignment itself? What will be your process for answering the following
questions?
• Did students find the lesson meaningful and worth completing?
• In what ways was this lesson effective?
• What went well and why?
• What did not go well and why?
• How would you teach this lesson differently?)

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 Our closing event is presenting our presentations. There are eleven, so we plan to share over a two week period.
The teams who will be watching the presentation will complete an evaluation of each team using the rubric they
created. They will also be asked to provide one comment, not from the rubric that is either a glow, grow, or
wonder.

This is my first experience playing The Stock Market Game. I learned a great deal. I hope to play this again next
year if I have intermediate students. Now that I’m familiar with all of the resources, I now know how to select
which lessons and what lessons to abandon. Some lessons take longer based on the concept. This needs to
be carefully planned since the game is only ten weeks. The collaboration piece requires each teacher really
knowing the student’s behavioral strengths and weaknesses. Troubleshooting behavioral scenarios ahead of
time with the students could benefit the team. Effective communication also plays a major role in this game.
Students need to know how and be willing to actively listen, provide effective feedback, and what to do when
others do not agree with your opinion. These are life skills that 4 th and 5th graders are progressing through. If
I’m able to play this again, I would lay out all the lessons and assign a ranking order with the time involved. Next,
I would put a date on each lesson. Establishing this timeline would provide purposeful instruction with an end
goal in mind. I felt like I ran out of time this year. We did have quality lessons, but I do feel like my students
could have learned more. However, when viewing the presentations, quality knowledge outweighed quantity
knowledge. This is always reassuring. All of the teams progressed from beginning to end. One of our teams
placed fifth out of eighty-four! Not bad!

Closure: Anything else you would like to reflect upon regarding lessons learned and/or your experience with
implementing this lesson. What advice would you give others if they were to implement the lesson? Please
provide a quality reflection on your experience with this lesson and its implementation.
Other than what was previously written, I would arrange to have visitors come and meet with teams. I would
have the teams discuss their rationale behind certain stock purchases. Without influencing the teams, the
financial experts could provide pros and cons to their critical thinking. They could also suggest certain resources
for research and help the students notice how the daily current events have affected the market.

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