In this lesson on opportunity costs and trade-offs, I had to develop a lesson plan using web resources and integrating social studies with another content area. After much research on the web, I found two web lessons to incorporate into my next lesson for my Economics class at Parkway. Both web lessons involve the concept of opportunity costs (value of choice given up) and trade-offs (making a choice, giving something up to make that choice) which was part of the planned objectives for this particular economics lesson [Lesson 4: Opportunity Cost, March 5, 2003]. Both lessons integrate mathematics with economics.
The first activity “Give and Take” [for grades 6-8] involves defining opportunity cost and trade-offs. After reading a problem (the "basketball dilemma") about how the students might utilize the gym space, students are asked to identify the different choices, the trade-offs made in each choice and to determine the opportunity cost. Students would then create a graphic to illustrate their different options after calculating them. Finally, they are given an activity with different situations which they need to determine a list of possible options and calculate the time or money values. Then they would make a pie chart or graph to represent the options they determined.
The second activity “Is the Tassel worth the hassle?” [for grades 9-12] involves thinking about opportunity costs in terms of short term and long term benefits. In particular, students would identify and discuss what incentives would influence their college/career decisions. The main part of this activity involves students figuring out the total costs of going to college (direct cost+opportunity cost in lost wages) and then answering the question “why would a person want to graduate from college instead of dropping out after the ninth grade, when it takes at least an additional seven years of schooling and over one hundred thousand dollars in costs and lost earning?”. At the end, students are asked to relate economic principles and opportunity costs to their job/career planI decided to integrate both lessons because each lesson within itself did not feel complete and rich enough for a whole lesson. I wanted to use both lessons and also add my own touches to it so that I knew that it would be an interesting lesson for myself and for my students [11th and 12th graders at Parkway High School in Philadelphia, PA].
In my classroom, I tried to adapt certain principles and aspects of each lesson plan into a previous planned lesson on opportunity cost. I wanted students to define opportunity cost and trade-offs but I wanted to introduce it in a more interesting way. Showing the clip from Jerry Maguire helped to engage students in the activity and give real-world examples or insight into the particular situations in which there is a trade-off and opportunity cost. While the students were watching the movie, they were encouraged to think about these questions: 1)Identify the people in the movie who made a decision 2)what was the choice made 3)what was the second choice given up 4)what was the value of the choice given up (opportunity cost) 5)what was the reason for the choice taken. After the movie, students were asked for their responses which were then linked to the definitions of opportunity cost and trade-offs.After students learned the definition, I wanted to present different scenarios or situations where options would be available and in which students would need to figure out the trade-off(s) and opportunity cost [similar to the “Give & Take” lesson]. In addition, I wanted to present problems or decisions at the individual/personal level, the business level, and then at the government level to help my students gain a greater perspective on this topic. The second activity (“is the tassel worth the hassle?”) was one of the examples I used to help them understand on a personal level. I had also presented some other examples (personal and business) informally, especially with the movie. I gave the students a chart with four different scenarios (personal, business) which they could work on individually to fill in and then go over as a class.
Finally, I wanted to end the lesson having students discuss and work together to understand the challenges of determining trade-offs and opportunity costs for a group as a group. In having them make decisions cooperatively on a government level, I think students were able to understand, analyze, and problem-solve at a higher thinking level. Students also learn the difficulties of making such decisions when more people are involved in the process and when more people are affected by the decision.
The following are the situations which the students groups were asked to work on:
Situation 1
You are a member of your state’s legislature, and there is a $500,000 surplus in the state budget. How much of that $500,000 would you spend on each of the following programs: aid to the homeless, money to retrain unemployed workers, aid to schools in poor neighborhoods, improvement of state roads, or money for the state society for prevention of cruelty to animals? Explain why you chose to support certain programs and to spend no money on others. What are the trade-offs? What is the opportunity cost of the choices that you made? [note: students should pick the top two choices and allocate funds into them]
Situation 2
A city council meeting is called to allocate a budget of $100,000. The council would like to buy four new police cars at $25,000 each, two senior-citizen centers at $50,000 each, and build two new tennis courts at $50,000 each. Explain why a choice must be made, decide how the city council should spend its money, describe how the city council should spend its money, describe the trade-offs made, and identify the opportunity cost of the decision.
After working with a a group to make decision and make a poster which included the choice made, the trade-offs, the opportunity costs, and the reason for the decision, each group of students then presented it in front of the class. After two groups presented Situation 1, the other two groups voted on which proposal they liked and then offered feedback on how or why they voted for a certain proposal. Then the other two groups presented Situation 2 which the two groups from Situation 1 voted on and provided feedback for. In closing the lesson, I tried to ask questions about why a certain group got voted for and to emphasize the point that governments need to consider trade-offs and opportunity costs and make decisions with regards to public opinion and political/economic/social pressures.
In terms of what worked, I think that the movie was engaging for the students and helped them to understand the concepts on a basic level. In terms of the website lessons, I think the students understood the idea that trade-offs included obvious monetary costs as well as hidden costs in terms of what you might lose if you do not take an opportunity or make a particular choice. Giving them several scenarios and having them calculate the actual costs enables them to see the economic concepts in a more tangible, relevant way. In giving them the cooperative group work on the government issues, I think students are able to further their understanding of the implication of trade-offs and opportunity costs when it involves a greater good and a greater number of people. I think it was important for me to expand upon the website lessons to cater to the students' interests and knowledge level and to also make it more challenging and relevant for me and the students.
One thing I would change from the lesson carried out would be to include connections to past material covered in the course (ie. Definition of economics, wants/needs and resources, scarcity). I think that would have provided more of an understanding of how opportunity cost and trade-offs relate to the bigger picture idea of economics. For instance, students have learned that people make choices, consider the alternatives, and the costs and benefits of that decision. In connecting it to past concepts, student would better understand why we make or need to make those decisions in light of the situation/context in which that decision is made. In connecting the new concepts to past concepts, students would gain a richer perspective on economics.
I think that the students needed more examples/scenarios/situations on a personal/business level that would help them to further understand the basic definitions of opportunity cost and trade-offs. The examples from the "is the tassel worth the hassle" activity were used quite superficially and I wished that I could have helped the students calculate actual costs for other career choices, particularly ones that they were interested in. Students should also have had a chance to work individually on some problems where they would be using basic math skills to calculate actual costs as opposed to just thinking of opportunity costs in terms of theoretical values.
Jumping to the government level and working as a group in this lesson may have been moving too fast. Though in theory the government project was solid, I think implementing that project at this pace was more challenging. With the cooperative group work, students should have been placed into smaller groups to maximize the quality of group participation by each of the members. Though the situations were quite realistic, students clearly did not have enough information to make the best decisions. The context and criteria for making the decisions (ie. where was the city? what the demographics of th epeople in the city? what did the city want? what did the city need?) was not given so students made choices based on what they wanted and not necessarily on realistic needs. I wished that the students had been better informed or able to explain what the opportunity costs were rather than the choices given up [ie. students would think the opportunity cost of not building tennis courts was the tennis courts themselves, not considering the value of recreation, quality of life for the residents of the city]. Furthermore, when students voted on the "best group" for each situation, students did not have clear criteria about what they were voting for [ie. voting for the best presentation skill or people they liked rather than the actual information presented]. Though realistically politicians or policies get voted for in the same manner, I wanted to teach the students to develop the habit of asking good questions and voting according to which group presented the best choices [best policy] and best explained the trade-offs.
Finally, I wish I had considered what assessments or overall goals I was aiming for in terms of content, skills and behavior. In teaching opportunity costs and trade-offs, what big picture or enduring knowledge did I want students to take away from the lesson? Well I realized I wanted students to think about how they make choices on an individual level and put it into a framework or give it a language or way of expressing what they are doing. How do students make decisions? Do students consider and weigh the alternative and consequences of the decision? What values do we consider in making a decision-on an individual, business, and government level? Furthermore, students should think about the fact that they are giving up choices and there is always a cost involved--whether it is quantitative (monetary, a certain quantity of something) or qualitative (an intangible value, quality of life issue, value/desire/want/need). I had hoped students would understand the complexity of opportunity cost. There are short term costs and benefits as well as long term costs and benefits in a decision. When we make choices, we choose to give up something and give it a value that is less than the the choice that we took. Otherwise the value or reason we made the decision would not make sense or justify or support the choice we took.
I think the first activity (“Give & Take”) was extremely confusing with its visuals. I think the math part complicated things rather than helped to teach the basic concepts of the lesson. Perhaps the math could be incorporated later on when students have mastered the concepts. The basketball dilemma could be even made more simpler.
I think the second activity (“Is the Tassel worth the hassle?”) was a good lesson. I think the economic mystery could be made more challenging. Perhaps students could be given the opportunity to formulate their own scenarios/problems and figure out the opportunity costs in the short term and long term. Specifically, they could have researched their career interest and what the trade-offs and opportunity costs involved would be. Also I think there should have been more scenarios/problems/mysteries for students to solve.
FINAL THOUGHTS
This assignment was quite difficult because it was hard to find ONE web lesson that incorporated everything that I wanted to teach to my students in a particular lesson. The web lesson needed to have the concepts, the strategies, and the classroom activities that I wanted to teach or aspired to teach in my classroom. Furthermore, the web lessons needed to flow within the structure of the curriculum that I was trying to implement. In some ways, this assignment doesn't consider what concepts and activities I had taught already and what concepts and activities I was planning on doing with the class in the future. The web lessons have to be general enough in that it doesn't consider where the students are coming from or where the teacher is as a teacher. I think the web lessons in themselves were quite interesting and well-planned. However, in order to make them work in my class, I needed to expand upon them quite a bit so that in fact the web lessons seem to be only small parts of a bigger lesson. For the most part, I think I gained some inspiration from using the web lessons and hope that I will be able to use the web more effectively to incorporate into and enrich what I am trying to do in the classroom. I learned that I need to be careful about how I use the web lessons and realize that I need to organize and prepare how to teach those aspects of my lesson rather than just using them as they come. Just like in other lesson plans, I need to anticipate questions in advance and understand how they fit into the overall scheme of things and how they fit the students. Otherwise, the lessons themselves do not help in enriching the curriculum and practice as they become teacher-centered rather than student-centered and a routine rather than a learning experience.