DAILY LESSON PLAN TEMPLATE

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Name: JT Donald Unit Topic Big idea(s) Essential Question(s) Macroeconomics - Economic Challenges (Unemployment, Inflation, and Poverty) What are some examples of and what causes economic injustice? Who are some main players and what are their roles in addressing to economic challenges of America? SSEMA1 The student will illustrate the means by which economic activity is measured. b. Define Gross Domestic Product (GDP), economic growth, unemployment, Consumer Price Standard(s(/ Benchmark(s) Index (CPI), inflation, stagflation, and aggregate supply and aggregate demand. c. Explain how economic growth, inflation, and unemployment are calculated. d. Identify structural, cyclical, and frictional unemployment.

Lesson Plan Starter/Opening Is unemployment always a bad thing? Give students to write answers. Discuss. Lead this into slideshow that shows multiple perspectives on unemployment. Is it the worst thing ever? Or an opportunity to change the world? Learning Activities & Assessments/Work Session Use the presentation to introduce the students to the basics of unemployment. NOTES on the basics (types, calculations, vocab) ! ACTIVITY: Identify the type of unemployment described. Selected xamples from worksheet. Show the information on the current data. Discussions on the following questions: ! Does the government cause unemployment? Multiple perspectives: introduce to Keynesian and Classical views. Let the students talk through these things. 2 minute write on their own discuss views again

Closer - Current Events going on around them! - Explain the Congressional debate from January 2014 fighting to extend unemployment benefits to 99 weeks. - How should unemployment benefits be addressed? * Post Lesson Add In - Activity to create your own unemployment benefit proposal - Show them the quotes from Obama, Newt Gingrich, and Ronald Regan on these view

- TRANSITION into the next section (Inflation) Multiple Perspectives Analysis This will be analyzing the highlighted areas from the lesson plan above. As you can see from the lesson plan above, this session was over the topic of macroeconomic challenges, and more specifically, unemployment. Throughout this lesson, I wanted the students to see that there were multiple perspectives of not only unemployment in general, but also what causes unemployment (government? People? Businesses?) and what should be done about unemployment. The part that I chose to break down and analyze here was the discussion on the causes of unemployment in the American free enterprise economy. Even though this is not where it was planned to introduce the students to Keynesian and Classical economic view, I decided to simply because I felt it was paramount to wrestling with the concept of what could be the cause of unemployment. An important reason that decided to introduce this as part of the portfolio is because I felt like it showed a great learning opportunity for me as an educator. I felt as though the students struggled forming their own beliefs and answers and were simply trying to please me (the teacher) and completing the task laid in front of them instead of trying to wrestle with the concept. This portion of the lesson was placed right after the students took some notes on the basics of unemployment that covered the types of unemployment, how unemployment is calculated and what it means to be at full employment. I wanted to place it here as a break from note taking and give the students a chance to think in depth about the topic of unemployment. I planned to focus on unemployment during the Great Depression and give them the competing views on what caused the depression and successive unemployment. I started the section off by describing each school of thought. To explain classical economics, I related it back to our previous studies of Adam Smith and his Laissez Fare beliefs. The students seemed to remember this simply as the hands off/let it be concept that we spoke about in a previous unit. After probing the students as to what that meant as far as government involvement, we came to the conclusion that means the government should play limited role in the management of the economy. This is where I showed the quote from Milton Friedman which clearly implied that the government involvement in the economy is what caused the Great Depression. I noticed some confusion and dismay on the face of the students, so I did my best to probe into this confusion. What does he mean the government caused the Depression? asked one student. I attempted to turn this question back to the class, however I did not get any response after the silent period. I kept my description brief and to the point describing what Friedman was saying. He is saying that the government policies kept markets from operating effectively and that is what caused the unemployment. This seemed to make more sense to the students, yet some still seemed to have some disagreement with statements such as, Well what should the government do then? This is where I took the opportunity to introduce them to the Keynesian school of thought. I presented them a quote by economist Ivan Pongracic implying that Depression (and high unemployment) was caused by the Laissez Fare policies from the government and the unemployment rate did not improve until FDR took office and imposed more government-centered Keynesian policies. This is where it seemed to go over some students

heads and where they turned to a more task-focused mindset. Meaning they seemed more focused on giving me the right answer and moving on with the lesson, instead of thinking about the topic. So what do you believe to be true? I asked the class. Do you think the government caused the Depression and unemployment, or that government policies ended the Depression and unemployment? Yes?? replies one student awaiting my response. Yes, what? I reply, trying to get the student to think out loud for her classmates. Interjecting here I had the students complete a 2 minute writing session, where all they did was silently write what they thought about the differing views and their relationship with the American economy. I drew a quick table on the board describing the differing views and gave the students time to digest the material. After this time is when I finally started to get some student opinions. Some students were saying that they can see both being true and after discussion it was evident that they thought the government was in the business of Americans too much. However, the students saw it as the governments role to fight unemployment. I felt this was some great discussion time and lead to the students really digesting the concepts of the different schools of thought and how their own views align with them. Leaving this portion of the lesson I felt like I had presented multiple perspectives on causes of unemployment and government involvement. However, I felt like the students could have received more from it if there was not so much focus of simply pleasing the teacher with answers rather than on really wrestling with the concepts being discussed. This is definitely a battle I feel strongly about tackling with my pedagogy through a career as an educator: getting students away from task-focused and more centered on a understanding-focused mentality in the classroom.