Free Market – 7562

Summary

The purpose of this lesson is to apply the student’s knowledge of the free market terms/vocabulary by finding examples that interest them in their daily lives. Students will photograph examples of their terms and reflect on why they made those choices and submit prior to classroom review. The student pictures will then be used in a group activity using Nearpod for the purpose of reviewing for their upcoming formal assessment. Students will identify words by other’s picture choices, participate in student driven discussions on relevant topics, and practice some of their economics “skills” and “knowledge.”

TIPC Ratings

In this lesson, the teacher modeled examples of photo submissions and modeled the submission process to the students. The teacher created an authentic and relevant task for students to venture outside of school and locate visual representations of their free market vocabulary words that they could apply to their daily lives. The students chose their method of taking their photos and the best way to submit their photos (using phones or cameras and submitting either via Instagram or Edmodo.)

During the Nearpod activity, the teacher will facilitate the overall lesson and provide topics for discussion but students will lead the conversations. The teacher will prompt further questions as needed. The students will submit their photos prior to the Nearpod review and reflect on the pictures as well as their peers’ pictures during the activity. They will reflect on the relevance of the photos to the free market vocabulary and set goals at the culmination of the lesson on which terms they still need to become more fluent with.

The portion of the lesson that requires students to go out and take the photos is the “problem” or task at hand. Students must choose where and what to take pictures of and be able to explain the purpose of their picture. The student must fully understand the free market concept and use their technology to capture photos. Many photos may depict several of the terms, therefore students will explain why they took their photo and what term they chose it for. During the Nearpod review, students met to respond and create meaningful discussions on the provided relevant topics. They made connections between the scenarios and reflected upon how these economics concepts would continue to affect them after civics class.

Students took a risk by collecting their own photos for the review. They had to reflect on the vocabulary and relate the words to objects that had meaning to them. The teacher facilitated an environment where students were engaged at all times because each screen of the review had an activity to complete.