Stock Investment Lesson Plan
Brett Stelmaszek
Stock Investment Lesson Plan
Introduction: This lesson is designed to be performed over an extended period of time, such as a few weeks to a few months. The purpose of this assessment will be to have students come to understand various intricacies of the stock market and the risk that is involved with such transactions. The students will be given a set amount of money and will be given the opportunity to invest in particular stocks and monitor their progress over the period of time allocated. The activity can review stock prices daily or weekly, depending on how much time the instructor wishes to devote to this lesson. During this activity, it will provide the instructor the opportunity to discuss with the students different strategies and intents that they can use in order to maximize their potential return on investment.
Group classification: The group used in this assignment will be a high school level finance class.
Learning Objectives:
- To have students come to understand the basic mechanics of the stock market, such as buying and selling stocks, assessed in the student's ability to participate in the activity.
- To have students come to understand the nature of risk that is involved in investing and what steps can be taken in order to lower such risk, demonstrated in the students portfolio assessed according to the rubric.
Materials:
- Computer with internet connection
- Daily paper (optional)
- Worksheet to monitor progress
Procedures:
- The instructor will begin this lesson by describing what the stock market is, how it operates, how it is used to make money, and the risk that is associated with investing in the stock market.
- The instructor will introduce the activity that the students will begin working on for an extended period of time.
- The activity will start with the students determining which of their stocks to invest in and recording how much they bought of each particular stock.
- After the first several days, the students will report their progress through an online form.
- The instructor will examine the information that the students submitted, and based upon some of the trends in the students' work, the instructor will formulate a class based upon addressing some of the issues and how to solve them.
- At the end of the allocated time for the assignment, the students will submit their final numbers along with a paper describing the choices that they have made along the way and how they could have improved their investing experience.
Assessment:
The students will be assessed on their participation in the investing activity. If a student buys one stock and has no more activity for the remainder of the activity, they will be given a low score for participation. However, if a student engages regularly with buying and selling, they will be given a perfect score for participation. The students will also be assessed on the reflection paper that they submit at the end. The paper will be graded based upon clarity of their ideas, basic grammar and spelling, and content.
Standards:
MA.912.F.4.10: Analyze diversification in investments.
MA.912.F.4.11: Purchase a stock with a set amount of money, and follow the process through gains, losses, and selling.