Case Four Lesson Plan: Serious Games Group 30

Overview of Lesson

Overview This lesson was developed to help high school students understand how hard managing a personal budget can be. It incorporates the game Spent, an online educational activity that walks you through a month in the shoes of a single parent living paycheck to paycheck. The goal is to provide students an opportunity to reflect on the challenges of managing a budget.

Description of Learners Description of High School Students Learners, Grade 10-12 Learning Rural School 45 minutes outside of city. Environment, Studying Personal Finance Intended Learning Learning Environment Classroom of 30 students Goals, and Lesson Rural High School Content

Students have access to personal laptop computers and the Internet Intended Learning Goals Students will reflect on their own thoughts about maintaining a budget. Students will be exposed to the struggles of maintaining a budget in the working world. Lesson Content This incorporates the game Spent, an online educational activity that walks you through a month in the shoes of a single parent living paycheck to paycheck. The goal is to provide students an opportunity to reflect on the challenges of managing a budget. Objectives After playing the Online game Spent in class, students will be able to formulate personal reflections about managing a budget by writing a one page paper outlining their reactions. By completing the first section of the How Is Your Money Spent? Worksheet within the first ten minutes of class, students will be able to come up with 10 areas in their lives where money is spent. Finally, after reflecting on the game and the concepts within the lesson, students will have addressed three big takeaways within their Reflection Paper: thoughts about personal finances, experience within the Spent game, and thoughts about the post game worksheet. Personal Financial Responsibility PFR-1.1 PFR-1.4 Materials Student Laptops Classroom Internet Access

Learning Objectives

Standards

Required Material

MindMup Link Emailed to students prior to class Spent game and link to website How is Your Money Spent Worksheet Homework Assignment: Reflection Paper

Procedures

Introduction (5-10 minutes) 1. Have students open the MindMup link that was sent to their school Gmail accounts. 2. Ask students what they think is a factor into expenses for the average person. 3. Have them put two factors into the MindMup word cloud 4. Show the resulted word cloud to students and explain the basic living expenses and factors (Housing, Medical, Travel, Insurance, Utility, Phone, Cable, etc.) Pre-Lesson Activity (10 minutes) 1. Split students into 10 groups of 3 students per group. 2. Give each person the How is Your Money Spent Worksheet. 3. Have them fill out column 1 of the worksheet as a group answering the question: What do you think are factors into expenses? Main Lesson Activity (25 minutes) 1. In the 10 groups have each group play the game Spent, together. *In this game students will go through a month in the life of an adult determining different ways they can spend their money while learning the numerous factors that contribute to living expenses. 2. When finished with the game have students take 5 minutes to complete column 2 of the How is Your Money Spent? worksheet. They will fill out which things they learned that factor into living expenses. Post Lesson Assignment (5 minutes) 1. Give each student the Reflection Paper Instruction Sheet 2. This paper needs to address the questions in the assessment portion of this lesson plan. 3. Details for the paper requirements are on the worksheet and in the assessment section as well. 4. Students are to turn in their Reflection Paper at the beginning of class the next day.

Assessment

Homework Assignment: Reflection Paper Upon completion of the class period students will be asked to recap their initial thoughts about personal finances, their experience within the Spent game, and their thoughts about the post game worksheet. Minimum of 2 Pages, Double Spaced Minimum of 2 Reputable Online Sources MLA Formatting Indiana Standards. (2013, October 22). Standards Print Library. Retrieved April 25, 2014, from https://learningconnection.doe.in.gov/Standards/PrintLibrary.aspx SPENT. (2011, February). SPENT. Retrieved April 20, 2014, from

References and Reference Material

http://playspent.org/playspent.html

Journal Article #1 This article was written by three individuals who completed an experiment to determine whether FootGaming helps students grasp nutritional concepts better. FootGaming was developed to add a twist to educational gaming, because it adds physical activity on top of just using a computer mouse to learn. Several students were tested in this experiment and the results were outstanding. Students were in fact able to better grasp those concepts and a certain value was placed on education for the students. We used these strategies in developing our lesson plan in that we need to have students do more than just sit at the computer and play a game to learn. This is where our group activity comes into play; students discuss among each other to see what they think living expenses entail. Also, we incorporated a word cloud at the beginning of the lesson to allow students to text in their answers, or type them in on their computers. This shows students that their phones can be used for educational purposes on top of clicking the mouse on the computer. Mellecker, R. R., Witherspoon, L., & Watterson, T. (2013). Active learning: Educational experiences enhanced through technology-driven active game play.The Journal of
Educational Research, 106(5), 352-359.

Journal Article #2 In this article, Judy Robertson discusses whether educational gaming in the classroom is actually beneficial, especially between genders. She did a study in eleven and twelve year olds to determine if media storytelling, visual design, and audience awareness skills would become better through educational gaming. She concluded that girls game scores would be higher than boys, especially in storytelling skills. This aided in developing our lesson plan, because it made us focus on whether the activities were doing were beneficial. It helped us realize that not all educational gaming is educational and we need to focus on whether or not the students will actually gain skills and learn from the game. Robertson, J. (2012). Making games in the classroom: Benefits and gender concerns. Computers
& Education, 59(2), 385-398.

**I will print this out from my Word Document because formatting messed up when I copied it to this.** How is Your Money Spent? Name:-------------------____________________ Date:____________
In Colum A, write which things you believe are factored into living expenses for an adult. After playing the game Spent, complete Colum B with new factors you learned that are incorporated into living expenses.

Column A

Column B

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.