a.) Rationale:
After reading the first chapter of All the Devils Are Here, it immediately
became apparent to me that only the rarest of high school students would
possibly be able to construct any meaning from this text. To be completely
honest, I myself was only able to comprehend maybe 30% of what I was
reading. As I continued forward in the reading, I gradually became aware
that one of the biggest obstacles to my own comprehension was the
complete lack of chronological order in which the events are related to the
reader. To me, that was the first indication that my learning object should
take the form of a timeline; I tend to be more of a linear thinker myself,
and I can only imagine that a large number of my future students will share
the same affliction. The other major obstacle to my own comprehension of
this text was the massive amount of backstory that the authors deemed
necessary to relate each of the major events leading up to the financial
meltdown of 2008. The timeline that I’ve created attempts to explain the
aforementioned events in the simplest possible terms for the sake of
accessibility to high school students. It may not be anything close to the
whole picture, but it represents just about the extent of my own ability to
understand the events described in this book.
b.) Assessment:
When it comes to assessing my students understanding relating to my
learning object, I realized very quickly this is probably not something that I
would ever test students on in anything other than an advanced high school
economics class. This would probably comprise one portion of a selfcontained mini-unit that I would probably quiz students on after they had
been exposed to the learning object. The quiz would be mostly comprised of
short-answer format question prompts (“Explain what a credit default swap
is”, for example) to assess the extent to which students are actually
comprehending the realities behind the financial jargon and buzzwords. This
quiz would essentially just be a way to measure their level of comprehension
before tackling a more challenging activity using the knowledge they’ve just
gained. To further develop their learning on this subject, I would follow up
with an assignment requiring students to respond to the following article
from CNNMoney, which offers a convenient breakdown of the main
provisions created by the Wall Street Reform Act, signed by President
Obama in 2010:
(http://money.cnn.com/2010/06/25/news/economy/whats_in_the_reform_
bill/index.htm
Their assignment would be to read the article and respond (in about 500
words) to whether or not they agree with President Obama’s claim that, “the
American people will never again be asked to foot the bill for Wall Street’s
mistakes”, and explain why they feel the way they do based on concrete
examples from the article.
c.) Explain how the learning object will be used, re-used, repurposed,
easily “discoverable,” accessible, and durable.
With something as simple as a timeline of events, it should be fairly
straightforward to make this learning object discoverable; I would simply
upload the contents of the first 6 pages of this Word document to a
website. The keywords that I’ve included at the end of the timeline should
render the website fairly searchable via Google or whatever kids are using in
the future. My own students would be directed to the website, where they
would have a period of several days to familiarize themselves with the
embedded content using a light study guide that I will give them to help
direct their learning. This will all be done in preparation for the quiz that I
will use to formally assess their learning.
d.) How you plan to connect your learning object to students, other
ideas, or complementary learning objects.
My learning object is already specifically designed to connect these very
abstract and esoteric financial concepts to high school students as much as
possible. I felt it necessary to omit everything but the most important
details and express them in the simplest possible terms simply for the fact
that my students will probably have no background in economics to speak of.
I also plan on including links on the website to complementary learning
objects such as Jonathan Jarvis’ “The Crisis of Credit Visualized” and the
interviews with the authors that are linked on our Curriki site. I may also
design a crossword puzzle as an original complementary learning object.