Lyle Sylvander Assignment #3 SCED 663 Part I Economics Topic: The Great Depression 1. “Why Did the Great Depression Happen?” by Laura Kingston http://www.uww.edu/Documents/colleges/coeps/cni/social%20studies/lesson%
20plans/2006-­‐2007/Laura%20Kingston%20.pdf This is an inquiry-­‐based plan attempting to answer the eponymous question posed by the author. First, the class is shown ten minutes of a video about the Great Depression in order to provide background information. They are then given the question to be answered and told that they will need to develop hypotheses and conclusions. Each student is handed three sheets – one to record their hypotheses, one to notate the validity of supporting evidence (data sets), and one “Inquiry Lesson Rubric” sheet (which will be used for assessment). The students are to be broken into small groups to discuss their answers to the question. After 5-­‐10 minutes, the data sets will be selectively introduced to the students so that they can evaluate and revise their hypotheses according to these data sets. The data sets contain various sources. Examples include the lyrics to the Depression-­‐era standard “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”, a timeline of events leading up to 1932 (when the economy hit its lowest peak) and articles covering labor movements, the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Wall Street as an industry and the policymaking response in Washington (particularly that of the Federal Reserve). The overall result is to provide different perspectives on both the causes and effects of the Great Depression. After sorting through this data and revising their hypotheses, students will write a two to three page paper answering the question according to the “Inquiry Lesson Rubric”, which the teacher will then use as an assessment tool. Students should have persuasive arguments for at least three causes of the Great Depression. This lesson is for high school students in grades 9-­‐12. Differentiation is provided by the variety of materials used as data sets, which provide multiple perspectives on the causes and effects of the Great Depression. Likewise, the data sets can also be differentiated for the strengths and weaknesses of individual students. Students with difficulty reading, for instance, can use visual or audio data. Teachers can also differentiate instruction as they monitor the class discussion – if they see some students struggling, for example, they may intervene and help the students with their analytical and reasoning processes. 2. The Great Depression (1929-­‐1939) produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis https://www.stlouisfed.org/~/media/Files/PDFs/Great-­‐
Depression/the-­‐great-­‐depression-­‐full-­‐curriculum.pdf As a product of the Federal Reserve, this lesson plan is much more technical and economics-­‐based than the previous example. It is also more extensive and actually encompasses a large teaching unit comprised of multiple lesson plans (the PDF document totals 218 pages). The lesson components are as follows: Lesson 1: Measuring the Great Depression (which introduces many economic tools such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) – both real and nominal, Consumer Price Index (CPI), the unemployment rate, and statistical graphs and bar charts); Lesson 2: What Do People Say? (which features letters that reflect the concerns of actual people– from bank presidents to farmers to laborers to government officials -­‐ during the depression; Lesson 3 – What Really Caused the Great Depression? (a simulation in which students examine the primary causes of bank panics and a decrease in money supply and exacerbating factors like problems in the agricultural sector and the stock market crash); Lesson 4 – Dealing with the Great Depression (a study of New Deal stimulus programs); Lesson 5 – Turn Your Radio On (an analysis of President Roosevelt’s use of the radio medium to communicate his policies and assuage an anxious populace); Lesson 6 – Could It Happen Again? (a study of the lessons learned and the current-­‐day functions and policy responses of the Federal Reserve in managing economic downturns). Regardless of the lesson, the core topics are taught through similar means. Basically, sheets with core terms, concepts, facts and data/statistics are handed out and followed by a series of questions related to the sheets. Students are broken up into groups where they can discuss and address the questions and attempt to reach consensus. The questions are used to make the students analyze and reflect upon the information contained in the sheets. There are also numerous matching exercises in which students must match economic terms with their respective definitions. Students are also given statements with which they must agree or disagree (while providing evidence in support of their answers). Although the six lessons are to be used as stand alone exercise, they collectively comprise an extensive and holistic view of the complexities surrounding the Great Depression. This lesson is also for high school students, grades 9-­‐12. Generally speaking, the depth of the material, especially the economic terms and quantitative data (charts and graphs) make differentiation somewhat difficult. It would be especially difficult for students with learning disabilities to perform well on many of the lesson plans and questions. In order to remedy this situation, material and questions specifically geared towards these students would need to be introduced. Below is a graphic organizer detailing Lesson One: 3. “The Great Depression” – Bright Hub Education http://www.brighthubeducation.com/history-­‐lessons-­‐grades-­‐9-­‐
12/127904-­‐the-­‐great-­‐depression-­‐causes-­‐crash-­‐fallout/ This unit is less technical and more interactive than the Federal Reserve one. It is divided into five lessons, each of which is less substantive and more cursory than the Federal Reserve unit (#2). These five lessons are: Lesson 1: The Causes, the Crash and the Fallout; Lesson 2: The Vicious Holiday, the Bonus Army and the Bank Holiday; Lesson 3: The New Deal; Lesson 4: The Dust Bowl and Lesson 5: The Court Packing Plan and the GM Sit-­‐Down Strike. Lesson 1 acknowledges the Stock Market Crash of 1929 as a catalyst for the Depression but details several underlying causes, such as the growing amount of consumer debt and overproduction in manufacturing. Students analyze this data in order to answer the question “What were the underlying problems that led to the Great Depression?” Lesson 2 asks the question “What was the Bank Holiday and did it work?” and contains photos, articles and audio of FDR’s radio addresses as data. Lesson 3 asks the question “What was the New Deal” while providing an activity in which students research New Deal agencies and how they attempted to stimulate the economy. Lesson 4 asks students to read excerpts from John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and watch the PBS documentary Surviving the Dust Bowl while asking students to answer the question “What kind of lessons do students learn from the Dust Bowl?” Lesson 5 asks students to examine primary source documents about Roosevelt’s plan to appoint more New Deal-­‐friendly justices to the US Supreme Court and the General Motors strike in order to answer the questions “Why are these events important?” and “What has changed as a result of them?” All of these lessons approach learning from an inquiry-­‐based approach. Since many of the data sources are provided, there is not much room for differentiation and, as in the Federal Reserve unit (#2), there must be more diverse data sources supplied to allow a more extensive differentiated experience. Part II Personally, I would like to incorporate a lesson on the Great Depression within the context of the recent financial crisis. As the examples above illustrate, a lesson on the Great Depression lends itself to a multidisciplinary approach. Lessons #1 and #3 primarily discuss the depression through an historical lens, while incorporating economic concepts and ideas. Lesson #2 is taught mainly from an economist’s point of view relying on a more in-­‐depth and technical exploration of the economist’s “toolkit”. Much of today’s economic policy analysis derives from lessons learned during the Great Depression and it is an excellent springboard to discuss how central banks address contemporary economic challenges. Despite this wealth of wisdom, however, the world continues to experience periodic economic crises and I would like to analyze the economics discipline’s failures as well as its success. Similarly, I would like to explore the similarities and differences between the current financial system and its problems and the period of the Great Depression. Most importantly, I would like to explore the globalization of finance. While today’s international markets are more interconnected, the Great Depression did negatively impact the economies beyond the US’s borders – a fact that only the Federal Reserve unit (#2) explored at length. By educating my students in the global impact of both historical and contemporary events, I hope to make them better “global citizens” and more internationally aware. This is in line with the new “global mindset” in education as elucidated by Vivien Stewart in her book A World Class Education. I would utilize an inquiry-­‐based approach, in which the students would analyze primary documents to answer specific questions. For instance, I would ask the question “In what way were the underlying causes of the financial crisis of 2008 and the Great Depression similar? In what ways were they different?” For data sources, students would read newspaper accounts of both crises. In order to differentiate the lesson, students with difficulty reading could use video sources – for example, comparing a documentary about the Great Depression with a CNBC News report on the financial crisis. Students would meet and discuss the issues in groups. By analyzing what was learned from both sets of crises, I would ask students how countries can minimize or prevent further crises from happening. Students would then present their findings in presentations and group projects – what Stewart calls “participatory learning … to promote the kinds of creative and problem-­‐solving skills thought to be appropriate for the 21st century global knowledge economy.” A great resource to use in the lesson is the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Education Site: http://www.newyorkfed.org/outreach-­‐and-­‐education/lesson-­‐plans-­‐and-­‐
resources/. A link to the St. Louis Fed.’s Great Depression Unit (Lesson #2) is provided as well as lesson plans comparing and contrasting the Fed’s response in 2008 with that in the 1930’s, explaining quantitative easing and the events and ideologies behind the establishment of the Federal Reserve system. Another great resource is found on the NY Times Learning Resource website -­‐ http://www.nytimes.com/learning/issues_in_depth/economics.html. This site contains lesson plans on the Great Depression and the Crisis of 2008 as well as an index of NY Times articles and multimedia presentations on economics topics. Finally, I would use the World Affairs Council of Oregon’s index of Global Economic Crisis Index – listing many different links concerning the recent global financial crisis. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:o0fKP1Da3JEJ:worldoreg
on.org/system/files/multimedia/file/page/educational-­‐
resources/globaleconomiccrisisresources.pdf+&cd=3&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=es