Personal Finance Syllabus

							CESA 6 ROC
Business and Informational Technology Department

Instructor:
Sandi Linde
lindes@fonddulac.k12.wi.us
(920) 929-2740

COURSE NAME:
Personal Finance

COURSE DESCRIPTION:
Students are introduced to everyday life skills such as balancing a checkbook, calculating net
pay, budgeting income and expenses, exploring career options, the truth about credit cards,
work laws and responsibilities and taxes. The goal in this course is to guide students in building
a strong foundation in logical thinking and problem solving that will enable them to make good
decisions concerning matters of money and finance in their daily lives. The projects help the
students apply their skills to real-life situations.

GRADE LEVEL:
10-12

COURSE OBJECTIVES:
The student will
          □   Analyze good decision making processes involving money
          □   Examine the use (misuse) of credit cards
          □   Differentiate between different loans and their percentages
          □   Define and produce a budget
          □   Identify career decisions
          □   Compare/Contrast types of insurance
          □   Evaluating the standard of living, inflation, and recession
          □   Demonstrate financial services such as checking and savings
          □   Analyze investment alternatives


SEQUENTIAL COURSE OUTLINE:
     Projected sequence of events for this course and the Wisconsin State Standards related to the
     unit. This outline will be broken down into modules divided by week.
     Course outline
     1. Decision making skills
     2. Careers
     3. Standard of living, inflation, and recession
     4. Financial services: Checking and savings
     5. Budgets
     6. Credit Cards
        7. Work Laws and responsibilities
        8. Pay, benefits and working conditions
        9. Taxes


WISCONSIN STANDARDS BY UNIT:
                  Units                                                   Standards
                                        K.12.1 Assess & analyze personal traits and interests
                                        K.12.6 Analyze projected career opportunities and trends
Decision Making Skills
                                        K.12.7 Create a career and education (lifework) plan for transition from High
                                        School
                                        A.12.2 Technical writing
                                        B.12.8 Contrast careers in the informational technology industry
Careers                                 H.12.3 Identify and explain a business organization chart
                                        H.12.3 Aware of career opportunities
                                        K.12.14 Describe employment trends in the work place
Standard of Living, Inflation, and
recession
                                        J.12.1 Demonstrate interpersonal skill when working with others
Work Laws and Responsibilities          J.12.11 Define Ethics
                                        J.12.14 Importance of consumer trust for the successful conduct of business
Pay, Benefits, and Working Conditions   K.12.11 Discuss social and ethical standards of the workplace
Financial Services: Checking and        C.12.1 Calculate simple interest on loans
Savings                                 C.12.2 Maintain and reconcile a checking account
                                        D.12.6 Interest rates are determined by market force, etc..
Budgets                                 B.12.4 Import text and graphics from other software programs
                                        C.12.3 Prepare a budget of personal income and expenses
Credit Cards                            C.12.4 Explain credit cards, debit cards, etc..
                                        I.12.4 Laws governing credit and credit reporting
Taxes                                   C.12.8 Prepare a simple income tax form
                                        B.12.1 access Navigate and use on-line services
                                        B.12.2 Identify and use computer software
Used throughout the class               B.12.10 Import, export, and merge data
                                        B.12.12 Analyze spreadsheet data
                                        B.12.16 Practice code of ethics for information systems
                                        B.12.19 Use electronic mail




TEACHING STRATEGIES
     A. Student/Community Participation
     B. Projects
     B. Multimedia tools (learning objects, PowerPoint)
     C. Discussion
     D. Discovery
GRADING CRITERIA:
     A    97-100
     A    93-96
     A-   90-92
     B+   87-89
     B    83-86
     B-   80-82
     C+   77-79
     C    73-76
     C-   70-72
     D+   67-69
     D    63-66
     D-   60-62
     F    0 - 59

REQUIRED TEXT:

Managing Your Personal Finances, 5th edition, Joan S. Ryan ISBN: 0-538-44175-5

Minimum Technical Requirements

Laptop or PC


  Component                           Minimum Required Specifications
                             Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent AMD chip for desktop PCs
   Processor
                                      Intel Pentium M processor for laptops
    Memory                                           512 MB
   Hard Drive                                        40 GB
  Floppy Drive        Optional, this is no longer a standard feature on most PCs and laptops
  Network Card                               Integrated Internal Card
    CD-ROM                                   24X CD-RW/DVD drive
Operating System                    Microsoft Windows XP Professional, SP2
   Office Suite                        Microsoft Office 2003 Professional
Antivirus Software Symantec antivirus software from any company such as Nortons, McAfee, etc.




Apple Macintosh


  Component                 Minimum Required Specifications
      Model                              iBook G4
    Processor                      1.33GHz PowerPC G4
     Memory        512 MB DDR266 (256MB built-in & 256MB SO-DIMM)
    Graphics        ATI Mobility Radeon 9200 w/ 32MB DDR video memory
     Display                      14 inch TFT XGA display
    Keyboard                       U.S. English Keyboard
   Hard Drive                      60GB ultra ATA drive
    CD-ROM                   Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW)
Operating System             Mac OS X "Tiger" or latest version
                             Microsoft Office Suite 2004 for Mac
Required Software                         iLife Suite
                                   Adobe Acrobat Reader




ACTIVITIES:
Throughout the course the students will be directed to the various websites to examine,
compare, contrast and investigate many of the course objectives. Other than the websites,
several items including scanned worksheets and graphics along with PowerPoint slide shows will
accompany several topics.

RESOURCES:
Websites that support the online course content (this is considered a partial list):

        http://www.federalreserveeducation.org/ - this website gives information about the Federal
        Reserve and offers insight to teachers and students about anything from credit card debt to
        investing.

        http://www.moneyinstructor.com/ - an interactive site for learning money management.

        http://www.irs.gov/ - an interactive tax preparation site.

        http://www.mymoney.gov/ - used for budgeting exercise.

        http://www.careervoyages.gov – website used for exploring career clusters.

        www.bls.gov – Occupational Outlook Handbook. Used for finding earnings in Wisconsin for a
        particular occupation.

        www.damngood.com – great site for teaching resumes.

        http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp - personality test for discovering what career
        is best for you.

        www.aboutchecking.com/yourcheckingacct/ - used to compare checking accounts.

        www.rightonthemoney.org – website has all aspects of money management.

        www.bankrate.com – calculator (credit card, car loan, mortgage, etc.)