Name: Keyonna Sturdivant

Grade Level: 9th

Content Area: Mathematics
of Finance/ Mathematical
Modeling
BASIC PRODUCTIVITY
TOOLS: SPREADSHEETS
Basic Productivity Tool Used: Microsoft Excel, and PowerPoint
Standards Addressed:
See https://www.georgiastandards.org/Pages/Default.aspx)
MMFA1. Students will use basic functions to solve and model problems related to stock
transactions, banking and credit, employment and taxes, rent and mortgages,
retirement planning, and other related finance applications.
a. Apply linear, quadratic, and cubic functions.
b. Apply rational and square root functions.
c. Apply greatest integer and piecewise functions.
d. Apply exponential and logarithmic functions.
Blooms Level of Critical Thinking:
Remembering
Understanding
Applying
Analyzing Evaluating
Creating
Description of how to implement in the class: Students are given a word
problem about Jasons new bank account that he has recently opened. The class will
have to discover how much money that Jasons account will acquire throughout a 16month period.
They will have to do computation using MS Excel to calculate the interest, monthly
deposits, and available balance. They are responsible for creating a scatter (x y) plot
graph and find the line of best fit. They have to figure out which type of function the
given data best represents (i.e. exponential, linear, logarithm, polynomial, and
power). Afterwards, they are given instructions on how to find the equation for the
line of best fit to solve the question about how long it will take to save $5,000. Lastly,
the student will have to complete a similar model for their own saving account,
creating their own starting balance, interest rate, and find all of the same factors as
given before except they have to calculate how long it would take to save $10,000,
and explain what they would do with the money that they saved. Each student will
have to present their finding in MS PowerPoint at the end of the project.
Level of Technology Implementation (LoTi): The LoTi level is level 4: Integration
because students use technology and it is the central to classroom required learning
standards. The students have to create their own simulation of their own bank
account which deals with creating in Blooms taxonomy. The instructional model is
student-directed when they create their own model because the results are
unpredictable or infinite. This lesson has a strong emphasis on real-world applications
because almost every young-adult/adult will have or have a bank account. Therefore,
it is important to know how to compute your own interest rate.
Description of the sample spreadsheet and graph/chart provided *: The Excel
spreadsheet is computation completed to calculate the interest, monthly deposits,
and available balance from the word problem that was given. The students will create
a scatter (x y) plot graph and find the line of best fit. The students will go on an
exploration to figure out which type of function the given data best represents (i.e.
exponential, linear, logarithm, polynomial, and power). Afterwards, they are given
instructions on how to find the equation for the line of best fit to solve the question.
Then they will have to calculate how long it would take to save $5,000 from the
equation that they found.
Other comments about your proposed spreadsheet/graph/chart activity:
This project would take approximately a week to complete. The final step you can
have your students present there information in a PowerPoint presentation to the
1
entire class. This would give the students an opportunity to see how each set of data
can vary person to person.