Day 2:
For day 2, what I wanted to do in the beginning of the lesson as soon as I sat them down was I wanted to do just a brief discussion, a brief review, of the previous day’s terms, just so I could keep the connection between the days and the connection between the objectives strong. In the beginning, I went over “So, what is predictable and what is unpredictable?” and I had them dictate to me what the discussion was about the previous day. And then from there we went into the discussion of, “Well, one unpredictable scenario when traveling internationally is money. What happens when you get there and you don’t know currency?” So, you’ll see in Day 2 that I present “The Big Mac Index,” Student Resource 12.1, a little reading which is actually from the NAF curriculum that discusses where “The Big Mac Index” came from and gives a little information about The Economist’s Web site. I had the students analyze and review it. We joked about it a little bit, and they were able to compare different countries.

That led us into the actual currency conversion activity, and with this activity I was able to transfer the information that was in the Big Mac Index, but present a new item, which were a brand of jeans that were $225. I substituted the jeans for French fries, which were called for in the NAF curriculum, because I thought it would be more meaningful for my students. They were able to complete the activity in groups, which you’ll see in the video. You’ll see them working together, which they love to work together, and come up with these amounts. They were able to get the price of these jeans that are in the United States, in American dollars, and convert it to different currencies. And then at the end of Day 2, you’ll see a discussion about what’s to come next.

Based on what we’ve learned about predictability and unpredictability and currency conversion, and all these things that we can expect to see in terms of international travel, now they’re actually going to get to do a project where they go into the computer lab and research a specific country. You’ll see at the end of Day 2 that I use the Big Mac Index to assign different countries. And based on the knowledge that I have of my students, of them personally, I was able to help some of them out with what countries I know they would love, or wean them away from their usual travel spots like the Caribbean and give them something new to explore. That was a way to present to them their mini-research project to the next day’s activity. When I discuss “grouping,” I always say, “Do you guys want to work in your same groups?” And you’ll see an overall “yes.” The groups in this class have pretty much been pre-established since the first week of school. Because I have a mix of 9th and 10th graders and this is their first course into the Academy, my main objective socially for the course was for them to feel safe and feel comfortable to express ideas. They work very well together with their partners, and you’ll see that they immediately look to each other, and even if they’re in separate areas of the room, they know, “I’m working with So-and-So” because they happen to work well together, and you’ll see in the computer lab that they do work well together.