Office of Curriculum, Technology, & Assessment

Overview: This presentation will help teachers gain fundamental skills, knowledge, and understanding of economics within the context of teaching secondary social studies. The participants will develop an understanding of principles, and of the basic concepts of scarcity and choice, opportunity cost and trade-offs, production, consumption, and interdependence. They will learn skills in economics methodology, instructional techniques and motivational strategies. Further, they will be able to identify instructional links between economics and the broad social studies curriculum. Hands-on lessons that cover a range of social studies topics and content areas will be demonstrated. Dr. Jennings is currently the Associate Director of the Florida State University Stavros Center for Economic Education. Her areas of specialization are Economic Education, Gifted Education, Civic Education, Curriculum research and development, Teacher training, and educational policy. Dr. Jennings has taught in various special programs including Teacher Institutes in Budapest, Hungary, and the Florida Governor's College for Gifted and High Achieving Learners. She has developed and implemented innovative instructional models used nationally and internationally. Her publications include journal articles in Senior Economics (1990) and Trends and Issues. She has authored The New York Times Guide to Economics (2000), and It’s All About Choices (2001). Her lesson plans have been published in the Wall Street Journal Classroom Edition. (1992-1999).

NSDC Standards for Staff Development

Context Standards
Staff development that improves the learning of all students:

• Organizes adults into learning communities whose goals are aligned with those of the school and district. (Learning Communities)

• Requires skillful school and district leaders who guide continuous instructional improvement. (Leadership)

• Requires resources to support adult learning and collaboration. (Resources)

Process Standards
Staff development that improves the learning of all students:

• Uses multiple sources of information to guide improvement and demonstrate its impact. (Evaluation)

• Prepares educators to apply research to decision making. (Research-Based)

• Uses learning strategies appropriate to the intended goal. (Design)

• Applies knowledge about human learning and change. (Learning)

• Provides educators with the knowledge and skills to collaborate. (Collaboration)

Content Standards
Staff development that improves the learning of all students:

• Prepares educators to understand and appreciate all students, create safe, orderly and supportive learning environments, and hold high expectations for their academic achievement. (Equity)

• Deepens educators' content knowledge, provides them with research-based instructional strategies to assist students in meeting rigorous academic standards, and prepares them to use various types of classroom assessments appropriately. (Quality Teaching)

NOTE: Each site must audio mute upon connecting to the session to prevent voice activated moving of the cameras from site to site.

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