Applying Standards Based Constructivism:
A Two-Step Guide for Motivating Students
Stock Exchange Graphs

Popular Name: Stock Exchange Graphs
Grade Level: 5th Grade
Discipline: Mathematics and English Language Arts
Standards and Performance Indicators Context
 
MST Standard 3
Students will understand mathematics and become mathematically confident by communicating and reasoning mathematically, applying mathematics in real-world settings, and solving problems through the integrated study of numbers systems, geometry, algebra, data analysis, probability, and trigonometry.  Students will:
  • Use models, facts, and relationships to draw conclusions about mathematics and explain their thinking.
  • Justify their answers and solution processes.
  • Use logical reasoning to reach simple conclusions.
  • Add, subtract, and divide whole numbers.
  • Construct tables, charts, and graphs to display and analyze real-world data.
ELA Standard 1
 
Students will listen, speak, read, and write for information and understanding.
  • Gather and interpret information from children’s reference books, magazines, textbooks, electronic bulletin boards, audio and media presentations, oral interviews, and from such forms as charts, graphs, maps, and diagrams.
  • Select information appropriate to the purpose of their investigation and relate ideas from one text to another.
  • Support inferences to text features, such as vocabulary and organizational patterns.
  • Present information clearly in a variety of oral and written forms such as summaries, paraphrases, brief reports, stories, posters, and charts.
  • Include relevant information and exclude extraneous material.
  • Observe basic writing conventions, such as correct spelling, punctuation, and capitalization, as well as sentence and paragraph structure appropriate to written forms.
Core Curriculum Outline Connection
  • Circle graphs to explore the concept of percent.
  • Graphs: circle, bar, histogram, line, pictograph, and stem and leaf.
Learning Objectives (which will become the dimensions of the assessment’s rubric.)
  • Students will be able to accurately construct bar graphs, line graphs, and pie graphs from real-world data.
  • Students will be able to use graphs and related data to draw conclusions and make predictions.
  • Students will be able to write an essay comparing their conclusions and predictions to the information contained in “official” reports based on the same data that was used to create the student graphs.
EXPLORATORY PHASE
(estimated time: 20 minutes)

Label the four corners of the room:
  •  Corner 1:  I could explain most of the things listed on the board.
  • Corner 2:  I have a general understanding of the things listed on the board.
  • Corner 3:  I’ve heard the things on the board discussed but don’t really understand much about them.
  • Corner 4:  I’ve heard very little about the things listed on the board but don’t really understand much about them.
Write the following on the board:
  • How stock is purchased
  • The relationship between stocks and dividends
  • The role of a company’s board of directors
  • How stockholders learn about companies from which they own stock are doing
  • The role of the Securities and Exchange Commission
  • The role of a stockbroker
Have students go to four corners of the room to self-identify the degree of their knowledge and understandings of the stock market.
Create small groups composed of equal numbers of students from each corner of the room.
Begin a small-group brainstorming session with two focus questions:
  • What do you know about how the stock market works?
  • What do you know about the ways a company reports to its stockholders?
The groups report out to the whole class, while the teacher records on the board.
DISCOVERY PHASE
(estimated time: three 50-minute classes)

Performance Task (including planned interventions and audience beyond the teacher)
Individual student task:
  • Students select one company that is on the New York State Stock Exchange.
  • Students obtain the quarterly earnings data of the company they have selected from the Internet or from the business section of the newspaper.
  • Students use quarterly earnings data to create line graphs and bar graphs for the company they selected.
  • Students create a pie graph to compare their company’s slice of the total earnings of all the selected by all the students in the class for each year covered.
  • Students use these graphs to draw conclusions regarding their company and to make predictions regarding the future of their company.
  • Students send for their company’s year end report.
  • Students read company reports and compare their conclusions and predictions with those contained in their company’s reports, and write an essay based on those comparisons.
  • Audience beyond the teacher: Students reflect on this experience, draw conclusions regarding what they have learned and select a person(s) they wish to share what they have learned and how they wish to share what they have learned.  (Examples of the audience include: grandparents, aunts/uncles, officers of the company they have studied, pen pals, other classes.  Examples of ways to share what they have learned include: letters with the essay enclosed, e-mailing, a PowerPoint presentation.)
Planned Interventions
Bar and Line Graphs
  • The teacher models graph making using the overhead projector.
  • The students construct a handmade line and a handmade bar graph using data from a class survey on some topic of interest to them.  (For example, student survey of favorite TV shows from a select grouping of shows.)
  • The teacher works the room.
Pie Graph
  • Teacher works with individual students when they are ready to develop a pie graph.  If a number are ready at one time this intervention can be a small group intervention.  If some students complete ahead of the general schedule, they would be enlisted as student-intervenes.
Task Specifications for Developing the Student-Generated Product/Process
Each student is to produce the following using the company’s earnings data:
  • A bar graph
  • A line graph
  • Each student is to produce a pie graph using the combined companies’ earnings data.
  • The student essay based on comparisons between the student’s graphs, conclusions and predictions and the company’s yearly report should be at least three paragraphs long.

Assessment of Performance Task
Dimensions of bar graphs, line graphs and pie graphs
 Criteria for a score of
4
 Criteria for a score of
3
 Criteria for a score of
2
 Criteria for a score of
1
Accuracy of data representation All data represented on graphs is based on data in the quarterly reports.
 Almost all data represented on graphs is based on data in the quarterly reports.
 Some of the data represented on graphs is based on data in the quarterly reports.
 Little of the data represented on graphs is based on data in the quarterly reports.
The size and scale of the graph
 The size of the graph and the scale of the increments are appropriate and enhance readability.
 The size of the graph and the scale of increments are appropriate.
 The size of the graph makes reading it difficult.  The scale of the increments misrepresents the data.
 The size of the graph makes reading it impossible.  The scale of the increments misrepresents the data.
Accuracy of graph labels
 All graph’s labels are in the right places, accurate and readable.
 Almost all the graph’s labels are in the right places, accurate and readable.
 Some of the graph’s labels are in the right places, accurate and readable.
 Few of the graph’s labels are in the right places, accurate and readable
Number of conclusions.
 More than two conclusions.
 Two conclusions
 One conclusion
 No conclusions
Student conclusions backed up by data
 All student conclusions are backed up by data.
 Most student conclusions backed up by data.
 Some student conclusions backed up by data.
 Student conclusions not backed up by data.
Student comparisons of company reports to student conclusions
Compares apples to apples
 All student conclusions are compared to similar information in the company’s yearly report.
 Most student conclusions are compared to similar information in the company’s yearly report
 Some student conclusions are compared to similar information in the company’s yearly report
 Few student conclusions are compared to similar information in the company’s yearly report
Number of predictions
 Two or more
 Two predictions
 One prediction
 No predictions
Student prediction(s) backed up by data
 All student predictions are backed up by data.
 Most student predictions are backed up by data.
 Some student predictions are backed up by data.
 Few student predictions are backed up by data.
Student comparison of company reports to student prediction(s)
Compare apples to apples
 All student predictions are compared to similar information in the company’s yearly report.
 Most student predictions are compared to similar information in the company’s yearly report
 Some student predictions are compared to similar information in the company’s yearly report
 Few student predictions are compared to similar information in the company’s yearly report
Mechanics
 Punctuation, capitalization, verb agreement, spelling support a high level of readability.
 Punctuation, capitalization, verb agreement, spelling support a general level of readability.
 Punctuation, capitalization, verb agreement, spelling result in a poor level of readability.
 Punctuation, capitalization, verb agreement, spelling make essay very difficult to read.
Resources To Be Made Available To Students
  • Newspaper business sections or summaries of data from business sections.
  • Graph paper
Suggestions for the Teacher
The “Pool” of Companies
The teacher may wish to limit the “pool” of companies that the students can select.  The limiting process can be done in several ways.  For example, the students can brainstorm the companies they are interested in and then that number can be whittled down to a specific number or the teacher could pre-select the companies.

The Quarterly Report Data
The teacher may wish to supply copies of the data by combining the quarterly data from one or more years.  Or the teacher may wish to provide students with copies of past yearly reports and/or newspaper reportage of quarterly earnings for students to compile.  Graphs that are created from several years are more revealing.

Yearly Reports
To avoid delays students should write for their company’s yearly report as soon as they decide on which company they are following.

Conclusions and Predictions
The teacher may wish to provide students with prompts to assist them in framing their conclusions and predictions.