Fantasy Stock Market

My Introduction to Economics course consists of the same students from the Money, Banking and Finance class.  The content is intended to be more microeconomics and project based learning.  This semester students participate in a fantasy stock market, creating their own business plan, and learn the theory of the firm.

The first week back I set up students for their first project by showing them a documentary in class on the Financial Crisis of 2008.  I've noticed that if I assign videos outside of class two results occur: students don't watch the video, or students don't get the full value of the film.   Thus I showed the film in class to encourage dialogue and provide context.

This previous week, I've worked with students on understanding the general principles and vocabularies of financial investing.  They were given self directed, independent vocabulary questions.  They filled out the vocab terms to the best of their ability.  While their definitions were accurate, students could not place the vocab in context or explain them in their own words.  Therefore, we discussed as a class the vocab in the context of example stocks (such as Apple).

Students now have sufficient background on investing to begin exploring stocks.  They've been tasked with assembling a simulated 100,000 dollar portfolio.  The simulation is run through the Wall Street Journal's web page.  Students are in a league with one another and are both are attempting to achieve instructor provided goals and competing with the rest of the class.  Students will be given a few days of independent research time to assemble their portfolio.

I plan on using Khan videos to provide supplemental support to students who have questions about financial markets.  My next post will follow the completion of this assignment.