Essential question: How can a consumer select and manage a safe, low-cost bank or credit-union account?
Instructional caution: Distinguish factual definitions, legal holdings, economic relationships, value judgments, and policy preferences. Do not grade students for political viewpoint; grade evidence, accuracy, reasoning, citation, and disciplinary method.
Compare three hypothetical or real account disclosures and select the best option for a stated user profile.
Reconcile a monthly statement against a transaction register and identify errors, pending items, and fees.
Instructional aim: Define the Week 3 problem, establish the relevant institutions or economic relationships, and construct an initial answer to the essential question.
Evidence of learning: Identify one distinction that prevents a common oversimplification of this topic.
Support: Provide a vocabulary preview, chunked text, text-to-speech, and claim/evidence sentence frames.
Extension: Identify a competing theoretical interpretation and describe what evidence could distinguish it.
Instructional aim: Evaluate a primary record, legal case, policy document, contract, or institutional source for authority, evidence, context, and limitation.
Evidence of learning: State one claim the focal record supports and one claim it cannot establish alone.
Support: Define specialized language, provide a structured annotation guide, and allow oral rehearsal before writing.
Extension: Locate a source from a different institutional or social position and explain how it confirms, complicates, or contradicts the first.
Instructional aim: Interpret a quantitative model, institutional process, financial calculation, or policy tradeoff without confusing description and causation.
Evidence of learning: Explain which conclusion remains valid after the changed assumption and which conclusion does not.
Support: Provide labeled examples, formulas or process steps, and a partially completed model.
Extension: Perform a sensitivity analysis or compare an alternative policy/institutional design.
Instructional aim: Construct and defend a precise claim using disciplinary evidence, a counterclaim, and a proportionate conclusion.
Evidence of learning: Explain why the counterclaim deserves a response rather than dismissal.
Support: Use claim-evidence-reasoning frames and permit an audio or oral draft before the final written product.
Extension: Rewrite the recommendation for an audience with a different role, jurisdiction, time horizon, or risk tolerance.
Instructional aim: Demonstrate weekly mastery, correct misconceptions, and transfer the central concept to a new case.
Evidence of learning: Apply the week’s reasoning to this mastery action: A student verifies deposit insurance, compares the full fee schedule, and reconciles transactions rather than relying only on the displayed balance.
Support: Allow extended time, reduced-distraction setting, read-aloud where appropriate, and repeated attempts after documented correction.
Extension: Write one high-quality examination question and an answer key explaining why each distractor is wrong.
Each principal assignment is worth 30 points: 8 accuracy, 8 evidence or calculation, 6 reasoning, 4 counterargument/limitation, and 4 clarity/citation. Use the course rubrics for expanded descriptors.
| # | Question | Answer | Rationale |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Which definition best matches “checking account”? | D | Checking account means a transaction account designed for payments, withdrawals, and deposits. |
| 2 | Which definition best matches “savings account”? | B | Savings account means an interest-bearing deposit account intended primarily for saving. |
| 3 | Which definition best matches “credit union”? | C | Credit union means a member-owned cooperative financial institution. |
| 4 | Which definition best matches “routing number”? | B | Routing number means a number identifying a financial institution in payment systems. |
| 5 | Which definition best matches “overdraft”? | C | Overdraft means a transaction exceeding the available account balance, potentially causing fees or declined payment. |
| 6 | Which definition best matches “deposit insurance”? | C | Deposit insurance means protection for eligible deposits up to legal limits through FDIC or NCUA coverage. |
| 7 | Which statement is most consistent with the evidence and reasoning developed in Week 3? | D | Account selection should compare insurance, fees, minimums, interest, access, service, and complaint history. |
| 8 | Which statement is most consistent with the evidence and reasoning developed in Week 3? | D | Routing and account numbers are sensitive information and should be shared only through trusted processes. |
| 9 | Which statement is most consistent with the evidence and reasoning developed in Week 3? | C | Regular reconciliation detects unauthorized transactions, missing deposits, fees, and cash-flow problems. |
| 10 | Which action best demonstrates mastery of the Week 3 inquiry? | B | A student verifies deposit insurance, compares the full fee schedule, and reconciles transactions rather than relying only on the displayed balance. |
Should overdraft protection be automatic, opt-in, or prohibited for some account types?
5 points: clear claim, accurate disciplinary reasoning, two specific pieces of evidence, meaningful qualification or counterargument, and complete explanation.