Collinsville High School teacher Vicki Fuhrhop will present at this week’s 56th Annual Financial Literacy & Economic Education Conference in New York. She is part of a presentation about Economics Across the Curriculum.
Mrs. Fuhrhop will join Dr. Natalia Smirnova from the American Institute for Economic Research (AIER) to talk about teaching unemployment-rate calculation and its importance. Fuhrhop and Smirnova will speak on Saturday, October 7, 2017 during the Council for Economic Education annual conference in Brooklyn, NY.
Dr. Smirnova says, “AIER is going … to share with the national audience of teachers, curriculum developers, administrators and researchers our approach of infusing economics into various fields of study. We are scheduled to present the example of teaching the unemployment-rate calculation in AP statistics, algebra, history and other classes. As we develop and grow our program, we identify teachers who could be our ambassadors and be mentors to peers in their schools and school districts. They are the ones who would make sure the ideas for infusing economics across disciplines get out to the K-12 community. We call these teachers our master teachers.”
“One of our master teachers is Vicki Fuhrhop, who works in Collinsville School District in Illinois. She participated in Teach-the-Teachers Initiative (TTI) Chicago in 2016 and presented her experience in implementing her lesson plan at TTI St. Louis 2017. Now Vicki is coming to New York with us to help us galvanize the audience and promote next summer’s program cycle,” adds Smirnova, “The learning goals of Vicki’s lesson included having students study the types of unemployment and the unique challenges associated with each type, learn about the consequences of unemployment and learn the relationship between education and unemployment.”
Mrs. Fuhrhop, who incorporates economics into her Consumer Education curriculum at CHS, says her unemployment rate discussion involves “focusing on the learning styles of the 21st century learner by incorporating a variety of teaching methods. For example, the lesson included pre/post assessment, a video, podcast, interactive learning modules and using the internet to find and explore unemployment data. My focus was on presenting the information in a meaningful way that the students could relate to and find interesting. Most importantly, I strived to help them comprehend why they should have a general understanding of this basic economic concept of unemployment and how it relates to their lives beyond the classroom.”
Fuhrhop has a B.S. in Business Administration and M.S. Educational Administration from SIUE. She is currently pursuing an M.A. in Economics & Entrepreneurship for Educators from the University of Delaware which she will complete in May 2019. She is a member of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Educator Advisory Board, as well as a member and current president of the Southwestern Area Business Education Association. She also received the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award in 2016. Mrs. Fuhrhop is a members of the Collinsville High School Business Department faculty where she teaches Consumer Education, Photoshop and Introduction to Web Page Design.