PC 102 Professional Skills

Gathering Agenda for Week 12

Gathering Purpose
 To help students understand how to calculate interest payments and make decisions using data
Preparation
 Be prepared to use Excel at your gathering by sharing your screen or brining a computer to the
gathering.
 Make sure you’ve reviewed this week’s math gathering activity
 Have the charts and graphs available for the small group activity
 Prepare the room for groups:
o For face-to-face Gatherings, arrive early to setup the room, prepare any visual aids, and greet
students as they arrive.
o For virtual Gatherings, start the meeting early, share your screen with a message welcoming
them to the gathering and letting them know you’ll start soon.
 When the Gathering Agenda asks that students meet in small groups, use Breakout
Rooms.
 When the Gathering Agenda asks you to display things on “the board,” you use the
whiteboard.
Min. Activities Teaching Tips
Welcome and Devotional
5 Welcome Welcome, announcements, and housekeeping.
Sing, Pray Please sing one or two verses of a hymn and invite
someone to give an opening prayer.
Math Activity
20 Interest Activity Over the last several weeks you have been applying your Share your screen or
knowledge of graphs and lines to prepare for your have a computer hand
business proposal. This week we have been learning to demonstrate the
about interest and calculating the payment on a loan. Excel functions.
Understanding how payments are calculated can help
you be wise when approaching a loan. Make sure everyone
knows how to use Excel
Scenario 1 to perform these
Imagine you are buying a car. You talk to the car calculations.
salesman and he asks you what payment you want to
make each month in order to afford to buy a car. TIP: In the first scenario
you must estimate the
Suppose you estimate you can afford to pay $250 each Present Value (PV). Just
month in order to buy a car. The salesman shows you a try some amounts that
car which he says is usually out of your payment range, you think might work
but that he can work a deal to get a payment below your and then go up or down
budgeted payment and even have a lower interest rate until you get close to
on the loan. That sounds wonderful, but how can you the monthly payment
figure out how much the car originally costs and how given.
much you will pay in interest?

Use Excel and the PMT function to estimate the PV and

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the total interest if you bought this car.

Car #1: Usual Payment

Payment Option for
You

Monthly Payment 367.32 240.54

Interest Rate 6% 5%

Length of loan in 5 8
years

Estimate the
original price of the
car (PV)

Estimate the total

interest

Discussion Questions:
 Why might a salesman take this approach rather
than ask you how much you want to spend on
the car?
 How can focusing on payments rather than the
total cost of the loan tempt us to spend more
than we should to get things we want?

Scenario 2
You find a car that costs $25,000. There are three
different loans you can get at different interest rates and
different lengths of years. Use Excel to compare the
monthly payments and the total interest you will pay
over the life of the loan for each loan.

Loan Loan Loan 3

1 2

Original Price (PV) 25000 25000 25000

Interest Rate 6% 5% 3.875%

Length of loan in 6 5 4
years

Monthly Payment

Total interest

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 Discussion Questions:
 Why would the interest rate usually go down the
shorter the length of the loan?
 What happens to the payment when the length
of the loan is extended (more time)?
 What happens to the interest cost when the
length of the loan is extended (more time)?
 Ask if anyone has had an experience with loans
or investments, they’d like to share that
illustrate these principles.

Data & Analysis Activity

20 Small Groups Part of this week’s lesson is to help you analyze data and
make better decisions. To practice this skill, divide the
class into small groups and give each group one of the
data sets below. Ask each group to study the data and
prepare to answer the following questions as it relates to
higher education:
 What is the data describing?
 What does this data tell you about pursuing an
education?
 What questions does this data cause you to
have?
Whole Class Bring the class back together and ask each team to share
their insights on their data.
Personal Application
10 Class Discussion Lead a class discussion about how you can apply the
concepts you’ve learned this week and in your group
project to your daily life.

Possible discussion questions include:

 Why is it important to be able to understand and
interpret data?
 How can using data and performing analysis help
you make better decisions?
 How could you apply these principles in your
own lives?
 Have you ever been in a situation where you
wished you had studied the data before making
a decision?
Conclusion
5 Testimony and Bear a 30-90 second testimony and end with a prayer by
Prayer invitation.

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Scenario 1 Answer

Use Excel to create a table with the known information and use the PMT function to calculate the payment. You
will estimate the PV in the function until you get close to the payment listed. Then calculate the total interest for
each loan. You can organize your data however works best for you. (Solution walk through
https://www.loom.com/share/834c70ea435c4edcbb176fbf64a5f305)

Scenario 2 Answer

Use Excel to create a table with the known information and use the PMT function to calculate the payment.
Then calculate the total interest. You can organize your data in the way that works best for you.

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BYU-Pathway Student Outcomes
The following slides are taken from BYU-Pathway Worldwide student surveys.

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Mormons in America
Certain in Their Beliefs, Uncertain of Their Place in Society
2011 Pew Research Center Forum on Religion & Public Life National Survey

Excerpt taken from a Pew survey that was conducted between Oct. 25 and Nov. 16, 2011, among a US sample of
1,019 respondents who identified themselves as Mormons.

Activity Indicator No College Some College College Degree

High religious commitment 50% 75% 84%

Current temple recommend 46% 67% 85%

Pay tithing 66% 80% 91%

Subscribe to all Church doctrines 66% 81% 86%

Positive outlook on life 80% 89% 92%

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Completion: A Looming Crisis in
American Higher Education