Building Financial IQs for Students--Both ELLs and EOs Alike--With Free Apps!

Nowadays, students seem to have very little knowledge of surviving in the real world after high school or college.  What happens when school days are over?  Finding a job might not be too difficult, but budgeting on that paycheck from the first job might be.  Many students have no realistic knowledge of how to survive on a paycheck. 

Educators can never start too early to teach students what a budget is, how it is set up, and why it is important.  Bring in allowances for those who are too young to work.

"Scenario:
Your parents give them $20.00 a week.  How will you decide how to use it?  Talk to your partner about how you would make decisions on the best use of the money so that you will not run short before your next allowance."
 
Teachers should let students voice their decisions first and then move into whole group discussions on whether or not the choices made on the best use of the money are good or not and WHY?

For older students, give them a higher figure and even more pressing decisions.  For example, they take home $3300 month and they want to live in the Silicon Valley.  Have students search out average rents that they could afford.  This may come to shock that the neighborhoods they thought they could live in are definitely out of reach. Then move on to transportation expenses ("You want a car.  OK, do you have a car loan?  How much is it?  After your rent, you will now subtract that figure.).  How about food?  How about clothing?  Gas?  Utilities?  Entertainment?  Again, have them work with partners to see IF they can live on that sum.  They will find that some adjustments will need to be made if they are to be able to eat for example:)

I also think students should learn early in life about credit cards, debit cards, student loans, etc.  Investing should also be addressed.  The less money spent on borrowing money, the more money for saving or investing.  For younger students, encourage them to save 20% of their allowance.  For older ones, decide on how much money will be put away every month for savings.

Try financial savvy with students.  There are money games for all ages and grades.  Start early and continue it through high school.

Denise
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Teaching Students How to Build a Solid Financial Foundation!

With common core math lessons, teachers will need to build into lessons real world applications.  One area in this domain that will finally get the attention it deserves is financial literacy.  All too often, students possess a very limited knowledge of life beyond high school especially in areas of money related issues such as rent, mortgage, college expenses, car payments, credit cards, budgets, etc.  Even young children can benefit from learning to budget their allowances.  The goal should be that in every school and at every grade financial IQs are sharpened.  Khan Academy and the Bank of America have risen to the challenge in addressing this critical need in young people.

To use this free resource, students will need to set up accounts.  In fact, teachers may wish to share the site with parents.  Many adults are using the site to see how much they remember from high school and college.  Bill Gates even spends time there:)  The videos are well done and do not contain any distracting items.  Further, if teachers like flipping their classroom, they can assign the "lecture" to do at home and the "homework" to be done in school.  Students who struggle with the lecture (students take mini-checks along the way which the teacher can monitor from home) can come to school the next day knowing that the teacher can help.   While for those who encountered no problems can proceed on to more challenging assignments.

Try it out.  Your students will thank you for it:)

Denise

ELL TEACHER PROS

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BUILD FINANCIAL LITERACY SKILLS FOR YOUR STUDENTS:)

In this day and age of increasing global debt, job loss, high credit card rates, etc., students more than ever (no matter what the age) need to learn the value of money. They need to learn how to make it stretch, plan for retirement, save for a rainy day, plan everyday expenses within a budget, stay out of debt, study the TRUE costs of pursuing a college education, etc. The list goes on and on, but most schools don't spend much time on this subject to the demands of addressing benchmarks and pacing calendars. If educators are truly to prepare students to be financially savvy after they leave high school or college, they must start early in building financial literacy.


One way to make such content less overwhelming is using tools such as the ones on this site. Here the complex is broken down into smaller comprehensible chunks so that students can develop those key financial skills that will turn them into consumer savvy adults. For the younger students, they will learn how to both spend their allowances carefully as well as save a bit for emergencies. The site also contains videos on investing, borrowing, planning for retirement, etc. One of the video contributors is The Khan Academy. They offer videos on the US economy, mutual funds, bankruptcy, etc. Of course, not every video works with every age group, but this site has something for every age level INCLUDING lessons on each topic for teachers.

There are also a wide range of interactive games which support instruction. Yes, students will have fun, but they will have to carefully weigh each financial decision they make if they are to earn a high score. Calculators are also built into the site to support students in working with those numbers:)


FINANCIAL LITERACY might even be appealing to some adults:)

Denise

ELL TEACHER PROS