Teacher Financial Literacy

THE DETAILS

PROBLEM

Teaching economics and personal finance to students early on is a great thing, but we soon discovered that less than 20% of teacher’s feel competent enough to teach it.

BUSINESS GOAL

To create an online platform that provides teachers the personal education they need, helps build their confidence and assists them with passing that knowledge on to their students.

THE STORY

Jump$tart Coalition® for Personal Financial Literacy partnered with Fidelity Cares to take their in-person education seminars to the next level in order to have a bigger impact on teacher education. I was part of an all volunteer team tasked with creating an online platform that would allow Jump$tart to provide their offerings on a much larger scale, reaching many more teachers which in turn meant helping many more students.

In talking with teachers, the challenge they were facing was having to teach a complex subject to students of varying ages and knowledge levels while not always feeling confident in their own level of knowledge on certain topics. Our goal was to create simple and engaging materials that would not only help the teachers increase their confidence, but that could also be used in the classroom.

WHAT WE HEARD

01

"I know this content is for me, but I want to be able to use it with my students as well."

When we set out on designing the platform, our target audience was the teachers. But in meeting with teachers, we kept hearing over and over that they really wanted to be able to use this in the classroom with their students. We knew this was something we were going to have to address if we were going to be successful. We needed to arm the teachers with the information they needed while not overwhelming the students.

The online lessons themselves were simplified to be more suitable for guiding classroom discussions with the students. Separate teacher notes were included with each lesson that were much more indepth, giving the teachers the full breadth of knowledge needed to help them feel more confident in their ability to teach the topic at hand.

02

"Some students love to read, others are more visual/hands on learners."

We learned that another challenge for teachers was that not all students learn the same way. The old methodolgy of reading from classbooks wasn't really ideal. They needed to find different ways to present the materials in order to ensure that all students were engaged and able to comprehend what was being taught. It was important to them that the platform we were building would assist them with this.

The lessons were built to include multiple tools and activities to supplement the lessons. Videos, online tools, articles, calculators, and in-class activites provided a variety of materials that allowed for better student engagement, regardless of their learning methodolgies.

03

"I have 9th and 12th graders in the same class. This needs to be engaging for everyone."

Teaching a complex subject like finances is difficult in an of itself. Teaching it to wide range of grades at the same time makes it even more of a challenge. Keeping the students engaged in a not so glamorous subject matter was critical.

Suggested talking points were incorporated throughout the lessons in order to inspire classroom discussion and further engage students. This participation would also serve to bring the students together and help blur the lines between freshmen and seniors.

The lessons took on a more visual-heavy approach with minimal text, making them more friendly and inviting, not only to the students, but also the teachers.

04

"I want to be able to pick and choose from the content to integrate it with my lessons."

We initially took more of a gamification approach. We thought that unlocking content as you go, earning badges for completing lessons and having leader boards would not only be more engaging, but provide incentives to keep coming back as new lessongs were added. When we presented this concept to the teachers, it missed the mark. We learned that some topics they may only spend 15 minutes on, others may be a week. They needed something more flexible that aligned with their lesson plans.

We created a central page for each lesson that housed all the resources associated with that lesson giving teachers a single place to see all the tools available to them, quickly access as needed, and ultimately create a more customized lesson plan.

A less linear approach became the model that we moved forward with. Jump links were included at the beginning of each lesson that allowed teachers to be able to jump in and out to easily access specific topics during class.

THE RESULTS

The project is currently still under develop with an expected launch into pilot by Q1 of 2018. It has received a great response from Jump$tart, project sponsors and especially the teachers who have been excited to be included throughout the process and having their voices heard.

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