Knowledge @ Wharton & PwC

My experience today with PwC and Penn's Wharton School of Business was a new level of professionalism and excellence. They teamed up to deliver the Seminar for High School Educators on Business and Financial Responsibility. I had the privilege of sitting on the opening panel with Shannon Schuyler (corporate responsibility leader, PwC), Georgette Phillips (vice dean, undergraduate division, Wharton), and Annamaria Lusardi (professor of economics and accountancy and academic director of the Global Center for Financial Literacy, George Washington University School of Business). The panel was moderated by my friend Dan Kadlec, personal finance columnist, TIME.

Following our panel discussion, Diana Drake (KWHS managing editor) provided a website demonstration of KWHS. Their website was robust and full of turn-key financial literacy lessons that could be integrated into a number of disciplines. I spent some time following the demonstration running through various other areas of their site, and additionally found multiple economics and business lessons I plan to incorporate in my lessons.

Click here to visit the Knowledge @ Wharton High School website.

I also spent more time reviewing PwC's financial literacy curriculum. Online financial literacy resources are typically geared solely for high school students. What impressed me the most was that PwC also provided resources for elementary and middle school educators. On a side note, their site is clean and easy to navigate through.

Click here to review PwC's financial literacy curriculum.

Parent Resources for Financial Literacy

Here are a few terrific resources teachers can use who are interested in working with parents to collectively develop personal financial literacy skills in students.

Parent Guides are a first-time-ever curriculum developed for parents to begin sharing Financial Fitness for Life® with their children at every grade level. The lessons are simple, with exercises parents can guide or explore as a family. Each subject area provides material for family discussion and an assortment of recommended activities that parents can do together with their kids. There are two comprehensive versions: K-5 and 6-12.

I wrote about Money As You Grow in this earlier post, which is 20 lessons for parents built by the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability.

Updated: Click here to visit activities developed for parents and kids by Schwab MoneyWise.

10 reasons to attend the Jump$tart National Educator Conference

1. Tools, resources, information and support for teaching personal finance in the classroom.

2. A variety of workshops under three strands: advocacy, curricula / content, and personal development.

3. The opening reception is always fun. This year it will be with Jump$tart Leadership at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago

4. Collaborate with peers who have a similar passion and interest from across the country.

5. Last year's Saturday Special Dinner Event was accompanied with a great show.

6. Lots of free financial education resources in the exhibit hall.

7. The opportunity for 15 professional development hours for Teachers

8. The opportunity to participate in a free financial planning clinic,

9. A financial educator certification program test on Friday, which I will be taking.

10. It is a coalition—an organization of organizations that share an interest in advancing financial literacy among students in pre-kindergarten through college. Their mission is a cause not a company, and they have pulled together about 150 national organizations and entities from the corporate, non-profit, academic, government and other sectors.

Click here to register for the Jump$tart National Educator Conference.

Teaching Entrepreneurship

My friend Doug Young from the Council for Economic Education just passed on this terrific resource for teaching entrepreneurship. Use these supplemental videos to introduce to your students the lessons in their Entrepreneurship Economics publication.

Student Debt: Be a part of the solution

Student debt is now over one trillion dollars, exceeding credit card debt. It is a growing problem that can be quantified with a number of statistics. Certainly avoiding student debt if at all possible is appropriate, but for many it is not a realistic option. So rather than diving into the student debt problems that are out of educators hands, I wanted to share how we could be a part of the solution. 

Federal Student Aid, a part of the U.S. Department of Education, is the largest provider of student financial aid in the nation. They are responsible for managing a number of student financial assistance programs. These programs provide grants, loans, and work-study funds to students attending college or career school. Their website is a tremendous resource for educators.

Click here to read the K-Adult checklist to prepare for college. This is information we should share with every student. A good way tool to use to kick off any lesson about paying for college is their two minute introductory video below.

Click here to read about the lesson I plan on using to prepare my students to find the right college fit.

12 Twitter feeds for HS students to follow

Most of my students are actively engaged with Twitter. Subsequently, I started the TeenDollars Twitter feed last year as a way to share financial and consumer education information applicable to them now. Examples of information we share include advice on how to financially prepare for college (such as processes and financial aid checklists), getting insurance for the first time, or consumer tips on how to buy a car. This week I started to use our Twitter feed as an additional anchor activity, and allow students to select their favorite article to retweet from our account.

Here is who I believe to be the top 12 Twitter feeds for high school students to follow. Each Twitter feed provides practical life advice and financial tips they can benefit from now.

@PlanetMoney NPR’s Planet Money is full of applicable financial and economic information communicated through infographics, podcasts, and blog postings.

@KhanAcademy Khan Academy has 3,300 videos and multiple practice exercises for a number of content areas.

@VolunteerTEENnation VolunTEENnation connects teen volunteers to teen volunteer opportunities.

@USNewsEducation US News & Education provide numerous tips for transitioning into college.

@FASFA Federal Student Aid, a part of the U.S. Department of Education, is the largest provider of student financial aid in the nation.

@PayingForSchool Fastweb provides great insight into scholarship opportunities and other useful information for students transitioning into college.

@CFPB The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau provides a number of tools consumers can use to make wise and informed financial choices.

@TeenDollars TeenDollars is student managed and dedicated to providing their fellow students with the financial literacy tools and concepts they need now. They throw in a few fun financial education games from time to time.

@AmericaSaves America Saves provide free financial tools, savings services, advice and resources that help Americans from every income level take the steps needed to take charge of their finances and manage money more effectively.

@Experian_US Experian provides useful information about credit, debt, and credit scores.

@Bankrate Bankrate is full of use consumer advice and financial calculators.

@PracticalMoney VISA's Practical Money Skills is most popular with my students for the financial education games Financial Football and Financial Soccer.

The gold standard resource for teaching students about banking

The CFPB just released the gold standard resource for teaching high school students about banking. It is written in plain language and is accompanied with an easy to follow infographic.

Click here to see the resource for yourself.

Investing in Yourself