40 Free Financial Literacy Lessons for High School Students

Besides being National Poetry Month April is also National Financial Capability Month. On that note, Discovery Education and Discover offer a great resource called Pathway to Financial Success in Schools. 

Pathway to Financial Success in Schools offers a handful of resources for middle school use, but the bulk of the material is geared toward high school students. 

Pathway to Financial Success in Schools for high school students includes eight units of study. Each unit has five self-paced modules. The units cover the following topics:

• Being financially responsible
• Using financial services
• Financing your future
• Getting paid
• Paying yourself first
• Using credit wisely
• Making major financial decisions
• Growing and protecting your finances

Each of the modules in each unit should take students ten to fifteen minutes to complete. In my testing of the modules I found that students had to complete each part of each module in sequence in order to advance through the unit. The modules feature narrated animations (subtitles are available) followed by some questions for students to answer. 

Applications for Education
On a fairly regular basis I have friends say things to me like "why don't high schools teach kids about managing money?" It's a good question. And though I know some schools do offer classes about money management, I wish that more schools would do the same.

 
If you're looking for some good financial literacy lessons to share with your students, these self-paced lessons are a great place to start.

Short Lessons on Stocks and Bonds

A few nights ago I had a long zone 2 ride on my indoor bike trainer. Whenever I have one of those workouts scheduled, I queue up a favorite movie to watch. Last night I watched The Big Short starring Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Christian Bale, and Brad Pitt. For those who aren't familiar with The Big Short, it is a movie about how the housing and stock markets crashed in 2008 and how a few shrewd investors benefited from the crash. Watching the movie again this week prompted me to dig up some information about stocks, bonds, ETFs, and related investing basics.

Investing for Beginners is a playlist of videos produced by Fidelity Investments. Granted, the videos are from a financial services company, but they do offer a good introduction to the basics about stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.

Investopedia offers a playlist of short videos that define things like ETFs, dividends, and compound interest. That playlist is embedded below.

All Paygrade Features are Now Free

PayGrade is a classroom economy simulation that you can use all year in just about any classroom setting. Recently, PayGrade was acquired by an online investment company called Stash. A result of that acquisition is that all of the features of PayGrade are now free for all teachers and students. 

How PayGrade Works
Last year I wrote this detailed overview of how PayGrade works. The following is a condensed version of that overview. 

PayGrade lets you create an online classroom space in which students have to complete jobs to earn virtual currency. PayGrade offers a list of jobs that you can assign to your students or you can create your own jobs for students to complete. Some of the default job listings that you'll find listed in PayGrade are secretary, conservationist, and technology assistant. The rate of pay for each job is something that you can choose.

At the end of each week in PayGrade your students get paid in virtual currency that they can redeem for various rewards of their choosing. Students also have the option to just bank their virtual currency for use at a later date.

PayGrade isn't just a simple "students do jobs, students get rewards" system. That is because students have to pay bills from their virtual paychecks before they can spend their currency for things that they want.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com.

4 Videos That Help Students & Parents Understand Financial Aid

The FAFSA and financial aid packages offered by universities can be difficult for the first-time college student to navigate. And if you're a first generation college student it can be even more difficult because you may not know who to turn to for advice. Fortunately, a lot of high school guidance departments are doing more than ever to help students understand the FAFSA and financial aid. Planet Nutshell produced two good videos that will also help students and parents understand the FAFSA and financial aid. The videos are embedded below.


Choosing Financial Aid in a Nutshell from Planet Nutshell on Vimeo.



Borrow Wisely: FAFSA in a Nutshell from Planet Nutshell on Vimeo.

Understanding how federal student loans are different from private student loans can help students and their parents choose the best financial aid package. The following two videos, also from Planet Nutshell, do a nice job of explaining private vs. federal student loans.



Understanding Federal Student Loans in a Nutshell from Planet Nutshell on Vimeo.



Federal vs. Private Student Loans in a Nutshell from Planet Nutshell on Vimeo.

These videos were produced by Planet Nutshell with funding from the U.S. Depart of Education, the Utah Higher Education Assistance Authority, and the Utah Education Network.

Economics Lessons for Students of All Ages

A couple of weeks ago David Andrade posted a short list of financial literacy resources for students. Money As You Grow is one of the items on the list that is new to me. Money As You Grow was developed by the President's Advisory Council on Financial Capability.

Money As You Grow features lesson activities for students from pre-K through college. The interactive site outlines financial literacy milestones for each age group. Click on an age group and milestone to see a short list of activities that you can do with students to help them reach a new financial literacy milestone.

Money As You Grow offers free posters about the milestones and activities shared on the website. The posters are available in a variety of sizes for you to download and print.

Applications for Education
It is never too early to start teaching students about the responsible use of money. What I like about Money As You Grow is that many of the suggested activities are things that parents can do with their children during the course of a normal day of running errands. I also like the suggested credit card activity for teens. In the credit card activity for teens they are asked to use the Federal Reserve's website to see how long it would take to repay $1,000 credit card balance if they only make minimum payments on time every month.