RLPF Classroom FAQs

Districts and Charter schools in Texas that educate high school students are required to offer a personal financial literacy course. For many reasons, most schools offer a course but do not conduct the course or encourage students to sign-up for it.

Most students state they want real-life education, courses which will prepare them for adulthood and the future. How is it possible that they do not connect the dots between what they want and a personal financial education course?

Everyone agrees that students need personal financial education. All of the data points to a generation not prepared to think and make wise financial decisions.

Real Life Personal Finance, offered as a flipped course, requires students to step up their game. The course should be taught so they independently process the content of each lesson and then the students work under your guidance to address the exercises in the lesson. The first part is for students to gain knowledge. The second part allows the student to think, problem-solve, work in teams to gain understanding.

High school students need to prepare for real-life. They need to be able to work independently to acquire knowledge and then work with teams of different cultures to solve problems. If attending postsecondary education, they must be prepared to study independently and also work in teams to gain understanding.

The traditional Texas classroom does not fully prepare students for being career and college ready. RLPF-C gives instructors and students an opportunity to develop the work habits necessary for success.

RLPF-C is organized so students independently read each lesson and then work on case studies, assignments, and videos, typically in teams, to gain a deeper understanding and learn how to think.

If you discover that students struggle with independent work, then you know they will significantly benefit from a flipped instructional methodology. No employer is going to read to them what they need to learn to do the job. No professor at an upper tier university is going to lecture to them what they should be able to read on their own.

1. RLPF-C is written by award-winning financial professionals with forty years of experience in financial education.
2. RLPF-C is updated annually. This saves teachers hundreds of hours of additional work trying to identify objectives, updated reference material, changing assignments and videos.
3. With a legislative mandate, RLPF-C provides a 1/2 social studies credit.
4. It is approved by the TEA meeting 100% of the TEKS and ELPS and accessibility standards.
5. In addition to acquiring a deep-level of understanding of the subject matter, students are challenged to think, problem-solve, work in teams, make presentations and communicate with adults.
6. Students develop a plan for their future and make changes now to secure postsecondary education and a financially secure future. This translates into outcomes for the district with more students graduating career and college ready, more attending PSE and more graduating from PSE.
7. Students master Canvas Learning Management Systems. This LMS is frequently licensed by colleges and universities. Using it now is an excellent foundation for online learning.

If you plan on developing your own course, please recognize the time, energy, professional knowledge needed. If a teacher or department head truly had the knowledge, passion, and understanding to write this course, a career change should be recommended. The average income for a financial planner is about $150,000 a year.  D&A developed this course because we are a social impact entity with a mission – we want students to achieve their goals.

Unlike other high school courses where the instructor often conveys information by a lecture, in this course, the student is responsible for acquiring the information independently, much like a flipped course. A teacher is valuable because he adds real-life subject matter experience, asks challenging questions, evaluates presentations and students as they work in teams.  The student benefits when the teacher is a “student” of personal finance and is willing to learn from the publishers, from friends, and from students. The instructor should want to be increasingly more comfortable with a Socratic method of teaching – loves to ask relevant questions and have the student derive answers. Finally, we suggest a teacher be assigned who believes this course can teach all students how to think and change their future.

D&A provides an online PD course of study focused on personal finance subject matter. The publisher is collaborating with Rice University to create an on-campus Leadership training program focused on skills t reinforce a Thinking Instructional Methodology. The campus program is optional.

Additionally, D&A is desirous to support every teacher. We are available by phone and email.