Professional Development for Financial Literacy Teachers (PD)

Build on Your Personal Financial Literacy & Economic Knowledge

This PD course assumes you are living independently, paying bills, managing your finances and have experienced real life. It also assumes that you may or may not have goals, a written financial plan for your future and intend to be financial independent by age 55.

If this describes your situation, you will find the instructional material presented in PERSONAL FINANCIAL LITERACY & ECONOMICS FOR REAL LIFE and REAL LIFE FINANCIAL MATHEMATICS to enhance your knowledge. The focus is not on making you and expert if personal finance and economics. We believe if it can teach your high school students about finances, careers, and post-secondary education funding and selection, you can easily learn the materials.

The focus of this PD is on making you a better teacher through PFL materials. Instead of you spending time building your own course, you will gain insight into the materials by taking the course as though you were a student. You will set long-term goals, develop a ten-year plan and then modify your plan as you acquire knowledge. At the ned of the course, you should have a solid and realistic plan for your career and becoming financially secure and independent.

So what else will you learn in this PD course? You will learn how to teach your students how to critically think, problem-solve, work in teams, communicate and accept responsibility for their future. Without these skills, they will be hopelessly lost in a future of technology and artificial intelligence, as you would be if your didn’t know how to think.

Using Bloom’s Taxonomy, T-TESS Rubrics and materials from the Center and Foundation for Critical Thinking, we have integrated this higher level of instructional methodology into the course. Why? Research has demonstrated that PFL courses based on memorization of course materials or telling students what to do, fail to deliver any long term positive effects. Students need understanding to retain financial concepts. To understand, they must think about and apply PFL to their lives. This is why we time travel to the future and begin the course with students setting goals and developing a plan. We know that their initial results will not reflect reality. But this is a beginning for them to understand that they are responsible for and in control of the outcomes of their lives.

What Can You Expect?

• Lorraine Decker, president and principal author of the Real Life courses is your teacher, mentor, guide and personal financial consultant. Lorraine has a Masters in Financial Services and has received many awards for her outcome based programs.
• Although the course is self-paced, you will participate in weekend or evening team work discussions, where you work with other educators on implementation of the material.
• You are expected to complete assignments and send them to Lorraine for feedback. Since you are responsible for your professional development, if you do not complete assignments or fail to work in teams, you will lack this knowledge and experience as you teach your students.
• The PD course runs throughout the school year, starting August 1st.
• You report your time and upon successful completion of the course, you will receive a certificate of completion.
• Although not required, D&A would like feedback from you on your district teacher evaluations, career decisions and student classroom performance and outcomes.