[Updated 3/12/24]

NGPF offers three, fully built out personal finance courses for high school students - the Semester Course, the Trimester Course, and the Full-Year Course. Wondering how to use them effectively? Read more below to discover 5 tips on how to do so! 

1: Use the whole course OR select units 

All three courses follow a scope and sequence that the NGPF Curriculum Team laid out when developing the curriculum. That being said, you may wish to pick and choose select units from a course or even switch them around to an order that makes most sense for you and your students. 

2: Trim down or build up a lesson

You may find that NGPF lessons are too long or too short for your class period. If they’re too long, you simply want to trim down the lesson by eliminating pieces of it. If they’re too short, you want to extend the lesson by supplementing the existing content with other NGPF curriculum. You can also add some of the resources in the Do More/Learn More section at the bottom of the lesson guides to make the lesson longer. 

Luckily, we’ve created an easy-to-use guide that provides suggestions on how to trim down or build up an NGPF lesson! 

3: Vary your implementation and pedagogical strategies 

While each NGPF lesson comes with a Student Activity Packet that you can distribute to students, we highly recommend that you avoid using the packet on a daily basis. Why? Because no one likes completing worksheet after worksheet! Instead, change up your implementation strategies. Here are a few to consider: 

• Spend most of your class time on the engaging activities (found in the DO IT portion of the lesson) – NGPF Arcade games, MOVE activities, and FinCap Fridays are student favorites! 
• Switch between independent, small group, and whole class reflection and discussion  
• Consider when to require written answers and when discussion will suffice
• Break the activity packets into stations, jigsaws, gallery walks, pair-shares, and more

Want to see how expert NGPF teachers implement the lessons and Student Activity Packets? Read through this collection of ideas we gathered at an NGPF conference! 

4: Use NGPF Assessments

You can formatively and summatively assess your students using NGPF’s ready-made assessments for all three courses! 

• Use the Diagnostic Exam at the start of your course to assess what student's existing knowledge is. At the end of the course, use the Final exam to understand how much students have learned! 
• At the end of each unit, use the Unit Test to assess students' knowledge on that topic
• Finally, each lesson concludes with an Exit Ticket that has three, multiple-choice questions that you can use to check for student understanding

5: Engage students with Nearpod

If you’re looking for a way to vary up your implementation or you lead a flipped, hybrid, or fully online classroom, use NGPF’s Nearpod decks! These decks utilize Nearpod’s features to create an engaging learning experience for your students. 

Nearpod decks are available for all three personal finance high school courses (Semester Course, Trimester Course, Full-Year Course) and Mini-Units. 

Bonus Materials:

• Use NGPF’s Course Comparison Chart to easily determine which course you want to use
• Use material from NGPF’s Middle School Course! Perfect for scaffolding content, students with IEPs or 504s, and more! 

About the Author

Sonia Dalal

Sonia has always been passionate about instruction and improving students' learning experiences. She's come a long way since her days as a first grader, when she would "teach" music and read to her very attentive stuffed animals after school. Since then, she has taught students as a K-12 tutor, worked in several EdTech startups in the Bay Area, and completed her Ed.M in Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She is passionate about bringing the high quality personal finance content and instruction she wished she'd received in school to the next generation of students and educators. When she isn't crafting lesson guides or working with teachers, Sonia loves to spend her time singing, being outdoors, and adventuring with family and friends!