6 Simple Steps to Develop Effective Financial Literacy Curriculum (For Teachers and Coaches)

This is a guest post from freelance personal finance writer Rebecca Neubauer. As I prepare to launch several financial literacy initiatives in my local area, I thought it would be helpful to get an outside perspective on curriculum development in the personal finance space. Look for a number of articles from Rebecca on this topic over the coming months.

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Financial literacy education is becoming more commonplace every year, with more than two-thirds of states requiring high school personal finance classes prior to graduation. Meanwhile, older adults did not typically have access to financial curriculum in school or the workforce, and need help from financial counselors and coaches to become financially literate.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably a K-12 educator or a financial coach for adults who is trying to develop the right curriculum for your target market. After all, the topics and approaches teachers would use in a middle school classroom will vary significantly from the way coaches might work with a middle-aged client with complex personal financial circumstances.

The good news is, financial literacy often focuses on the same core material, though the teaching method may vary. And remember that you’re not the only educator seeking to teach these topics. There’s no need to develop a completely new curriculum when curricula exist that you can adapt to your needs.

There are six steps to develop an effective financial literacy curriculum for your target audience:

1. Establish a baseline

2. Decide topics

3. Adapt curriculum

4. Make it actionable and relevant

5. Test and get feedback

6. Iterate and repeat

Below, each step will be explained and specific guidance for school educators and financial coaches will be included.

Educator guidance has been gathered from a variety of sources—which will be linked—of financial literacy curriculum that has been collaboratively designed and tested by current classroom educators, university researchers, and financial industry experts. A useful reference is the National Standards for Personal Finance Education.

Guidance for coaches will be based primarily on the Accredited Financial Counselor (AFC) Core Competencies as outlined by the Association for Financial Counseling and Planning Education (AFCPE), and other non-profit and industry resources for professional financial educators.

Let’s dive into the six steps to develop an effective financial literacy curriculum.

Establish a Baseline

While certain financial basics may seem like common sense to you as an experienced financial educator, be careful about assuming what people already know. Not everyone received financial education in school or even conversationally from family members, friends, or colleagues. While this may seem easier for middle school educators than for those educating adults, there may still be things “you don’t know that they don’t know.”

For example, school educators must be conscious of their students’ experience with math. Many middle schoolers have not learned algebra, which is a useful tool for teaching real-world calculations. Therefore, high-school level financial literacy curriculum must be adapted to an appropriate math level for the specific knowledge of the grade and class being taught.

Sidebar: Next Gen Personal Finance offers a Financial Algebra course for 9^th to 12^th graders that helps students find real-world applications for their math curriculum.

Financial coaches will need to be aware of their clients’ general tech-savvy and experience with calculation tools such as spreadsheets and financial calculators. Just as a Financial Counselor needs to “clarify the client’s interests, experiences, values, money personalities, and cultural norms,” a school educator should test each student’s baseline knowledge with a pre-assessment. The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) has developed a 21-question true or false quiz called “What Do You Know About Finances” to establish a baseline prior to financial education.

Decide Topics

Now that you know what your audience already knows (and therefore, what they don’t know and need to be educated about), it’s time to decide the topics of your course. More generalized courses and workshops may focus on a wider range of topics at a higher level, while specialized or individualized curricula may dive more deeply into particular areas of interest for the learner(s).

Topics may include (this is by no means an exhaustive list):

• Banking

• Behavioral Economics

• Budgeting

• Career/Earning Income

• Consumer Skills

• Credit

• Debt Payoff

• Insurance

• Investing

• Paying for college

• Taxes

To decide what topics you will be teaching in your course or to your client, you must determine:

1. What they are already competent in: these topics do not need to be taught, or can be quickly reviewed.

2. Their areas of need and/or interest: these topics should be focused on.

Based on the audience’s area of focus, you can determine the foundational financial concepts that help build financial literacy in the topics you have selected. For example, budgeting will often be taught before paying for college or investing, as it is a critical financial skill that these topics build upon.

Adapt Curriculum

Most curricula created for teaching children financial literacy concepts starts at the 7^th grade level for middle school, or the 9^th grade level for high school. While you’ll want to put your own personal spin on the way you deliver financial literacy topics, there’s no need to completely reinvent the wheel by creating your curriculum from scratch.

Find existing curriculum, then adapt it based on:

• Amount of time you have to dedicate to each topic

• Preferred learning style of the audience

• The age, experience, and situation of the audience

• Your personal experience and teaching methods

Teachers can get free financial literacy curriculum from Next Gen Personal Finance, a non-profit organization dedicated to teaching personal finance in all schools. Additionally, the University of Arizona offers free ready-to-teach financial literacy lesson plans for educators that conform to national standards and offer lesson plans for different grades and knowledge levels.

Financial counselors can get free financial literacy curriculum for adults as well as paid turnkey financial education packages from the National Financial Educators Council. The FCAC in Canada has free training materials for adults and post-secondary students as well as tips for teaching financial literacy to adults.

Pro-Tip: To find more specified curriculum, do an internet search for “[topic] financial education curriculum” before spending hours developing something completely new. Be mindful of your sources. For example, industry sources may contain biased information, and international sources may need to be adapted to your geographical location.

Curriculum Sources:

• Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC): Money Smart Adults

• McGill University: Personal Finance Essentials

• Khan Academy: Personal Finance

• Ohio Department of Education & Workforce: List of Resources for Financial Literacy

Make It Actionable and Relevant

The most detailed and in-depth curriculum in the world won’t help anyone learn about financial literacy if they’re dozing off while you teach. Besides keeping your audience’s attention, you can help them actually apply what they are learning by making your lessons both actionable and relevant.

For school educators, interactive activities and games are compelling methods of keeping student interest and increasing knowledge retention. For instance, budgeting exercises where students manage a mock household budget can make abstract concepts more tangible. But to kick up the relevancy a notch, have high school students budget for a specific goal of theirs, such as purchasing a car or saving for college. Middle school students may relate better to saving for a new video game or planning a school event budget.

Adult learners will benefit from real-life examples and case studies relevant to their age group and life circumstances, such as planning for retirement or post-divorce finances. Clients who have their own personal finances to work with will find it most relevant to take action on their knowledge by applying it to their own life.

Test and Get Feedback

Once you’ve designed the curriculum for your first course or client, you’re not done. Now it’s time to test its effectiveness and gather feedback to further improve your students’ experience. Collecting feedback through tests, quizzes, and feedback forms will help you understand what worked and what didn't.

Ultimately, you want to ensure that your students learned the curriculum and can apply it to their lives. In school, learning is evaluated through knowledge tests. Financial educators who teach adults can also use tests and quizzes to evaluate their participants' progress and understanding.

This is one of the reasons that establishing a baseline is so important—you can see how much your students have learned. Measuring your students’ knowledge after the course can help you identify which areas of the curriculum were most effective and which need improvement.

Iterate and Repeat

Using your participants’ feedback to make necessary adjustments to your curriculum—such as adding more interactive elements, simplifying complex topics, or incorporating more real-life examples—will help you continuously improve the effectiveness of your financial literacy teachings. You’ll also want to evaluate the content to make sure it remains up to date and relevant to changes in economics, standards, and best practices.

Developing an effective financial literacy curriculum requires understanding your audience’s base knowledge level, selecting the right topics, adapting existing resources, and continuously improving your curriculum based on feedback. By making your curriculum actionable and relevant, testing its effectiveness, and iterating on your approach, you can create impactful financial literacy programs that empower your students or clients to make informed financial decisions.