Why Your School Needs a Personal Finance Lab

Hundreds of high schools across the country are building personal finance labs to make their business, economics or personal finance classes more engaging and exciting for students. Personal finance labs are essentially wall-street style classrooms. Here’s what one may look like…

But, you may be wondering what is a personal finance lab?

What is a Personal Finance Lab?

A personal finance lab is like any other science lab or computer lab, except it specializes in economic, business and personal finance topics. In order to build a successful personal finance lab, certain elements need to be included. The goal of a personal finance lab is to aid students achieve financial success in their future.

Elements Included in a Personal Finance Lab

All successful personal finance labs have a mix of a stock market game, budgeting game, the LCD marketboard displays and scrolling LED tickers, lesson plans for teachers and a career center for students.

Stock market game:

The virtual stock market game is a real-time market investment simulation where students can learn how to invest with virtual money. With a PersonalFinanceLab.com site license, students can trade over forty currencies. Learn More.

Budgeting game:

The personal budgeting game is a game that teaches students how to budget their personal finances. In this game, students take on the role of a college student working a part time job, managing income expenses and unexpected life events. It gives students real-world life experience. Learn More

The LCD marketboard displays and scrolling LED tickers:

You can transform any TV into a LCD marketboard that displays real-time market widgets. The Led Tickers display real-time market stocks.

The Led tickers display may look like this…

The LCD marketboard may look like this….

Pretty cool right? They can be purchased for an extremely affordable price at PersonalFinanceLab.com .

Lesson Plans:

A personal finance lab needs to include a customizable curriculum for teachers. With a personalfinancelab.com site license, teachers will have access to over 300 lesson curriculum with built-in assessments, and over a dozen customizable teacher reports. The lesson plans come with built-in assessments so you can track your students progress. As the cherry on top, there are over a dozen customizable teacher reports, which generate grades to your students automatically.

Career Center:

A career center is necessary to complete your high school personal finance lab . An online career centers helps students get ahead. With a personalfinancelab.com site license students have full access to a career center, which includes job search tips, and  job postings from around the globe. There is an easy filtering system, so your students can get as specific as they want. They can filter out any location, job type (full-time, part-time, contract…) etc.

Now that you understand what a personal finance lab is. You may be wondering “why?” Why should your school invest in a personal finance lab?

Why Build a Personal Finance Lab in Your School?

Personal finance labs are a very worthwhile investment for many reasons. First off, they keep students engaged and interested in class material. Second, it offers students real-life experience, which makes it easier for them to comprehend abstract school material. Lastly, the personal finance labs are extremely helpful to teachers; it offers them customizable lesson plans and assessments which reduces their workload.

First off, personal finance labs keep students engaged and interested in class material. The software; the stock game and budgeting game is a fun and exciting way to apply the abstract content that is being taught to students. The LCD marketboard displays and scrolling LED tickers that can be purchased from personalfinancelab.com, transforms the classroom into a wall-street like environment. Making that classroom the coolest one in school. This type of classroom excites students, which makes them more engaged and interested in the class content. Furthermore, young students have short attention spans; generic teaching modes don’t always work. A class stock game, budgeting game, and the business lab environment make learning a fun and exciting experience.

Second, there is no better way for students to learn about the stock market than to be immersed in a real-life experience. We’ve all been there, in a classroom listening to our teacher, and not being able to comprehend and grasp the complexity of all the information that is being thrown at us. There is no better way to gain knowledge than to simply EXPERIENCE it. The stock market game gives students first-hand experience on how to invest. The budgeting game gives students first-hand experience on how to budget their income. There’s no better way to help your students learn about investing than immersing them into the real-world wall-street environment. Learn more.

Lastly, teachers can also benefit from a personal finance lab just as much as students. With a personalfinancelab.com site license, teachers will have access to over 300 lesson curriculum with built-in assessments, and over a dozen customizable teacher reports. There are hundreds of lesson plans you can choose from. Imagine how much prep time you would be saving. What’s even more beneficial, is that you can assign customizable assignments to your students, with built-in assessments so you can track their progress. As the cherry on top, there are over a dozen customizable teacher reports, which generate grades to your students automatically.

Imagine how much time you can save! Learn More.

Takeaway

Personal finance labs will help students succeed financially in life while simultaneously reducing the teachers workload. They keep students engaged and interested in the class material. It immerses students into a real-world experience, and it simultaneously helps take a load off of teachers shoulders. Personal finance labs are an extremely worthwhile investment, and aren’t very expensive to build. There are many affordable ways to build one. You may for instance want to check out PersonalFinanceLab.com.