Genius Hour Blog Post 4 - Oct 6th

Today I looked at measuring the effectiveness of financial literacy in Canada and elsewhere. I also am making suggestions as my final discoveries for my Genius Hour project.

MEASURING FINANCIAL LITERACY

Canada has a tool used for assessing financial literacy and personal finance amongst the adult population. In 2009, Stats Canada administered the Canadian Financial Capability Survey. The survey covered key topics such as investments and budgeting.

One of the best documents I found during my research was a very large document produced by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). This report looks at how participants, 18 and over, answered a "Financial Literacy Core Questionnaire" in 14 different countries. The report provides a plethora of detailed information and breakdowns of every aspect of the questionnaire. There is so much detailed information that I could take from the results, but the most important thing is the knowledge that a tool to measure financial literacy exists.

I then discovered the OECD has almost an identical study and questionnaire but for students. Since Canada only offered it's questionnaire to adults, 18 and over, I believe there is a gap to be filled. This gap demands a questionnaire to given to students to assess the effectiveness of our current situations. I have used the questionnaire as part of the final discovery for my Genius Hour project which can be found here.

REFLECTION

Canada is not included in the OECD assessment of 15 year old students, so it is difficult to say exactly where Canadians students are at. It could be extremely enlightening to administer the test in a small sample of students. I also think this opens up the topic of how we assess financial literacy in our classrooms. We have all these tools to use and suggestions to follow, yet on the report cards we lack a space to recognize achievements or needs for improvement.

This week I learned/was reminded that I enjoy studies. In university, I was in a program that was heavily research oriented and enjoyed looking up peer-reviewed articles. My explorations this week served as a flashback to my explorations of populations, sample sizes, questionnaires and results.

From here, I will be proposing a final product for my Genius Hour project. I believe that my initial goal of creating a new course may have been to adventurous. I instead will try to propose a more realistic and simple beginning step. From there, I will offer further explorations that include the creation of a mandatory course for high school students.

Genius Hour Blog Post 3 - Sept 29th

Last week I looked at Ontario's strategies to incorporate financial literacy into the curriculum. This week I will look at another province (British Columbia) and another country for comparisons.

COMPARING TO ONTARIO

LINKS I EXPLORED:

British Columbia

National Report Card on Financial Literacy 
Learn Magazine: Financial Literacy in BC

Canada (National Level)

National Strategy for Financial Literacy 

Finland

Federation of Finish Financial Services

Europe

Eurofinas E-Publication on Financial Education


There is a presence of financial literacy focus in British Columbia and Canada as a whole on a national level.

Finland;s Federation of Finish Financial Services in an organization that actively pursues the continued presence of financial education through a student's life. The EUROFINAS document above is a long report about the importance of financial education in many European countries. Although documents in english are hard to come by, it is clear that financial literacy is also of importance overseas.

What I have found through this research is that Ontario actually takes its financial literacy resources very seriously. There is a lot of resources and tools available for educators and parents to help their children with financial education.

This week I also discovered a wonderful resource for educators and parents called Inspire Financial Learning. This is a tool offered by the Ontario Teacher's Federation that supports teachers, students, parents and guardians with effective strategies and resources to teach financial literacy. It has many videos and lessons about various personal finance topics.

REFLECTION

This week I enhanced my personal learning in the area of educator research. I was able to go outside the traditional zone of Ontario and explore how Canada wants to prepare it's teachers for success. I am positive I can apply this research technique to other subjects/disciplines and find similar results. This will help to make me a more informed educator and allow me to find the best materials for my students. Along the way, I was even able to find more reliable Ontario material as well.

The next step is to look into ways that we can assess financial literacy. Without assessment we can't see how effective our current programs are. If we don't know our areas that need improvement, then we can't work at improving them.

Genius Hour Blog Post 2 - Sept 22nd

Its time to get an update on my Genius Hour! A quick reminder of my question:

How can we effectively teach financial literacy to Ontario high school students?

Let's take a look at some of the resources I am exploring to complete my goals! Today, I will be focusing on how we currently teach financial literacy in schools across Ontario. 

EXPLORING ONTARIO'S FINANCIAL LITERACY SITUATION

SUMMARY OF FINDINGS:

The Ontario Ministry of Education defines financial literacy as, "having the knowledge and skills needed to make responsible economic and financial decisions with competence and confidence".

Here is an introduction clip of financial literacy in Ontario which can be found on EduGains.

Financial Literacy in Ontario Schools: An Introduction. (2011). EduGains - Financial Literacy Education. 

In Ontario elementary schools we seem to spread out our financial literacy teachings across subjects. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 1-8, Financial Literacy (2011) is the resource guide for elementary schools. Most notably, educators are encouraged to teach financial literacy in mathematics and through the media literacy strand of language arts (pg3). This document highlights the areas in other curriculums that include financial teachings or have a finance related example that is encouraged.

Ontario secondary schools are very similar. The Ontario Curriculum Grades 9-12, Financial Literacy (2011) is a resource guide for secondary schools. This document recognizes that all subjects are linked to the development and knowledge of financial literacy skills in some way, but some are more closely linked than others. It is supposed to help teachers find the opportunities in each subject to emphasize responsible financial choices.

The only widely available course that explores personal finance is called "Mathematics for Work and Everyday Life" (MEL3E/MEL4E) which is an optional math course for grade 11 or 12 students. There is a course called Managing Personal and Family Resources (College)/Managing Personal Resources (Workplace) that teaches personal finance but it is not widely offered. A quick check at the course guide for my local high school indicated its not available.

What is very surprising is that MANY courses are offered about business, economics, and accounting to students in high school as a choice. None of these courses place emphasis on the personal aspects of finance. This is coupled with the fact that many of these courses are just optional, not required. The course titled "Careers" also does not touch on personal finance. These courses are great for personal management such as job searching and career planning, but nothing about financial planning.

It seems Ontario is satisfied with this approach. In fact, resources have been developed to help encourage schools to approach financial literacy in each discipline. For example, Principals Want To Know #23 is a document aimed towards principals to help them implement financial literacy in their schools. Many more supporting documents and videos can be found on the EduGains website I posted in the links section below.

REFLECTION:

Today, I learned about how financial literacy is approached in the Ontario context. Although some courses do offer a personal finance component, these courses are optional and perhaps inappropriately named to draw student interest. Most of the financial literacy is spread throughout the various disciplines taught. I agree with this. I think finances should be brought into all disciplines because it creates relevance for students and is an engaging and practical learning opportunity. It is also great to see how young children can learn about personal finances. This, too, is effective and sets our children up for success.

However, why is there a disconnect between what I experience and what I see in the curriculum. I think it is because retention of personal finance diminishes as it gets more complex through high school. I believe we need to add something more concrete and mandatory to the high school curriculum to more effectively educate our students.

I learned about myself from this exploration. I was able to explore resources effectively and also curate some resources for future use. I was also surprised at what I learned because I thought Ontario's financial literacy education was poor, but it seems it is not ignored and has been extensively researched.

Next, I wish to take a peak into some other provinces and perhaps a few other countries to see how they incorporate financial literacy into their curriculums.

SOME IMPORTANT LINKS:

Ontario

Ministry of Education on Financial Literacy

Ontario's Curriculum Guide for Financial Literacy (Grades 9-12)

Canadian Banker's Association for Parents and Students

Financial Literacy Task Force

Financial Literacy in Ontario Schools (a special report)
EduGains (curriculum linked lesson plans)

REFERENCES:

Definition of financial literacy:
A Sound Investment: Financial Literacy Education in Ontario Schools, Report of the Working Group on Financial Literacy (Toronto: Ministry of Education, Ontario, 2010), p. 7

Genius Hour Introduction

Hello!

This is an educational based blog used to record my learning experiences and enhance the learning experiences of others. I hope you can find what you need from my blog and hopefully learn something. Please feel free to comment or add to my work and help me improve as a student, educator, and human.

This Genius Hour Project is a portion of my blog dedicated to my Genius Hour Project which is an attempt to explore a meaningful inquiry question with depth. I will be presenting my findings to my peers. My personal project looks like so:

Question

How can we effectively teach financial literacy to Ontario high school students?

Why?

I worked for one of Canada's four major banks for two years as a customer service representative. Each week, I would have students who came into the bank with simple questions about taxes, credit, savings, investments, currency and more. I was astounded at the lack of knowledge these students had in the area of finance. The children who did have the knowledge, usually had a parent who was a frequent banker and self-taught the child. I hypothesize there is a huge disconnect between what our financial literacy curriculum outlines and the actual useful financial information needed.

Timeline

This question will be explored over the next three weeks (September/October).

Goals

This question is quite multi-levelled. I hope to achieve a significant improvement in my knowledge by aiming for these goals:

- Examine the current financial literacy curriculum in Ontario.
- Examine the financial literacy curriculums in other provinces/countries.
- Explore standards of measuring an population's financial competence.
- Propose an basic alternative method to compete with the current system.

Process

I hope to explore my first three goals within two weeks. I hope to attempt my final goal in the last week of the project. I will define the success by my progress on the goals within the specific timelines. To be successful I will have proposed at least two simple changes to our current financial literacy curriculum.