Beyond the courses themselves, the Teacher Portal has a set of pages built to help you teach: the Teaching Toolkit with lesson plans, slides, worksheets and exams; a Prerequisites map that shows how the sections of Personal Finance Core Foundations (3e) build on each other; professional development; and an advocacy page for making the case for financial literacy in your state. This guide explains what each one is for and when to use it.
Available on: every plan, including Free. These pages are in the Teacher Portal only.
Where to find them
Library group in the sidebar: Courses, Teaching Toolkit, Prerequisites and Pacing Guides.
Resources group in the sidebar: Student Tools, Development and Advocacy.
Items with a Soon label are still being built. They stay in the menu so you can see what's on the way.
Teaching Toolkit
Open Library > Teaching Toolkit. The Toolkit opens inside the portal and holds the classroom materials that go with Personal Finance Core Foundations, organized by course edition and unit. For the current edition (3e) you'll find:
Getting started guides, including a teacher syllabus and pacing guide, implementation notes and onboarding.
Lesson plans, one for every section of the course.
Slide decks for each unit, as PowerPoint files.
Student worksheets and answer keys for each unit, as Word documents you can edit.
Unit exams and answer keys, also as Word documents.
Case studies: real-world scenarios with a student handout and an instructor presentation guide for class discussion.
Standards: the 2021 National Standards for Personal Financial Education and the Intertwined National Standards Alignment, which maps each standard to the 3e sections that teach it. Course completion certificates use this alignment. See Course completion certificates.
The Toolkit also has worksheets to go with the calculators and Arcade games, teaching guides for the simulators (some are still in development), and guidance for sensitive money topics. Materials for the OpenStax textbooks aren't in the Toolkit.
Tip: on Intertwined Solo and school plans, the Planner has a Toolkit tab beside its course list. You can drag a lesson plan, slide deck or worksheet onto a day of your calendar, so the plan and the materials sit together. See The Planner: mapping out lessons on a calendar.
Prerequisites
Open Library > Prerequisites. This page is a map of which sections of Personal Finance Core Foundations (3e) need knowledge from earlier sections. Foundational sections sit in the left column, and each column to the right builds on the ones before it. Lines connect each section to the sections it relies on, and the colors match the units.
Type in Search sections... or scroll the map to find a section.
Click a section. The panel below shows three things:
Builds from: earlier sections it relies on ("Review or reteach here if students struggle").
The section itself, with its level and how many sections it connects to. Some links include a short note explaining the connection.
Builds toward: later sections that need it ("What later sections need this").Click any section in those lists to follow the pathway, or click Clear selection to start over. Use the zoom buttons to fit more of the map on screen.
Use it when a class struggles with a topic: the Builds from list tells you which earlier sections to revisit. It pairs well with Reteach. See Reteach: finding what your class needs to revisit. The map covers 3e only; the COURSE menu at the top right shows it and can't be changed.
Pacing Guides
Pacing Guides in the Library group is marked Soon. In the meantime, the Toolkit's getting started materials include a syllabus and pacing guide for 3e, and Pacing a course across your semester explains how to plan your calendar with the Planner and Manage Access.
Development
Open Resources > Development for professional development: live training sessions, self-paced courses you can work through on your own schedule, and ways to connect with other financial literacy educators. Some courses are still being developed and are marked as coming soon.
Advocacy
Open Resources > Advocacy when you're making the case for personal finance at your school or district. Click your state on the map to see its graduation requirements for personal finance (such as credit hours and grade level) and advocacy resources, and find links to the national standards. Requirements change often, so check with your state's Department of Education for the latest before you cite them.
Student Tools
Student Tools in the Resources group is marked Soon. The tools your students can use today (calculators, a glossary and financial news) are on their Resources page. See Resources: calculators, glossary, and financial news.
Common questions
Do I need a paid plan for the Toolkit?
No. The Teaching Toolkit, Prerequisites, Development and Advocacy pages are open on every plan. Only the Planner's Toolkit tab needs Intertwined Solo or a school plan, because the Planner does.
Can students see the Teaching Toolkit or answer keys?
These pages live in the Teacher Portal's sidebar, not the Student Portal's, so students won't come across them. As with any teacher material, keep answer keys and exams off shared screens and class drives.
Can I edit the worksheets and exams?
Yes. Worksheets, exams, answer keys and case study handouts download as Word documents and the slides as PowerPoint files, so you can adapt them for your class. Lesson plans are PDFs.
Why does Prerequisites only show one course?
The prerequisite links are written for Personal Finance Core Foundations (3e). Other courses aren't mapped.
A Toolkit file won't open.
Try the download option instead of the preview, and make sure your school's network allows downloads from the Toolkit. If it still won't open, contact us from the chat bubble in the corner of the Teacher Portal and tell us which file.