Credit lesson plans to teach a credit class
The credit lesson plans in The Good Credit Game allow financial educators to teach great credit classes. Because of the challenges of teaching credit classes, it was important for us to create credit lesson plans that are easy for educators to use – and fun for participants. As a credit curriculum, The Good Credit Game covers credit reports, credit scores and credit cards.
Credit lesson plans that are "teach out of the box"
Knowing that few people who teach credit classes are true credit experts, we designed the credit lesson plans to be "teach out of the box." As a result, one can teach credit classes without knowing everything about credit. This works well for experienced financial educators but also for volunteers. The credit lesson plans spell out the objective of each lesson, how to run the lesson and even little scripts and dialogues for each lesson. There are also supplemental class activities.
Flexible credit lesson plans
Although The Good Credit Game was designed to be a full curriculum – 6 modules and about 2 hours – you can easily modify the credit lesson plans. Each lesson can stand on its own; leave out credit lessons if they are too advanced, too basic or not applicable to your class. It's geared for adults and young adults (college, military, workforce development, etc.). Also, all of the student materials are written at a 5th-grade reading level to ensure that they're accessible to most audiences.
What credit lesson plans are included?
There are 5 major credit lesson plans – and then 39 mini credit lesson plans as part of the credit board game. A list of these can be downloaded as part of our sample credit lesson plans. In short, the class structure takes students through the following:
What is credit? Activities including what factors make you more or less likely to make a loan to friends or family. Establish the idea of trust as synonymous with creditworthiness.
What do financial institutions look for when making a loan or extending credit?
Where does a financial institution get the information to know whether it can trust you and let you borrow money? (Credit lesson plans for sorting activities to determine which pieces of info come from a credit report, credit application and credit score.)
How does a credit report become a credit score? What are the different parts of a credit score?
What does a credit report look like. (The credit lesson plans rely on using the simplified credit report that's included with The Good Credit Game.)
Why does a credit score matter? (This uses the Cost of Credit calculators that are included with the teaching kit.)
Finally, the credit board game is used to reinforce the credit information and concepts learned in the previous modules. It dispels myths about credit. (Like the other modules, the credit board game can be a standalone unit. It can also be used like a pre- and post-test to help students asses what they don't know and then see how much they've learned.)