Some teachers who use Business&ITCenter21 end up disappointed that it doesn’t cover every business topic with the depth they would like. Though Business&ITCenter21 is comprehensive, it has its limitations when it comes to more specialized business or computer courses.
To counteract this, AES often suggests teachers use supplemental resources in conjunction with Business&ITCenter21 to teach advanced courses more completely. But that raises even more questions: Where should you start? What materials are out there? Which resources would be the right fit for your classroom?
In response to these questions we often hear, we’ve composed a list of some valuable educational resources you can use together with AES to cover important business topics with more depth.
In this article, you’ll discover 3 business education resources that do an excellent job of supplementing Business&ITCenter21 with more advanced material. They are:
- EVERFI
- Teachers Pay Teachers
- Next Gen Personal Finance
By the end of this article, you’ll not only know why these resources fit well with AES, but also what advanced topics they’ll effectively cover in your classroom.
1. EVERFI's Financial Literacy Resources
EVERFI is a digital curriculum provider that offers online courses for financial education, workplace training, higher education, and more.
One of the courses EVERFI offers is a high school financial literacy course, intended to help high schoolers treat their finances seriously and make the right decisions regarding their money as they enter adulthood.
The course favors digital environments and characters designed to make the material relatable and timely for high school students. By working through virtual scenarios, students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills they can apply in the real world.
What Does EVERFI Cost?
EVERFI’s financial education material is completely free with registration on their website.
How Can You Use EVERFI alongside AES?
EVERFI is best used alongside Business&ITCenter21 to teach a more in-depth personal finance unit.
This is because Business&ITCenter21’s Personal Financial Literacy material clocks in at around nine curriculum hours--enough to introduce students to these topics, but not enough to cover a focused finance unit.
EVERFI, on the other hand, provides an additional seven classes worth of specialized finance material. These classes can be completed in about half an hour, and include:
- Banking Basics
- Budgeting
- Consumer Skills
- Financing Higher Education
- Income and Employment
- Insurance
- Managing Credit and Debt
On its own this wouldn’t be enough to cover a finance unit, but when combined with AES, the two resources should grant you enough content to cover two or three weeks of focused classes.
2. Teachers Pay Teachers
TeachersPayTeachers (TpT) is a digital marketplace that sells thousands of educational resources for instructors teaching almost any age range, from pre-K to adult education.
You can use this marketplace to buy resources for most business classes you might teach, as there are hundreds of providers who use TeachersPayTeachers as a platform to sell lesson plans and activities they develop.
Two of those vendors are Business Girl and Tech Twins, both of whom offer business education activities, games, lesson plans, and other in-depth course material.
What Does Teachers Pay Teachers Cost?
Because TpT is a digital marketplace, the cost depends on the product you buy and how much each vendor charges for it.
For instance, Tech Twins sells their projects for ~$4.00, complete units for ~$21.00, and full-year course material for ~$240.00.
Similarly, Business Girl sells projects and lessons for ~$4.00, while larger bundles of projects might cost anywhere from $30.00-$100.00.
How Can You Use Teachers Pay Teachers alongside AES?
Teachers Pay Teachers is best used alongside Business&ITCenter21 as a source of extra activities, lessons, or games you can use to supplement certain modules from the curriculum.
For example, when it comes to marketing, Business&ITCenter21 has a Marketing module and a Marketing Project module, which combined take up about twenty-one hours of class time. While this may be content enough for a general marketing unit, if you wanted to dedicate time to a more specific topic like social media marketing, you might find Business&ITCenter21 lacking.
This is where Teachers Pay Teachers comes in. You can use individual projects, lessons, or activities purchased from TpT to reinforce your marketing unit or explore facets of marketing you wouldn’t be able to if you only used Business&ITCenter21.
Tech Twins, for instance, has products like the Social Media Marketing Unit Plan to help significantly expand your marketing unit. If you only need a few dedicated activities, they also have options like the School Social Media Campaign Project, or the Social Media Marketing Activities product.
Similarly, Business Girl has products ranging from the Create a Social Media Campaign Proposal activity to the Food Truck Social Media Marketing Campaign Project. These resources are even combined into one Social Media Marketing Project Bundle if you want to use all of them for your unit or course.
Altogether, Teachers Pay Teachers is an excellent choice for teachers who need supplemental activities that explore specialized topics Business&ITCenter21 might not cover.
3. Next Gen Personal Finance
Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) is an online non-profit learning organization created to provide finance and business teachers educational resources to teach their classes.
These resources include games, interactive activities, case studies, projects, and curriculum options and are aimed to help middle school and high school students.
Like EVERFI, NGPF primarily focuses on teaching personal finance. However, while
EVERFI provides a few curriculum hours of supplemental content, NGPF’s catalog is far more robust. Depending on the unit, NGPF’s material can even serve as a core curriculum, with enough content to support a nine-week, full-semester, or even year-long course.
NGPF’s curriculum is divided into twelve units:
- Behavioral Economics
- Budgeting
- Career
- Checking
- Insurance
- Investing
- Managing Credit
- Mini-Units (with miscellaneous topics)
- Paying for College
- Taxes
- Types of Credit
What Does Next Gen Personal Finance Cost?
Next Gen Personal Finance’s content is completely free. However, if you want full access to material like student assessments and answer keys, you’ll have to register with a free teacher account on their website.
How Can You Use Next Gen Personal Finance alongside AES?
Next Gen Personal Finance is best used alongside Business&ITCenter21 to teach finance material more comprehensively.
This can take a few different forms depending on the kind of class you teach:
If you teach a focused personal finance class, then NGPF could serve well as your core curriculum, covering financial topics with a level of depth that Business&ITCenter21 couldn’t match. In this case, Business&ITCenter21 would serve better to supplement NGPF with unique projects and activities.
For instance, NGPF has seven lessons dedicated to handling credit, while Business&ITCenter21 has only two related to using credit.
For a dedicated personal finance class, learning the ins and outs of credit would be an essential skill you would want to spend a lot of time on, so NGPF might serve you better as a core curriculum by providing this focused material.
However, if instead you teach an introductory business course, then Business&ITCenter21 would be a better fit to cover all of your bases and teach your students the foundational concepts they need to know. In this case, NGPF would serve better to provide a little more depth to specific finance topics you want to explore.
For example, Business&ITCenter21 has modules dedicated to topics like Business Communication and Entrepreneurship, subjects that NGPF doesn’t cover.
Business&ITCenter21 would serve better as your core curriculum for these broader introductory business concepts, while NGPF might provide valuable supplemental material to reinforce your lessons.
An Entrepreneurship unit, for instance, might benefit tremendously from a few activities focused on investing or credit, since those are valuable skills entrepreneurs should develop.
In other words, depending on what kind of class you teach, use NGPF’s units either as your core curriculum, or as supplemental material to reinforce Business&ITCenter21.
Looking for More Guidance on Teaching Your Business Course with AES?
It’s difficult trying to find the supplemental resources that resonate with Business&ITCenter21 and bring something special to your classroom. With all the options out there, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed and confused.
But in this article, you’ve learned about some of the best resource providers we recommend teachers pair with Business&ITCenter21. These providers complement your digital curriculum well, creating a fine balance of depth and breadth in the business courses you teach.
However, this article only goes into how to use these supplemental resources with AES. If you need guidance on planning your classes to make the most of Business&ITCenter21, download the Business Fundamentals Course Guide!
This free guide provides details to help you save time in planning, such as descriptions for each module, the total hours they take to complete, and ideas for customizing the content for your course!
