In early October I attended the Council for Economic Education Annual Conference for the umpteenth time and I was not disappointed. Great presentations, networking opportunities and access to quality economics and personal finance education resources. This 56th Annual Financial Literacy and Economic Education Conference allowed me the opportunity and pleasure to reconnect with my former Fed System econ educators, meet face-to-face with fellow affiliated state center directors and interact with other passionate and innovative educators from across the country.
Presenters included veteran econ educators like Mary Suiter, Assistant Vice President, Economic Education, from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and Bonnie Meszaros, Assistant Director, from the Center for Economic Education & Entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware who presented a session on Using Children’s Books to Teach Economics/Personal Finance in an Elementary Math Class, a hands-on lesson that identified economics and personal finance concepts in children’s literature that made this nexus so approachable and understandable that the elementary school teachers in attendance could immediately apply lessons learned to their classes.
On the other end of the spectrum was newbie, Tim Ranzetta, Founder of NextGen Personal Finance, who presented, Ditch the Google Search Process & Find Personal Finance Resources FASTER, an interactive concurrent session that introduced the participants to the rich resources on this new platform, https://www.ngpf.org/about-us/ and how to navigate the website to find aligned middle school and high school lesson plans and activities. Teachers were impressed with the ease of navigation to find resources and, once located, the teacher-friendly format of the material.
Local New England expertise was present as well represented by Dr. Margaret Brooks, Economics Professor, Center for Economic Education Director at Bridgewater State University, amongst other leadership roles, who conducted a poster session, Using Twitter to Engage Economic Education Affiliates, Educators, and Partners that indicated that Rhode Island and Massachusetts were number one and two amongst the 30 plus state affiliates when it comes to successfully using social media to create and enhance the organization’s community outreach. Dr. Brooks was also a member of the Advocacy Session that included Treasurer Seth Magaziner, Rhode Island State Treasurer, and recipient of the 2017 William A. Forbes Public Awareness Award from the Council for Economic Education.
It was great to learn, share and network with local and national educators and innovators once again! I highly recommend attendance at this conference if the opportunity avails itself.
About the blogger: George “Scott” Guild is the President of the Massachusetts Council on Economic Education. Connect with him on Twitter @econedtweets or at Massachusetts Council on Economic Education.
This blog post was relaunched on mbea-ma.org with permission from the blogger. You may find the original post HERE.