Everfi: Empowering Students Through Real-World Education

Financial literacy is important for students because it helps them learn how to manage their money effectively and plan for financial hardships. EVERFI, a Blackbaud company, provides a comprehensive digital platform offering interactive, game-based lessons that engage students of all ages with real-world skills. Thanks to partners, EVERFI provides its digital platform offering self-paced online lessons with built-in assessments free to schools.

The Importance of Financial Literacy

Teaching students about generational wealth and financial literacy is essential. As an adult, one may not recall having financial literacy lessons that showed the importance of budgeting, credit, or managing money. EVERFI fills this gap by providing resources to prepare students for their future.

What is EVERFI?

EVERFI is an international technology company driving social impact through education to address the most challenging issues affecting society, ranging from financial wellness to mental health, STEM, careers, and other critical topics. EVERFI helps teachers and schools bring real-world skills to students. The company's Impact-as-a-Service solution and digital educational content have reached more than 45 million learners globally.

Positive Student and Educator Experiences

Students express enthusiasm for EVERFI, with some saying, "This is the best class I’ve ever taken." They recognize the value of these skills and are eager to learn.

Financial Literacy in the Classroom

As a CTE educator, incorporating Everfi’s ‘Financial Literacy for High School’ into Entrepreneurship, Business Math, and Financial Literacy classes has tremendous value, especially since the shift to remote learning during COVID. This course has been instrumental in not only engaging students but also empowering them with the foundational knowledge of personal finance, from budgeting and saving to credit and investing. Using EVERFI’s financial literacy for high school lesson on budgeting has indeed made a significant impact on both students. By gaining a solid understanding of budgeting concepts, students are better equipped to make informed financial decisions that will benefit them in the future.

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Real-World Application

Using the financial literacy curriculum with homeroom students allows them to make healthy financial decisions before and after graduating from high school. The simulation allows students to work through it at their own pace. It is a different delivery method for tax lessons for gig workers, investments, and cryptocurrency. It also allows students who might have struggled with the content in class a new way to learn and apply the information.

Tax Education

Intuit for Education provides a real-world tax tool to use in the classroom. This program has allowed Economics classes to gain a better understanding of Taxes through the use of their online tax simulations.

Stocks and Marketplaces

Students were so interested in stocks and had a bunch of questions that were answered through the lessons inside Marketplaces.

Career Exposure

Students need as much exposure to different types of careers, so they know what is available to them. Students who don’t have this exposure cannot keep options open and choices are taken away from them. Students make better connections in what they are learning to real-world operations by understanding the importance of these careers. Once the students get into (DSG), they can see that ‘Oh, wow. People really deal with data. And this is how data is being manipulated.’ For example, when you deal with urban planning, why do we want to decide to put in another housing development somewhere? Why don’t we want to do this? (DSG) is self-paced, so they (students) can work at their own pace. And it’s relatable for them, so real-life stories can be tied in to the modules and assignments. The students remarked that the first series of videos in the Pathways module were captivating and relatable.

FAFSA and College Preparation

Students learned the importance of filing their FAFSA and the information that is necessary to complete it. This lesson is a good reminder for students to prepare early and begin the application process as soon as possible.

Read also: Educational Initiatives at Truist

Money Moves/Modern Money - Safe Digital Banking

Money Moves (renamed to Modern Money - Safe Digital Banking) has been a fantastic way to ignite Entrepreneurship, Financial Literacy, and Business Math classes at the start of each school year. This interactive course has been a favorite among students, thanks to its gamified approach to learning about financial topics like banking, credit, and taxes. By making these complex concepts more approachable and relatable, Money Moves has significantly increased student engagement and understanding. At the end of the year, many students shared that this was the most impactful lesson, expressing excitement about applying what they learned.

FutureSmart

FutureSmart helps students understand financial literacy better. They are engaged in the lessons, and it reads to students for accommodation needs.

Real-World Skills

As a seventh and eighth-grade AVID teacher, one of the responsibilities is to teach students real-world skills to be successful. For me, that means teaching them how to manage their finances, make sound decisions, and become financially responsible.

SaveUp

The SaveUp course is awesome.

Vault

Vault helps kids practice and integrate math concepts in ways that are meaningful for them.

Elementary School Engagement

This program has been an amazing resource to prepare students for their future. It is typically presented to 4th and 5th graders, who never want to close the program once started. The program is currently used to teach 600 elementary students and it’s been great!

Social-Emotional Learning

After the effects of isolation from COVID where our students spent so much time isolated from one another, they are all at a disadvantage with social-emotional learning. Social-emotional competencies such as compassion, empathy, and mindfulness are essential building blocks for not only a successful school year but a healthy life. Students enjoyed actively learning about how to be compassionate, empathetic, and mindful when interacting with others in different settings. There was firsthand evidence of how effective the program was, after student’s completion, through student’s actions in and outside the classroom. In addition, parents even reached out to express how they noticed a difference in their child’s behavior at home. The Compassion Project was used with 3rd graders.

Character Playbook

Character Playbook is recommended to other teachers. Students were engaged with the material, learning how to manage their emotions and interact with each other.

Health and Wellness

Once kids can name something, it becomes easier to understand and relate to. As future leaders, healthcare professionals, and responsible citizens, learning about prescription drug abuse empowers students to make informed decisions, advocate for safe practices, and play a pivotal role in curbing the alarming trend of substance misuse in society. The scenarios and lessons were effective for students. Many students have never been taught about the destructive nature of vaping. Many of them know that vaping is dangerous but have not been exposed to the real truth and science behind the facts. The lesson content that was provided is exactly what students need to hear.

Vaping Education

There is excitement about the vaping education series. High schoolers don’t know enough about it, and this platform helps with that.

Digital Wellness and Safety

Using Digital Wellness and Safety in classes has significantly impacted how educators engage with their students. It has allowed them to create a safe and supportive online environment where students can learn not just how to use technology, but how to navigate it responsibly. The most important lesson students take away from Digital Wellness and Safety is understanding the long-term effects of their digital footprint. Digital wellness and safety is important in today’s generation.

STEM Education

Future Goals Hockey and the Steelers STEM program are currently used in classrooms! The students LOVE the days they work on this interactive tool. Their creativity skyrockets and they can’t wait to show their scores and designs with their peers. The physics and the angles, and all the mathematics and science that were involved in the game and the sport of hockey were really loved. Future Goals is used with students to help them make connections and understand a favorite sport.

Cultural Awareness

It is exciting to be able to use the 306 lessons to help make students more aware of the issues facing people of all races and cultures. These lessons touch upon topics and historical facts that are often ignored or glossed over. This was a genuine approach to teaching reality that still exists for Black Americans and not simply highlighting the accomplishments of a small number of Black citizens historically, as many educators do when teaching Black History.

Literacy Skills

WORD Force has been FANTASTIC this year. Even high-level students not only enjoyed it, but got a better understanding with larger words. Especially for students who are struggling learners, learning about the WORD Force games was really impactful. It has helped Kindergarten students improve their reading skills.

Professional Development

LearnOn ’22 has been a great, revitalizing part of the summer to get educators excited for the school year. It’s helped with learning some new apps that can be used for the classroom, and how to grow the community in our school. The strategies are priceless, the presenters were dynamic. It is relevant and on point.

Support and Resources

The responsiveness of the Everfi team has been great. Everfi provides wonderful resources to help fill some gaps for teachers when they’re trying to develop lessons and design learning opportunities for their students and they don’t have all the resources. Everfi provides really good digital learning for teachers and students; interactive and engaging for the kids.

ISTE Seal of Alignment

The Seal of Alignment applies to Everfi’s entire suite of K-12 products, which provide critical education to students on topics ranging from financial literacy to health and wellness to character education. To earn this Seal, ISTE must verify that a product promotes critical technology skills, supports the use of technology in appropriate ways, contributes to the pedagogically robust use of technology for teaching and learning, and aligns to ISTE Standards. Organizations that design resources and products with ISTE standards in mind are choosing to demonstrate their commitment to supporting critical digital-age learning skills and knowledge. By addressing ISTE Standards and earning the Seal of Alignment, a solution is shown to consciously, purposefully, and meaningfully support best practices for digital-age teaching and learning. At the core of Everfi’s approach is a strong foundation of learning science and research. The platform’s design is based on well-defined logic models and theory of action statements, rooted in extensive research. The library of evidence supporting Everfi’s impact on student learning and attitudes continues to grow, covering various K-12 courses. By utilizing Everfi’s comprehensive educator platform, educators gain access to a wealth of resources, including course outlines, curriculum guides, lesson plans, and standard alignments.

Key Features of EVERFI

Interactive and Engaging Content: Courses are known for their interactive elements, such as simulations, case studies, and quizzes, which help to keep learners engaged and motivated.
Customizable and Scalable: The platform allows for customization to meet the specific needs of an organization, including branding, content, and assessments.
Comprehensive Reporting and Analytics: Robust reporting and analytics tools allow administrators to track learner progress, identify areas of improvement, and measure the impact of training programs.
Wide Range of Topics: Offers a wide range of courses on topics such as financial literacy, diversity and inclusion, sexual harassment prevention, and STEM education.
Workplace Training: The workplace content aims to create a more compliant, moral, and cohesive company. The topics include diversity and inclusion, compliance, HR topics, and security.
K-12 Education: The solution has content geared toward skill-building for grades K-12. It’s free for this group and used by over 55,000 schools. The subjects range and include financial education, health, wellness, career prep, college prep and more.
Resources for Educators: Real-time grading and assessments. Instructors can expand their knowledge base with free access to resources from national partners. Instructors get support and unlimited student licenses. It also provides communities for collaboration, webinars and professional micro-credentials. The platform has support for planning and implementation.
Financial Education: Access financial education designed for K-12 on topics such as personal money use, small business, K-12 basics, retirement savings and spending habits.
Emotional Learning: Courses to help with social skills, empathy, leadership, self-awareness, conflict resolution and resiliency. Instructors can use this to create a more positive experience in the classroom.
Health & Wellness: Students can learn about how to make healthy life choices. Some subjects include preventative health, bullying prevention, alcohol awareness and prescription drug safety.
STEM: This partnership targets science, technology, engineering and mathematics with interactive activities and career plans. There are interactive progress reports and online simulations.
Community Engagement: Drive change in the community through its digital education components. This can help companies demonstrate their core values and make a difference.
Partnerships: Facilitate partnerships to help nonprofits and corporate organizations with their learning needs. The software works with 3,500 organizations to provide training to 30+ million learners. Companies can sponsor a course to increase their employees’ knowledge.

Potential Limitations

Limited Customization: The platform's rigidity can be frustrating for educators seeking to tailor content and assessments to specific learning objectives or student needs.
Technical Issues: Users frequently report encountering technical glitches and errors that disrupt the learning process and cause frustration.
Content Quality Concerns: Some users find the content to be superficial or lacking depth, particularly in comparison to more comprehensive educational resources.
Assessment Limitations: The platform's assessment capabilities may be seen as insufficient for evaluating student learning outcomes effectively, especially for complex or nuanced topics.
Price: The price is too high for some companies
Course Assignment: Assigning courses is sometimes difficult and clunky
Focus: Focuses more on content instead of high-level LMS functions

Support

Users can go to the admin support and help center and browse a forum for answers to relevant questions or submit a ticket. Otherwise, there’s a telephone line, an online form and a chat tool on the site. For students taking a Campus Clarity course or law/business employees taking the LawRoom training, the number is +1 (844) 348-1616. For students, workers, K-12 administrators, educators and employees who are taking or delivering an Everfi course, the number is +1 (866) 348-9062.

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