The Banking Expansion is the foundational module within Banqer, automatically enabled at the start of your students' journey on the platform. This expansion introduces students to essential banking concepts and helps them build financial literacy through hands-on activities and interactive learning.
Key Concepts
Students will gain an understanding of:
- Interest: How savings can grow over time.
- Compound Interest: The power of earning interest on interest.
- Account Options: Assessing features such as interest rates, fees, and charges.
- Transferring Between Accounts: Managing money across accounts effectively.
How it works
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Banking Quiz
Students begin their journey by completing the Banking Quiz.- Quiz rewards: Students earn $100 Banqer Dollars for each correct answer, up to a total of $1,000.
- Quiz rewards: Students earn $100 Banqer Dollars for each correct answer, up to a total of $1,000.
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Opening a Bank Account
Once the quiz is complete, students will open their first bank account.- They’ll choose from a range of account options, each with unique interest rates and weekly fees.
- This decision-making process encourages critical thinking and financial decision-making.
When students first log in, they are automatically set up with:
- A Basic Savings Account.
- A Basic Everyday Account.
Students have the option to open additional accounts or close one of the default accounts. However:
They must always have at least one Savings Account and one Everyday Account
3. Transferring Between Accounts
Students will explore how to transfer money between their accounts.
- All transactions are recorded in a transaction history, which students can review.
- As a teacher, you can monitor these transactions via the Student Overview Section.
4. Credit and Debit Cards
Students will notice options for Credit and Debit cards within the Banking Expansion.
- However, these features remain locked until you enable the Credit and Debit Expansion.
Teacher Tools
- Class Overview: Teachers can view the overall net worth of each student from the Class Overview area, and click on individual students to view more information. Clicking on the View Transactions button from an individual student view allows you as a teacher to view all the accounts a student has, and the transactions completed within each.
- Banking Overview: Within the Banking expansion view, at the bottom of the screen is a Banking Overview. This allows you to view the information for each student, showing their debt, total balance, and the ability to view all the accounts each student has.
- See guide at the end of this article for a visual step-through on how to view these Teacher Tools.
Lesson Support
To help guide your class through this expansion, a comprehensive Lesson Plan is available, including:
- Step-by-step instructions.
- Linked worksheets for in-class activities.
- Vocabulary builders to introduce key financial terms.
- Discussion ideas to promote classroom engagement and critical thinking.
- For information on how to enable expansions and access these resources, please see the related article here.