The following mini interview is part of the NGPF Middle School Tips Blog Series. We're here to support middle school educators with advice directly from fellow educators, curriculum highlights straight from the curriculum team at NGPF, and engaging virtual PDs just for the middle school teacher audience. Oh, and the new NGPF Middle School Curriculum is, in teachers' words. "Engaging," "Fun," "Helpful," "Current," and "Comprehensive," to name a few superlatives. Enjoy!

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Linda O'Dwyer is a Social Studies and Humanities teacher at Parker Junior High School in Flossmoor, Illinois, a diverse suburban area south of Chicago.

Linda is the recipient of the 2020 John Morton Excellence in Teaching Economics Award from the Council for Economics Education (CEE). In her Economics course, Linda carves out as much time as she possibly can to engage her students in the world of personal finance. In addition, she's taught an Honors personal finance class for 8th graders. I connected with this award-winning educator for a mini interview to learn about her school year... and share her joyful approach with you!

Christian: What’s the mix of remote vs. in-person instruction happening right now at your school?

Linda O'Dwyer: We're totally remote, but we're on the same schedule as we would be if we were meeting in person. So 45 minute virtual periods, 5 days per week, just like at school. We may be seeing a change to that schedule with more work time for teachers to prepare, since all the synchronous learning is a pretty quick way to burn ourselves and the students out. Plus, we're all finding it's almost impossible in the virtual world to cover everything we could in an in-person session of the same length. So we're making some adjustments, and the administration and school board have been very supportive so far.

Christian: What platforms / tech tools are you using to facilitate, collect student work, etc?

Linda O'Dwyer: I use a mix of Zoom and Google Meet to connect with students for video calls. Then, I use Canvas to host assignments and asynchronous activities, and Nearpod to engage students in the activities and discussions in class. I have a routine where I just post the link to the Nearpod for whatever the lesson is in Canvas, where students access all the content for class anyway. It's pretty convenient.

Christian: How do you use NGPF? Which are your go-to pages / tabs on the website?

Linda O'Dwyer: I've just started to explore the new middle school curriculum, because in previous semesters I've used the high school resources for my Honors students. I believe students can handle really rigorous instruction, and many of the Honors students are above grade level in reading and math, so giving my students the challenge of a high school personal finance class is great. When I navigate the website, I generally use the unit pages to find lesson plans aligned with what I'm teaching for the week. I find that's the fastest way to navigate the site, because you guys have a lot of resources, so having everything from each high school unit laid out on one page is useful for me.

One stroke of luck I have is that my state standards for Economics are fairly open, which allows me a lot of flexibility to work in additional concepts. Obviously, personal finance is full of real-world concepts that engage students, so the second half of my Economics class is really all about personal finance.

Christian: What NGPF community events have you found useful so far? (Virtual PDs, webinars, FinLit Fanatics Facebook Group, etc.)

Linda O'Dwyer: So far this school year, even with everything going on, I've been able to take the NGPF Certification Course on Insurance with Jessica! I'm trying to level up my content knowledge on everything to do with insurance. It's obviously very content-specific, and it's also 9 hours of class with a 1 hour test, so it's a little different from the 1-hour virtual PDs. I've really liked meeting teachers from all over the place when we go into breakout rooms though. We're definitely all going through a crazy school year, and we're trying our best to support our students and stay sane. It's been great to meet other teachers going through the same stuff!

Christian: What tips do you have for fellow middle school teachers?

Linda O'Dwyer: Focus on socio-emotional learning now to ensure students can engage with your academic content later. We're all going through an incredibly challenging time together, so I think it's so important to check in with our students and let them know we're there for them. I'm spending a lot more of my in-class time connecting with students in 1-on-1 breakout rooms (one of the advantages of Zoom over Google Meet)

About the Author

Christian Sherrill

Former teacher, forever financial education nerd. As NGPF's Director of Growth & Advocacy, Christian is laser-focused on our mission to guarantee all students a rigorous personal finance course before crossing the high school graduation stage. Having paid down over $40k in student loans in the span of 3 years - while living in the Bay Area on an entry level teacher's salary - he's eager to help the next generation avoid financial pitfalls one semester at a time.