Frequently Asked Questions

All professional development is virtual and free. Since all financial courses consist of 10
common elements –
Week 1. Using the Pacing Guide for lesson plans and jump-starting your class with a
sense of urgency. Significant material needs to be studied to comply with the Standards.
Tips on how to prepare students to gain the knowledge and prepare students to meet
employers’ expectations.

Week 2. Teacher TIPS provide answers to assignment, teaching strategies and questions
to ask students. Print tips and highlight your questions for the day’s class.

Week 3. Student Goal Setting – A three x four matrix. Why we start with goals, what you
should expect, and how to respond to goals that are not calibrated to reality or are
they? Do teachers have goals? If not, why not?

Week 4. Vision Essays – “Tell me more!” should be the teacher’s response. Students are
sharing their visions of what their lives will be like in ten years. We discuss the teachers’
expectations and possible responses.

Week 5. 10-Year Written Plans – Initial plans will lack details. How to evaluate students’
efforts and encourage planning? Do students need to draw their plans to visualize their
roadmaps? Why plan – would you ever build a home without a plan? Isn’t a student’s
future more important than a home?

Week 6. Critical Thinking and the Prefrontal Cortex – Why this information is essential
for students’ futures.

Week 7. Using Immersive Reader – Immersive Reader is for everyone. This audiobook is
for ESL, gifted, underperforming students, students planning for college, and teachers.

Week 8. Case Studies – These are designed “project style” similar to what an employer
would provide to a team of employees. What are your experiences and expectations for
student teamwork? Alumni Trip case study?

Week 9. – Managing Assignments – Which students are assigned which exercises?
Grading performance, sharing results.

Week 10. Evaluating Student Progress – What outcomes are expected? If you start with
a subjective 100%, what growth in academics do you expect?

One live evening virtual session per week with sessions recorded and accessible on
DeckerUSA.com website. When a teacher needs individual guidance, D&A is there. Message us
at 713-256-8643, or complete the CONTACT US form on this website.

Once Decker has a Purchase Order from your school, we can issue a license starting June 16.
Contact us to provide a 30-minute orientation of the online course.

One thing is for certain: all employers have gravitated toward online training, virtual meetings,
working in TEAMS, podcasts, and personal productivity. Training students how to use blended
learning of multiple textbooks, research, multimedia, and online courses is essential for adults
to remain relevant to employers and the community in the future. A single textbook may be
easy to use in a classroom, but if students are to be prepared to attend PSE or gain and
maintain employment in the future, acquiring and analyzing knowledge from multiple resources
will be essential. Decker helps teachers through PD to assimilate online courses into their
instructional methodology.

Decker provides a monthly newsletter of financial, career, academic, and economic changes
that have occurred during the past month.

They are not provided as a profit maker. Decker designed this textbook as a companion to the
online course, so students would have a place to record their goals, visions, plans, career
choices, and funding and selection of postsecondary education. This record and key financial
concepts like how to analyze medical plans, calculate funding needed for emergencies and
financial security and calculate the yearly savings required to achieve big goals, such as financial
independence.

Our pilot students, who were sophomores from Title 1 high schools, attended 100 hours of
classroom time, taught by volunteer professionals from engineering, business, real estate,
financial services, law, artists, DJs, MBA students – individuals who had no formal training as
educators but who believed every student deserved an opportunity to create a financially
secure future. The results: 100% graduated from high school, 98% entered post-secondary
education and 91.7% graduated from PSE within 6 years. When we analyzed why these
outcomes exceed most district experiences, we discovered that although the course material
was similar, and the teachers wanted the best future for their student, all teachers had 40
hours of training on expectations, challenges faced by students, managing study habits,
teaching critical thinking and when students needed answers to questions, research,
communicate and to rely on fellow students, and not teachers, for answers. Teachers provided
daily motivation, positive reinforcement, and goal expansion, challenging students whenever
they said, ”I can’t!” Teachers did not maintain grades, and course completion was based solely
on the final exam. Students were given two attempts to pass the exam, with time allowed to
restudy their course materials. 100% passed the course, which they rated as harder than any
course they had taken through their freshman year of high school.