Today was day 2 at Eastside Prep (more on that in an upcoming post) with a focus on checking. I started the 2nd day by sending the students to a Poll Everywhere with the following question:

If you were going to open a new checking account tomorrow, what would be the top feature that you would be looking for?

I asked the students to think in terms of one word answers and used the “Word Cloud” feature on Poll Everywhere. The free version limits you to 30 responses so at some point students got locked out but not before we had some great answers. I kept the Word Cloud invisible until all had responded since I didn’t want them to be influenced by other’s answers.

Here is what appeared on the projection screen:

This visual became a great way to kick-start a conversation on questions such as “why is that feature important?” or “what did you mean by that term?” It was nice to see that fees were the #1 factor that students considered with these accounts. Definitely a great tool to use in the classroom.  Try it or better yet, send me a copy of your word cloud and I will post it on the blog!

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.