NGPF fellow and veteran educator of multilingual learners, Courtney Poquette, explains how Nearpod has been key to her personal finance teaching. This is the fifth and last in a series of posts with her advice for other teachers of English Language Learners. 

Nearpod has been key to my teaching! I remember back when I used to have to instruct students to go to a certain website, and then another, and then another.  So much class time was lost running around the room, trying to help students who were lost with all the tabs in their web browsers, help students who were unfamiliar with the keys on the keyboards, or the student who might be “busy” doing something else in class and missed a few steps. 

I love Nearpod as it keeps us all together. When I move the screen they are right there with me. It is a habit in my class to enter the room and join the Nearpod. 

While NGPF has many great Nearpods designed for us, I design my own for each class using the NGPF curriculum as a guideline to pick and choose between. It is also nice to start the class off and then switch to student paced mode to allow students to go at their own pace. 

I share a spreadsheet with students at the start of each course and each day, I add a student paced code to the spreadsheet, so they can review information or complete the Nearpod if they missed class.  It has simplified so much of my teaching and I am grateful for the support NGPF has provided in allowing teachers to have access to such an incredible tool.

Read Courtney's previous posts: 

4 NGPF Curriculum Tips for Teaching ELLs

6 NGPF Curriculum Adaptation Suggestions for English Language Learners

The 7 Personal Finance Topics Most Relevant for English Language Learners

Lesson Pacing for ELL Students

About the Author

Courtney Poquette

Courtney Poquette has been teaching personal finance at Winooski H.S. in Vermont for more than 17 years. Her school is in a refugee settlement area with over 800 students pre-k to grade 12 speaking around 27 different languages! During that time, she's picked up many insights regarding NGPF curriculum adaptation for English Language Learners, or multilingual learners (MLs).