What if I don't know anything about investing?

The objective of the SMG program is to introduce its participants to the fundamentals of investing - this includes their teachers! The SMG's Teacher Support Center provides you with user and technical guides, related publications, links, and other resources to help get you comfortable using the SMG with your afterschool students. You may also contact your local SMG Coordinator for information and additional assistance.

What if I'm not a classroom teacher?

Everyone has the potential to be a great SMG teacher. The challenge is finding the teaching materials appropriate to your teaching environment. The SMG's Teacher Support Center provides materials that support teaching fundamental investment concepts in afterschool, homeschool, other out-of-school and alternative teaching situations.

What is the Teacher Support Center?

The Teacher Support Center is a searchable library of curriculum resources, lesson plans, assessments, and standards correlations that help you introduce your students to the fundamental saving and investing skills as well as provide real world practice in core academic subjects like math, English, and social studies (economics).

How do I access the Teacher Support Center?

There are two distinct logins in The Stock Market Game: (1) Advisor and (2) team. The Advisor ID and password is used to login to the Teacher Support Center. Each team receives a shared team ID and password to login to their online investment portfolios. The Advisor is easily distinguished by the capital "T" in the third section of the ID (e.g. AB_12_T123456). Login by clicking the appropriate link at www.stockmarketgame.org. Advisors and their teams login at the same site.

Does The Stock Market Game align with the regular school day?

Whether it is the integers they learn in math or the current events they review in social studies or the persuasive essays they write in Language Arts, SMG presents afterschool students with a unique opportunity to apply the content they learn in the classroom to real world saving and investing. This meaningful and practical application has been shown to help increase math achievement and financial literacy.

Does The Stock Market Game support literacy?

Yes, students in the SMG program read with the purpose of making better investments and growing the value of their online portfolio. They see immediate value and the practical applications to the reading and research activities they are asked to complete. In fact, many students go beyond the reading requested in the activities to gather research of their own.

How does The Stock Market Game address bullying?

In addition to strengthening academic skills and content knowledge, the SMG program helps students build essential life skills in conflict resolution, consensus building, and leadership. Students work in teams of 2 to 5 to invest a hypothetical $100,000 in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. They are assigned roles that can be changed on a regular basis so everyone has the opportunity to be in charge, enter trades, and conduct research. SMG attempts to end bullying by focusing teams of students on a common goal.

Do you have materials for afterschool and homeschool use?

Yes, the Teacher Support Center has easy-to-follow instructional guides, suggested lessons, activities, and projects for afterschool and homeschool participants. Though afterschool and homeschool resources are designed specifically for their respective audiences, they may be used in conjunction or interchangeably with each other or educational materials designed for classroom participants.

What do you mean by “Correlated to Common Core State Standards?”

Lessons in the Teacher Support Center are correlated to the national Common Core State Standards (CCSS). These correlations are presented in an interactive table in the Standards section of the Teacher Support Center. The Stock Market Game effectively contextualizes the academic content standards, practices, and career skills expressed in the CCSS, STEM, and by the Partnership for 21st Century Skills.