Using AI to Teach Personal Financial Literacy

Artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly shifting the landscape of technology and expanding what’s possible in the classroom — specifically, in the personal financial literacy classroom. Below is a recap of a recent expert-led session on using AI to plan financial literacy lessons and suggestions for guiding students in effective AI use. The panel included the Focus on Personal Financial Literacy authorship team: Dr. Les Dlabay, professor and high school finance educator; Dr. Jack Kapoor, Professor of Business and Economics; Robert Huges, personal finance professor for college and high school students; and Melissa Hart, permanent lecturer and personal finance educator.

The following is a recap of the presentation led by Dr. Dlabay with commentary from our author panel. You can find a full webinar recording at the bottom of this blog.

A Note on Understanding AI

AI works well with structured problems, such as prompts that generate a straightforward answer, but less well with unstructured problems, such as asking AI to be creative. However, teachers need to consider how to use AI in both structured and unstructured ways to enhance student learning.

AI in the Classroom Today

We can think of educators’ current approaches to AI in the classroom on a continuum: ranging from prohibited, where teachers do not allow any AI use and view it as plagiarism; discouraged, where it is closely monitored and penalties are strict for improper use; encouraged, where it’s used as a resource and teachers suggest proper use; and required, where it is integrated into instruction and used as a resource (but not as a source). In the required model, teachers and students should critique the validity of what AI produces and students should have the opportunity to refine AI skills.

Here’s some commentary from our author panel on AI classroom models:

Jack Kapoor: “Eventually, every classroom should strive for the required model because students will need to learn to leverage AI.”

Melissa Hart: “As an educator, I began in the discouraged column because I just didn’t understand AI and it felt like a bad idea. In the past year I’ve really progressed to the encouraged model.”

Robert Hughes: “The idea of critiquing the validity of AI will be critical for students moving into the required model. We know that not everything we read on the internet is accurate, and it’s important they understand that’s the same for AI.”

AI Student Skills

The three skills we need our students to acquire to use AI are:

1. Direction: The ability to create good prompts for AI
2. Documentation: The ability to document and cite information from AI
3. Discernment: The ability to critique information from AI

Here’s the key: AI should help you think, but not think for you.

Important AI skills for students to practice include:

Prompt engineering. Students should learn prompt engineering (which could even become a career path for them). Good prompt engineering involves splitting complex tasks into simpler subtasks, including details for more relevant responses, providing examples, specifying the desired length, style, reference dates, and reading level of output, and varying prompt phrasing to test various results.

Citation. APA and MLA have addressed how to cite generative AI as a source. Students should familiarize themselves with these methods.

Brainstorming. Students should use AI to brainstorm ideas for papers and projects, look for frameworks, and edit and rephrase papers, but always require disclosure and follow-up discussion with their teacher. Teachers need to hold these follow-ups in person to assess the originality of learning without allowing the student to provide a written follow-up also generated from AI.

Responsible Use. Students should learn to be aware of the dangers of AI, including biased responses, flawed logic, incorrect facts, lack of current information — particularly in financial literacy surrounding tax or financial information — incorrect or made-up sources, and inaccurate calculations, predictions, or hallucinations.

Here are some suggestions and ideas from our authors on how to improve student AI skills:

Melissa Hart: “Just the other day the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction released a thirty-three-page document for K-12 teachers with recommendations for using AI in the classroom. It struck me just how much AI is being encouraged at all levels of education now.”

Robert Hughes: “The term ‘prompt engineering’ to me is a little overstated because, as teachers, we use prompts all the time. It’s important to help students go after the ‘meat’ of what they want to learn when they write a prompt. For example, ‘what stock should I buy’ could yield all kinds of results. But ‘I want a stock with a growth rate and revenue each year’ is far better. Any project or activity should start with a focus on that prompt.”

Ideas for AI in the Financial Literacy Classroom

Here are some ideas for integrating AI specifically into your financial literacy course:

• Have students analyze and compare their answers to questions to AI responses.
• Have students feed AI various prompts and compare and discuss the results.
• Have students use AI to brainstorm ideas for financial goals, budgeting, and saving tips. Sample prompts include: Propose a budget plan to pay off a credit card debt of $__, Propose an investment portfolio for a 30-year-old person, or Recommend action steps to create an emergency fund of $__.
• Create sentences or ideas and use AI to fill in the blanks to generate a paragraph for a brainstorm or draft of writing.
• Teachers can use AI to create case studies for assignments. Try creating case studies in a narrative style, like a TV show, to keep students engaged.
• Students should explore structured vs unstructured prompts. Consider the following AI prompts: “When might a person decide to use a tax-deferred investment instead of a tax-exempt investment?” and, “How might future tax rates affect a decision in favor of a tax-deferred investment instead of a tax-exempt investment?” In the first, a structured prompt, the answer is present already. There’s a limited universe of choices and answers related to the question. However, the second unstructured question will generate a less conclusive answer. Teachers should have students explore how to revise their prompts to be more structured.

For recommended AI platforms and a Q&A session between educators and financial literacy experts, watch the full webinar:

Personal Finance AI Webinar

For more on financial literacy in K-12, see:

How to Engage High School Students in Financial Literacy