As thousands of finance, accounting, and portfolio management classes are planning a full or partial switch to distance learning for the Fall, it can be a struggle to reach the same level of engagement with your class (particularly for classes usually held in a trading room).
This is where StockTrak’s wholly-online portfolio simulation can really come to shine. Follow these best practices we’ve learned by working with online schools over the last decade for some of the best practices in getting the most engagement from your class – even outside the classroom.
Simulations Are More Important Than Ever
When your classes are totally online, your students are under a constant barrage of distractions – which is the biggest killer of classroom engagement and ensuring mastery of core concepts. This is why simulations, like StockTrak’s portfolio simulation, are more important than ever.
Starting your class’s portfolio simulation as soon as possible adds an important layer of structure to your online class. This gives students an immediate hold of a long-term project that clearly evolves as you introduce new concepts in class.
Include Weekly Touchpoints
StockTrak’s Assignments feature allows professors to set up specific tasks for students to complete, each with their own “start dates” and “due dates”.
With an online class, we recommend to set up an “introduction” assignment during the first week (introducing students to core concepts and watching our integrated tutorial videos), followed by weekly Assignments asking students to regularly monitor and update their portfolios.
Our latest Engagement Update makes this easier than ever, where you can queue assignments with prerequisites, and add rewards for students who complete each set of tasks on time.
Students are also prompted to take notes with every trade, which are automatically saved in the system and available both for the professor to review and for the student to refer to when building end-of-semester reports or presentations.
The Class Rankings Matter
StockTrak has built-in, real-time rankings by overall portfolio return, weekly return, Sharpe Ratio, and Alpha/Beta. This is already the most engaging part of most classes, as students vie for the top spot.
For online classes, the rankings become a powerful tool to further drive engagement in the lecture periods themselves. Call out the top weekly performers to ask what went right – or the bottom performers about what went wrong as a launching point for further class discussion. Every student will have a story to tell!
Ready-Made Products Simplify Getting Started
If you have not used StockTrak in your classes before, our veteran professors have provided a library of successful class project documents and course outlines showing exactly how to integrate the portfolio simulation in your classes.
Simplify The Learning Process
StockTrak brings together all the tools a student needs to learn how to successfully manage a portfolio all into one place. Our cutting-edge trading engine uses real-time bid/ask prices for instant order execution, while students are introduced to key concepts with our integrated library of lessons and tutorial videos.
Students can find quotes, financial statements, historical prices, analyst ratings, key ratios, and hundreds of other data points for each security in our Research Center, so there is no struggle to herd students from one resource to another. Professors can add tutorials and introductory lessons with just 1 click with our Assignments feature, saving valuable class time. We have dozens of integrated, customizable reports built right in, giving all professors a complete view of their entire class at any time.
If you haven’t already, register your class and get your unique class code to share with your students – students just click the link, choose their login details, and are set to begin!
What’s New on StockTrak – Spring 2024