Empowering Personal Finance Educators: Two Professional Development Models

Barbara O’Neill, Extension Specialist in Financial Resource ManagementRutgers NJAES Cooperative Extension

boneill@njaes.rutgers.edu

Introduction

This poster describes the content and format of two financial education professional development models that were developed to provide financial education professional development for teachers in a New Jersey. Other financial educators could easily replicate each model. New Jersey is one of 17 states in the U.S. that requires a high school course in personal finance prior to graduation.

The two program models are Financial Education Boot Camp and Financial Education Teacher Exchange.Both programs are funded annually as the result of a New Jersey law that stipulates that a portion of credit union profits for serving as public repositories must be used for financial education professional development.

Below is a description of each professional development model:

Financial Education Boot Camp is a full-day conference that includes brief content “chunks,” hand-on learning activities matched to the content chunk topics, technology updates and activities, and guest speakers. Teachers receive seven continuing education credits.

Financial Education Teacher Exchange is an after-school workshop featuring facilitated teacher networking about their favorite financial education lesson plans and financial education resources (e.g., videos and calculators). Teachers receive 2.5 continuing education credits.

AcknowledgementThis work is supported by August 2011 legislation, (N.J.S.A. 17:9-43.2.D) that authorizes New Jersey credit unions to serve as public depositories for the purpose of promoting personal financial literacy education. Rutgers Cooperative Extension is the designated financial education provider.

Dr. Barbara O’Neill, CFP® from Rutgers Cooperative Extension provided leadership for this project in collaboration with the New Jersey Department of Education. Multiple partners from the financial education community provide financial and/or in-kind support.

Relevant Literature

This poster describes two professional development models designed to build the financial education capacity of teachers. As personal finance programs in schools have expanded, interest has increased in providing quality teacher professional development programs to build financial education capacity.

Teachers cannot teach personal finance well if they do not understand the content themselves, cannot engage their students, and/or do not fully appreciate the characteristics and life experiences of those they teach (O’Neill and Hensley, 2016).

An online survey by Way and Holden (2009) found that teachers who had taken a college course with personal finance topics were 50% more likely than others to rate themselves as competent to teach financial subject matter. However, only 37% of respondents had ever taken college courses with financial education content and fewer than 3% took a course related to personal finance education. Teachers felt limited in preparedness in both subject matter and pedagogy, particularly in the topic areas of insurance and saving and investing.

O’Neill, B. & Hensley, B. (2016). Building the financial education capacity of teachers: Does it make a difference? In International Handbook of Financial Literacy, 2016, Springer Books, 639-654. Retrieved from: http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007%2F978-981-10-0360-8_40.

Way, W.L. & Holden, K.C. (2009). Teachers’ background and capacity to teach personal finance: Results of a national study. Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning, 20(2), 64-78. Retrieved from: http://www.afcpe.org/assets/pdf/vol20_2way_holden.pdf.

Results and Discussion

Post-class and follow-up evaluations conducted by the NJ Department of Education have consistently found that participants in both programs increased subject matter and pedagogical knowledge and self-confidence in teaching personal finance. Many also reported using learning activities that they were exposed to.

Sample Financial Education Boot Camp Agenda

Sample Financial Education Teacher Exchange Agenda