This document describes two professional development models for personal finance educators in New Jersey: 1) A full-day Financial Education Boot Camp conference featuring brief content lessons, hands-on activities, technology training, and guest speakers. Teachers receive seven continuing education credits. 2) A half-day Financial Education Teacher Exchange workshop where teachers share their favorite lesson plans and resources. Teachers receive 2.5 continuing education credits. Both programs aim to improve teachers' personal finance knowledge and confidence in teaching the subject, and evaluations found they increased participants' subject matter expertise and pedagogical skills.

1. Empowering Personal Finance Educators:
Two Professional Development Models
Barbara O’Neill, Extension Specialist in Financial Resource Management
Rutgers 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.
Acknowledgement
This 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