Some of you may know that I have been working on my doctorate for the past four years. On Friday, December 4, 2009 at 3:21 pm Mountain Time, I got the following words from my committee, "Congratulations, Dr. Otter." Who? Come again? While proud of my accomplishment, I am simply not all that comfortable with the Doctor moniker. My brother-in-law who delivers babies is a Doctor. The physician who recently told me I was in great shape for a 44-year-old, but that it's all down hill after age 50 is a Doctor. A frank one, for certain.
Anyway, titles aside I am proud of my work at the University of New Mexico, much of which I see as an extension of my 403(b) advocacy work. Encouraged by my superb committee chair, Dr. Penny Pence, I focused on financial literacy, a topic we both see as one of the core social justice issues of our time. In looking at recent efforts to improve student financial literacy, it seemed to me we were omitting a key ingredient to success: the classroom teacher, which research suggests is central to both student achievement and policy implementation success. Much of the effort to improve financial literacy has been pushed by the financial service industry and elected officials with minimal input from the classroom teacher. And much of these efforts are well intentioned, particularly the work of the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. I wanted to learn teacher attitudes and beliefs about financial literacy instruction. After all, who is better suited to identifying both barriers to successful implementation, and opportunities for successful implementation? My survey of 181 classroom teachers revealed some unsurprising findings (teacher strongly support the inclusion of financial literacy instruction in the curriculum) and some surprising findings (teachers believe personal finance instruction should begin in elementary school with the grade most chosen to begin being kindergarten). Lack of suitable curriculum, lack of classroom materials, lack of classroom instruction time, and lack of teacher subject matter knowledge were identified as barriers to successful personal finance instruction. Similar results were found in a modified survey of more than 2,400 California classroom teachers I recently conducted in conjunction with the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS). You can read my dissertation here: Teaching Financial Literacy in K-12 Schools: Teacher Attitudes and Understandings (note: paper has yet to undergo final proofing). I will be writing about the findings from my CalSTRS investigation in the next few months.
So what's next? Good question, Mom and Dad and all my relatives who think it is high time I did something tangible. My research also revealed that teachers' preferred format for personal finance professional development is a workshop that also increases their own financial literacy. To that end I am developing a professional development initiative that does just that: instructs teachers on methods for teaching personal finance concepts and improves teacher financial literacy. Called "Pollinate: The Teacher Financial Literacy Project," you can learn more here. Feedback on this concept would be appreciated.
Anyway, titles aside I am proud of my work at the University of New Mexico, much of which I see as an extension of my 403(b) advocacy work. Encouraged by my superb committee chair, Dr. Penny Pence, I focused on financial literacy, a topic we both see as one of the core social justice issues of our time. In looking at recent efforts to improve student financial literacy, it seemed to me we were omitting a key ingredient to success: the classroom teacher, which research suggests is central to both student achievement and policy implementation success. Much of the effort to improve financial literacy has been pushed by the financial service industry and elected officials with minimal input from the classroom teacher. And much of these efforts are well intentioned, particularly the work of the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy. I wanted to learn teacher attitudes and beliefs about financial literacy instruction. After all, who is better suited to identifying both barriers to successful implementation, and opportunities for successful implementation? My survey of 181 classroom teachers revealed some unsurprising findings (teacher strongly support the inclusion of financial literacy instruction in the curriculum) and some surprising findings (teachers believe personal finance instruction should begin in elementary school with the grade most chosen to begin being kindergarten). Lack of suitable curriculum, lack of classroom materials, lack of classroom instruction time, and lack of teacher subject matter knowledge were identified as barriers to successful personal finance instruction. Similar results were found in a modified survey of more than 2,400 California classroom teachers I recently conducted in conjunction with the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS). You can read my dissertation here: Teaching Financial Literacy in K-12 Schools: Teacher Attitudes and Understandings (note: paper has yet to undergo final proofing). I will be writing about the findings from my CalSTRS investigation in the next few months.
So what's next? Good question, Mom and Dad and all my relatives who think it is high time I did something tangible. My research also revealed that teachers' preferred format for personal finance professional development is a workshop that also increases their own financial literacy. To that end I am developing a professional development initiative that does just that: instructs teachers on methods for teaching personal finance concepts and improves teacher financial literacy. Called "Pollinate: The Teacher Financial Literacy Project," you can learn more here. Feedback on this concept would be appreciated.
