Skip to main content

Why I'm Here

My interest in helping teachers of economics at all levels is partly driven by my research, which focuses on K-12 education policy, primarily school finance and teacher labor markets. That means I study how schools are financed (for example, how much revenue comes from the state and how much from local communities, and how does that vary across schools), and I study why teachers do or don’t choose to teach in particular schools. In a larger sense, I am interested in what policies will lead to better schools, particularly for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. My research has made me acutely aware of the challenges facing public school teachers as well as the high variance in the quality of teacher preparation programs. Thus, creating the Economics for Teachers course and this blog are my small attempts to support, and perhaps contribute to the professional development of, at least one group of teachers.

It is important for me to point out that I am first and foremost an economist, though I don’t think of myself as a ‘typical’ economist. I also love to teach, but I specifically love teaching economics. I once read somewhere that a professor is someone who thinks the world would be better off if everyone knew a little more about his or her subject; that pretty much sums up my philosophy. I believe that understanding economics can help students make better decisions in their lives and my love of teaching is a direct extension of my love of economics.

My love of teaching is also part of why I say that I don’t think of myself as a ‘typical’ economist. I want to expand non-economists’ understanding of economic thinking so I know I need to communicate in ways that non-economists can understand. The economics I love doesn’t require a lot of math (though I have been trained to appreciate the eloquence of a well-formed mathematical model), and it isn’t always associated with dollars, but it is found everywhere in our everyday lives. As a teacher, I am always looking for ways to get my students to think critically, to apply economic reasoning to their own lives, and many posts on this blog will be a record of search.

Related posts:
Why doesn't anyone know what economics is?
Do high school econ courses prepare students for college econ courses?
Economists are not taught pedagogy

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

This is about getting through, not re-inventing your course

As someone who has worked hard to build a lot of interactivity into my courses, I have never been interested in teaching fully online courses, in part because I have felt that the level of engaged interaction could never match that of a face-to-face class (not that there aren't some exceptional online courses out there; I just have a strong preference for the in-person connection). But the current situation is not really about building online courses that are 'just as good' as our face-to-face courses; it is about getting through this particular moment without compromising our students' learning too much. So if you are used to a lot of interaction in your F2F class, here are some options for adapting that interaction for a virtual environment: [NOTE: SDSU is a Zoom/mostly Blackboard campus so that's how I've written this but I am pretty sure that other systems have similar functionality] If you use clickers in class to break up what is otherwise mostly lect...

Designing effective courses means thinking through the WHAT and the HOW (in that order)

I think most folks have heard by now that the California State University system (in which I work) has announced the intention to prepare for fall classes to be primarily online. I have to say, I am sort of confused why everyone is making such a big deal about this - no matter what your own institution is saying, no instructor who cares about their own mental health (let alone their students) should be thinking we are going back to 'business as usual' in the fall. In my mind, the only sane thing to do is at least prepare  for the possibility of still teaching remotely. Fortunately, unlike this spring, we now have a lot more time for that preparation. Faculty developers across the country have been working overtime since March, and they aren't slowing down now; we are all trying to make sure we can offer our faculty the training and resources they will need to redesign fall courses for online or hybrid modalities. But one big difference between the training faculty needed ...

THE podcast on Implicit Bias

I keep telling myself I need to get back to blogging but, well, it's been a long pandemic... But I guess this is as good an excuse as any to post something: I am Bonni Stachowiak's guest on the latest episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, talking about implicit bias and how it can impact our teaching.  Doing the interview with Bonni (which was actually recorded a couple months ago) was a lot of fun. Listening to it now, I also realize how far I have come from the instructor I was when I started this blog over a decade ago. I've been away from the blog so long that I should probably spell this out: my current title is Associate Vice President for Faculty and Staff Diversity and I have responsibility for all professional learning and development related to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as inclusive faculty and staff recruitment, and unit-level diversity planning. But I often say that in a lot of ways, I have no business being in this position - I've ne...