I've decided to follow Derek's advice and set up a Facebook fan page for my Principles class. I figure it can't hurt to give students the option and I'm on Facebook a lot anyway so it's easy for me. While I was at it, I set up a Facebook page for this blog - I often come across news stories or other links that I think would be cool for teaching economics but I don't necessarily want to blog about and I figured a Facebook page would be a good way to post those. Unfortunately, I haven't figured out what the direct-link URL is (apparently, you need 25 fans before you can get a user-friendly URL but I can't even figure out what URL to use until then - if someone knows, please drop me a line!) but if you're on Facebook, you can search for Economics for Teachers in the box at the top of the screen and become a fan of the page that way. I'd love it if people want to post additional links or make comments there!
As I mentioned in my last post , I am asking my Econ for Teachers students to reflect on their reading by responding to discussion prompts. It occurred to me that it wouldn't be a bad idea for me to share my thoughts on those issues here and see if anyone wants to chime in. For this week, the students were asked to read the California and national content standards , an article by Mark Schug and others about why social science teachers dread teaching economics and how to overcome the dread, an article by William Walstad on the importance of economics for understanding the world around us and making better personal decisions (with some evidence on the dismal state of economic literacy in this country), and another article by Walstad on the status of economic education in high schools (full citations below). The reflection prompt asks the students to then answer the following questions: What was your high school econ experience like? What do you remember most from that class? How do...
I think this link will do the job. Finding a direct link to something on Facebook does seem to be harder than it needs to be. I think that one will work, however.
ReplyDeleteThanks Derek!
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