Economics for Teachers: Musings about Teaching Economics

[This post wraps up my reflections on my pilot of PollEverywhere this past spring. If you missed my last two posts, I discussed how I used PollEverywhere in my data analysis course, and student reaction to it.] So here are my general thoughts on PollEverywhere, particularly relative to standard clickers: Advantages Convenience for students . They all have cell phones so they never 'forget' their device the way they do with clickers. Easy to ask open-ended questions . Even on clicker systems that have this feature, it is generally easier with cell phones/laptops. Relatively low-cost . If you have fewer than 30 students, the service would be totally free; if you need to track more responses, there is a cost for a PE account that someone (you, your institution, or the students) will have to bear. For students who do not have unlimited texting, there may be costs related to sending/receiving messages; the total cost will depend on how many questions you ask (in a previou...

In my last post , I described how I used PollEverywhere in my data analysis course this spring. In this post, I'll discuss student reaction to PollEverywhere; in my next post, I'll wrap up with my own impressions and thoughts/suggestions for others who are considering using it in their classes. At the end of the semester, I surveyed my students about a number of aspects of using PollEverywhere. SDSU's Instructional Technology Services asks all clicker-using faculty to administer the same survey every semester and I adapted most of those questions for PE. Many of those questions aren't really about the specific technology but are about using any kind of response system (e.g., "Clickers/PollEverywhere usage helps me to remember course content"). I discussed student responses to clickers a couple years ago and reactions haven't changed much (if anything, the percentages of students agreeing with most of the statements has increased); reactions to PE on tho...

Months ago, I mentioned that I was part of an ITS pilot of PollEverywhere this past spring. Quick reminder: PollEverywhere is a web-based service where anyone can create a multiple-choice or open-ended question and people can respond via text, Twitter or website. I first used PollEverywhere in the fall when I wanted a way for my teams to submit open-ended responses. The free version only allows up to 30 responses per poll which was fine for 13 team responses but wouldn't work for individual responses (since I have 75 students in each of my sections) so I used clickers for any individual responses. In the spring, the University bought a PE account subscription so there could be unlimited responses. It also meant that students could register and their responses were recorded so I could use PollEverywhere as a replacement for clickers. In this post, I'll explain the mechanics of how I used PollEverywhere and some of the associated pluses and minuses. In my next couple posts, I...

For anyone attending the Westerns next week, it looks like there are only a few econ ed sessions; here's what I could find. Also note that CSWEP is sponsoring a panel on Thursday morning (8:15-10am) called 'Striking a Balance: Getting Tenure and Having a Life' - grad students and junior faculty are particularly encouraged to attend! Friday, July 1, 8:15-10:00am TEACHING ECONOMICS I Chair: Robert L. Sexton, Pepperdine University Papers: Satyajit Ghosh, University of Scranton, and Sarah Ghosh, University of Scranton Beyond ‘Chalk and Talk’: Teaching Macroeconomic Policy with Spreadsheet Simulation Denise L. Stanley, California State University, Fullerton, and Morteza Rahmatian, California State University, Fullerton Can Technology Make Large Classrooms Neutral for Learning? The Case of an Upper-Division CBE Core Class David M. Switzer, St. Cloud State University, and Kenneth Rebeck, St. Cloud State University Using Online Tools to Improve the Quantity and Quality of...

I've always been a semi-early adopter of technology. I'm not a fanatic about it; I'm just sort of fascinated by the internet, by the ability we now have to reach people we never could in the past, and I like playing around with stuff. Back in college, I would 'chat' with friends via the VAX (I think that's what it was called), and in grad school I learned some html so I could create a personal webpage with lots of random stuff on it. I was actually excited when our campus started using Blackboard because it was easier to post my class stuff there than on the webpages I created on my own. And as the number of tech and web-based communication tools has exploded, I've explored a bunch of them, as I've written about here a lot. But even though I think technology is a wonderful thing, when it comes to teaching, I don't think I use technology just for technology's sake. Rather, I'd say that when I'm faced with a problem, I tend to look to te...

I am obsessive about lists. I make lists for what I need to do on a given day, in a given week, for different projects, for work and for my personal life, you name it. I make lists of stuff I need to buy at Target or at Trader Joe's, what I need to pack for an upcoming trip, and stuff I want to blog about sometime in the future. I've also started writing down pretty much anything that I might want to remember later, as soon as it comes into my head, because I swear, my memory just doesn't work the way it used to (I'd like to blame social media multi-tasking rather than old age but I may be deluding myself with that one). My point is, I make a lot of lists. Some might see list-making as a procrastination device - i.e., time spent making my To Do list is time NOT spent actually doing the things on my list. But while that is technically true, I've realized that, for me, list-making is a way of making sure that I do things efficiently and it actually makes me less ...

Don't be alarmed - it's still the same site, just looks a little different. After three years, I figured the design could stand to be updated (if you usually get my posts via email or in a reader, ignore this). Over the next few weeks, I'm planning to clean up my labels so it will be easier to find old posts on related topics and just get things a little more organized around here. Yay for summer!