Economics for Teachers: Musings about Teaching Economics

I mentioned at the start of the semester that I'd be trying a different approach to grading in the writing class this spring. I've finished grading the second big writing assignment and I have to say that although grading is taking just as long as it used to, I definitely notice a reduction in my level of stress about the process. There are two main things that I've changed: one, I am only assigning straight letter grades for papers (i.e., A, B, C or D, recorded as 4, 3, 2 or 1 in the Blackboard gradebook) and two, students are allowed to revise and re-submit papers as many times as they want, any time up until the last day of class, and I will use whatever grade they receive last (which will presumably be higher than where they started but only if they actually do the work). Giving straight letter grades has greatly reduced my angst about assigning the score for the overall assignment. For the most part, it's pretty easy to tell B papers from C papers but what I re...

If you aren't on the tch-econ mail list , you might have missed this: Paul Hettler is putting together one or two special sessions on the use of active learning strategies in economics. Paul notes: "This is the seventh year I've created such sessions. In the past, we've seen some very interesting presentations on the use of several different strategies in principles through upper-level courses. If you are using an interesting learning strategy, others would like to hear about it. Please consider sending a brief abstract of what you are doing in for this session (Note, there are no submission fees if you send the abstract directly to me). The session will be rather informal--if you have a formal analysis comparing the learning outcomes of some active strategy to 'lectures' that's great; if you just want to describe the technique you're using and provide anecdotal evidence of it's effectiveness that is good too. In all cases, the idea is to learn...

As an economist, I know that policies often have unintended consequences. As an ed policy researcher, I know that the unintended consequences of many education policies arise because a) policymakers generally have no idea what a teacher's job is actually like and b) local implementation of state and federal policies often focuses more on 'compliance' than 'educational quality'. I was reminded of both these problems when I received an email from our administration about Section 133 of the Higher Education Opportunity Act, which deals with textbook information. Apparently, this federal law requires that students have access to information on course materials prior to registration. This, in and of itself, seems benign. I think the prices that students pay for textbooks and associated materials are often outrageous and letting students know what they're signing up for is good (pointless, but good, since I can't imagine any student chooses classes based on textb...