Economics for Teachers: Musings about Teaching Economics

At the Westerns, I was part of a session on interactive teaching titled, “Flipping, Clicking and Other Contortions to Make Your Classes More Interactive”. Unfortunately, one of the participants, the one who was specifically going to talk about flipping his class, was struck with flight problems and couldn’t make it. However, he was kind enough to make a video of his presentation that we could show during the session. If anyone is interested, Steven also put the video (broken into two parts) onto YouTube, here and here . I also tried to record the other three presentations using Camtasia but there are problems with the sound (Steven’s video was actually running in the background and although the sound was muted at the time, Camtasia recorded Steven’s voice with the other presentations). So rather than posting the videos, here are (links to) the slides: Brandon Sheridan on Getting started with interactive teaching Mary Flannery on Interactive learning through current events (pdf of ...

In the course of conversations with people about PollEverywhere over the last few months, some additional uses of the service have come up.  One is to use it as a backchannel  during class, since it allows for open-ended responses. That is, you could create a poll that simply asks students to submit any questions or relevant comments that arise for them while the class is meeting. The one catch is the instructor needs a way to monitor those comments throughout class. If you are already using the computer for something else (like your Powerpoint slides), you could either use a second device (smartphone or tablet) to keep an eye on the website or stop every so often to check it. Derek Bruff has a nice post on backchannels in education if you're interested in more about the how and why of backchannels. Another way to use PollEverywhere is as a replacement for clickers in distance-learning. I don't teach online classes so I'm not entirely sure what the options are if you w...

[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...

I've been using clickers for several semesters now and I can't imagine teaching without them. But one drawback has always been that I can only ask multiple-choice questions. When I teach 500 students, I don't see any other option (at least for things where students' answers will count toward their grade in some way). But this semester, I have had a few application exercises in the data class where I wanted groups to come up with short responses to open-ended questions. I have thirteen teams in one section and ten in the other so grading their responses is not a big deal but I had to figure out how to collect them. One of the tenets of TBL applications is that teams should report simultaneously - easy enough with responses to multiple-choice questions (either with clickers or cards) but more difficult with longer responses. I ended up using Poll Everywhere , a very cool site that allows anyone to create a multiple-choice or open-ended poll and people can respond via ...