Skip to main content

John and Milton were taking Econ 102...

One of my tasks for this week is to write the first midterm for my principles class. Writing exams is one of the few things that I find actually gets harder the longer I've taught the class, since I have to come up with new questions each time. One thing that helps is that I now have my students write questions at the end of each semester and that always yields at least a few that I can use the following semester. And I often start with old questions and just change the market and re-arrange the answers (bikes instead of cars, demand up instead of down, etc.). That can be challenging in and of itself because I try to think of real markets (not widgets!) that students will have some familiarity with but that haven't already been mentioned a hundred times, either by me, in class, or in their textbook or on Aplia - e.g., if anyone has ideas for realistic goods other than tobacco and gasoline to use for questions about inelastic demand or taxes, please let me know!

But in addition to coming up with realistic, original applications, I find myself spending some time (admittedly more than I should) trying to be clever with the names of the people in the questions. So, for example, I have Jack and Jill in the market for buckets, or Jim and Pam working in an office, or LaDainian shopping for footballs (if you have favorite examples, please share in the comments!). This totally amuses me (yes, I'm easily amused), but I'm always curious if my students even get the references. Or if they do, whether they think they're funny or I'm just weird...
Labels:

Comments

  1. Don CoffinFebruary 10, 2010 at 8:43 AM

    I have Melville and Ahab running a bait shoppe. I even get an occasional chuckle from some students.

    ReplyDelete
  2. AnonymousFebruary 16, 2010 at 10:01 AM

    Back when Bevis and Butthead were popular, I would use their names in examples. At the end of the semester a student complimented me for using those names because it made the course more "realistic."

    ReplyDelete
  3. Jennifer ImazekiFebruary 16, 2010 at 4:22 PM

    That brings up a related problem that seems to grow worse each year - knowing what names students will actually recognize! Sometimes I wonder if I should watch the CW a little more, just to keep in touch with what my students are watching!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Comments that contribute to the discussion are always welcome! Please note that spammy comments whose only purpose seems to be to direct traffic to a commercial site will be deleted.

Popular posts from this blog

Economics Education sessions at ASSA

If I missed any, please let me know... Jan 07, 2011 8:00 am , Sheraton, Director's Row H American Economic Association K-12 Economic and Financial Literacy Education (A2) Presiding: Richard MacDonald (St. Cloud State University) Teacher and Student Characteristics as Determinants of Success in High School Economics Classes Jody Hoff  (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) Jane Lopus (California State University-East Bay) Rob Valletta (Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco) [Download Preview] It Takes a Village: Determinants of the Efficacy of Financial Literacy Education for Elementary and Middle School Students Weiwei Chen (University of Memphis) Julie Heath (University of Memphis) Economics Understanding of Albanian High School Students: Student and Teacher Effects and Specific Concept Knowledge Dolore Bushati (University of Kansas) Barbara Phipps (University of Kansas) Lecture and Tutorial Attendance and Student Performance in t...
5 comments
Read more

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...
2 comments
Read more

Moving on...

I want to let everyone know that I am officially closing out this chapter of my blogging life. It was 17 years ago this May that I started this blog, back when blogging was still relatively new, and I was exploring ways to have my students do some writing. During the years from 2008 to 2015-ish, when I was most active with experimenting with different pedagogical approaches, this space helped me process what I was learning, and connected me with economists and other colleagues who care about teaching. As I have moved into other roles, I have been torn about what to do with this space, feeling a bit weird about posting anything not directly related to teaching. I have finally decided I need to start fresh so I will be writing (though I have no idea how regularly) on Substack .  Thank you to everyone who has read and commented over the years. I hope you'll find me on Substack, or in real life!
Post a Comment
Read more