Skip to main content

Starting Point for Economics

Just got back from a super-productive workshop for folks working on modules for the Starting Point project. If you are not yet familiar with the Starting Point site, you definitely need to go check it out! The site "introduces economists to innovative teaching strategies developed both within and beyond the discipline of economics. It provide instructors with the tools to begin integrating and assessing these teaching strategies in their own classrooms and promotes the sharing of teaching innovations among instructors." Right now, there are three modules available (context-rich problems, teaching with cases and cooperative learning) but six more will be available in a few weeks (on classroom response systems, experiments, demonstrations, quantitative writing, computer simulations and undergraduate student research) and the rest (including the one I'm working on, on Interactive Lectures) should be live by the fall.

The big idea behind Starting Point is that there are many pedagogies commonly used in other disciplines that can be adapted and used by economists (not all the pedagogies on the site are from other disciplines but that was how the project got started). The PI's for the project (Mark Maier, KimMarie McGoldrick and Scott Simkins) have a paper that explains more about the project, and there will be at least one session about it at the Western regional meetings. From my perspective, what really makes the site awesome is that not only does it provide the 'what' and 'why use' for a bunch of different tools (which will be useful for encouraging economists to move beyond chalk and talk) but it drills down into the 'how', including providing lots of econ-specific examples I can use in my own classes. In addition, anyone can submit their own examples which means that over time, there should be a pretty amazing database there. While there are lots of teaching resources for economists all over the web and in various print publications, Starting Point is a single, comprehensive place that you can go to find information on pretty much anything you might want to know about innovations to improve your teaching.
Labels:

Comments

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

When is an exam "too hard"?

By now, you may have heard about the biology professor at Louisiana State (Baton Rouge) who was removed from teaching an intro course where "more than 90 percent of the students... were failing or had dropped the class." The majority of the comments on the Inside Higher Ed story about it are supportive of the professor, particularly given that it seems like the administration did not even talk to her about the situation before acting. I tend to fall in the "there's got to be more to the story so I'll reserve judgment" camp but the story definitely struck a nerve with me, partly because I recently spent 30 minutes "debating" with a student about whether the last midterm was "too hard" and the whole conversation was super-frustrating. To give some background: I give three midterms and a cumulative final, plus have clicker points and Aplia assignments that make up about 20% of the final grade. I do not curve individual exams but will cu
3 comments
Read more

What was your high school economics experience like?

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
2 comments
Read more

THE podcast on Implicit Bias

I keep telling myself I need to get back to blogging but, well, it's been a long pandemic... But I guess this is as good an excuse as any to post something: I am Bonni Stachowiak's guest on the latest episode of the Teaching in Higher Ed podcast, talking about implicit bias and how it can impact our teaching.  Doing the interview with Bonni (which was actually recorded a couple months ago) was a lot of fun. Listening to it now, I also realize how far I have come from the instructor I was when I started this blog over a decade ago. I've been away from the blog so long that I should probably spell this out: my current title is Associate Vice President for Faculty and Staff Diversity and I have responsibility for all professional learning and development related to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as inclusive faculty and staff recruitment, and unit-level diversity planning. But I often say that in a lot of ways, I have no business being in this position - I've ne
Post a Comment
Read more