Economics for Teachers: Musings about Teaching Economics

Happy New Year! Below is a list of all the teaching-related sessions at the ASSA meetings in Philadelphia. Of special note: I will be part of a panel with Tyler Cowen, Bill Goffe and Jose Vazquez on Saturday morning, titled: "Is it Time to Change the Principles Curriculum?” In order to spark discussion during the panel session, we would like to obtain some very informal information of what different instructors try to achieve with their Principles courses. To that end, we have designed a very short google survey (3 questions), to collect some information from any Principles instructor willing to participate.  Please help us out by going to https://goo.gl/forms/NFf1OfNOW9sxK9jm2 . We will only use the responses for illustration purposes during the panel and your answers will be entirely anonymous. Thank you!!! As always, if I've missed any sessions, please let me know. Also, don't forget the CEE reception on Friday for Friends of Economic Education (Marriott, meeting room...

Thank you to everyone who presented, discussed, chaired and attended! This was the first time I have been the chair of a conference organizing committee and while it was a lot of work, it was also a lot of fun and I'm pretty proud of the program we put together. A few highlights for me: I was psyched to see multiple papers where the authors were looking at the impact of something happening in one course by focusing on outcomes at a later point in time, like performance in the follow-on intermediate course. One of my biggest problems with a lot of the SoTL (Scholarship of Teaching and Learning) literature is that in most effectiveness studies, the outcomes are within-course measures, like scores on a final exam or final course grades. While it's certainly reassuring that outcomes like these are not negatively affected by pedagogical changes like active learning, I have always felt that the more important questions involve what happens after students leave our classroom. Do th...

For those who will be braving the Chicago winter to attend the ASSA meetings, I hope to see you at one of the teaching-related sessions! And don't forget the AEA's Committee on Economics Education's reception on Friday evening! AEA Committee on Economic Education Poster Session Friday, Jan. 6, 2017; 8:00 AM– 10:00 AM Hyatt Regency Chicago, Toronto Hosted By: AMERICAN ECONOMIC ASSOCIATION Chair: Steve Cobb, University of North Texas MACRO Monopoly: Applying a Game-Based Economic Development Lesson Kim Holder , University of West Georgia Using Universal Design for Learning (UDL) to Teach Economics Concepts Matthew Pham , Landmark College Jim Koskoris , Landmark College In Search of Best Classroom Practices Hari S. Luitel , Algoma University Oxford-Style Inspired Academic Competitive Debates With a Twist on Hot Topics of International Economics and Finance Sylwia E. Starnawska , State University of New York-Empire State College Industrial Design at the Se...

As Director of the CTL, I have organized a series of events this year around the theme 'Teaching the Whole Student'. Each of the events focuses on a different aspect of student identity and how those identities may impact their experience in our classrooms. So far, we've had one on international students, LGBTQ+ students, and students in emotional distress; next up is military-affiliated students and in the spring, we're addressing first-gen students, bilingual students, microaggressions and sexual assault. Although I consider myself a pretty enlightened person, each of the events so far has taught me a lot and made me think a little harder about how different my own experience is/has been from many of my students. One thought that I keep coming back to is how many things about my everyday life that I take for granted, particularly things that I am able to say, do or feel (or not feel) that other people cannot. In other words, I keep thinking about my privilege. Tha...

As those who actually speak Japanese have told me, it really should be "Eee-mah-zeh-key" (equal emphasis) but it's definitely NOT 'Eye-ma-zeek-key', 'Ih-mask-ee' or (don't ask me why) 'Ihm-ski'. I'm not entirely sure why it's hard for people - in my mind, my name is actually pronounced pretty much how it looks but I think the proximity of a 'z' and 'k' throws people off. Interestingly, Spanish speakers tend to be the best at pronouncing it correctly because Japanese pronunciation of vowels is similar to Spanish. But my entire life, on the first day of a class with a new teacher (and sometimes even those I'd had before), they would start calling roll, and I would brace myself as they got closer to the I's. Many times, I could tell when they got to my name on the roster because after a Joe Holmes or Jane Howard, there would be that slight pause, at which point I'd usually just jump in and call out my name for...

Just got back from CTREE – many thanks to everyone who helped make it such a success! I had some great conversations, heard some super-interesting papers, and generally got re-invigorated, not just about teaching but about economics . Some random thoughts, just to get them out of my brain: In the first plenary, Susan Laury mentioned an ‘experiment’ she learned from Dirk Mateer to show gains from trade. She brings a bunch of random items to class and distributes them to a group of students and asks them to rate their happiness with the item. They then have the option to trade; once trading is complete, they again rate their happiness. Generally, total happiness should increase, showing the gains from trade alone. I just wanted to add that I do a similar activity that I got from Gail Hoyt but in that version, you make ‘tickets’ for a range of events (like concerts or sports events) and give those to the students, and I ask them to state their willingness to pay for the ticket the...

When I started this blog eight (OMG, has it really been EIGHT?!?) years ago, I didn't really have a plan - I just wanted to try out this blogging thing because I was thinking about having my students do it and figured that doing it myself would be the best way to learn how it all works. Over the years, I've largely used the blog to chronicle what I was doing in the classroom, mostly as a way of just reflecting and thinking about what was happening (I've always been a big journaler), but also with the thought that maybe by doing my thinking 'out loud', it might be helpful to someone, somewhere. Along the way, I feel like I've gotten to know many more economists who care about teaching and have felt part of a community that supports and reflects my own academic values, and I really can't express how awesome that has been! But now I feel like I'm at a bit of a crossroads. My position as Director of SDSU's Center for Teaching and Learning has led me i...