Microeconomics Syllabus, Spring 2015 (undergrad)

It is here.

Economic History Syllabus. Spring 2015

It is here.

Economic history links two cultures -- the economists' and the historians', and this mix creates a field that explains the past to understand the present. In this class we will study the work of economic historians to answer questions such as: How was the institutional structure of pre-modern societies? How did the creation of clocks and the measurement of time lead to industrialization? Why did the industrial revolution happen in England? Why does China economic prosperity is not an event of the present only? How did slave trade work and which were the forces that stopped it? And, in general, what were the historical roots of innovation, entrepreneurship, and prosperity? 

Using NPR's Planet Money Podcast in Principles of Macroeconomics

Unfamiliar with aggregate concepts like gross domestic product and inflation, many introductory students struggle to understand the big ideas in macroeconomics. Macroeconomic educators typically respond with boring lectures aimed at bringing students up to speed; or, by jumping to the interesting topics their students are not yet prepared to consider. In an effort to combat this problem, I have incorporated NPR’s Planet Money podcast into my Principles of Macroeconomics course. I describe the podcast and provide a list of episodes others might find useful. In my experience, the Planet Money podcast is well received. Students enjoy listening to the assigned episodes. They report that it made them more interested in the principles course, helped them understand the relevance of macroeconomics, and increased their understanding of many macroeconomic issues. Most students also feel more comfortable discussing macroeconomic issues having listened to the podcast. And nearly half of those students surveyed say they will continue listening to the podcast after the course ends.

That is from a paper by William J. Luther, and his class is designed around the Modern Principles textbook by Cowen & Tabarrok.

 Table 1 is also taken from the paper.

Using ‘Classic’ Articles in the Teaching of Undergraduate Economics

This paper describes how classic articles have been used to teach undergraduate economics in a first year introductory Macroeconomics class and a third year topics in Microeconomics class. The paper reviews the ‘standard’ approach to undergraduate economics education focusing on the use (or lack thereof) of ‘primary’ or ‘source’ materials; the philosophy of ‘classics’ based pedagogy (mainly focused on ‘liberal arts’ education) and its applicability to the teaching of economics; describes how source materials have been used by the author in university economics classes; and provides conclusions and recommendations for potentially greater use of assignment of source texts in economics at the baccalaureate level.

That is a very interesting approach. I took a graduate class on micro-economics at GMU that complemented the technical side with classic articles. It was fun. 
The article is by Cameron Gordon.

Teaching Economics (part 2)

Project-based learning looks promising to teach principles classes. For example, look at this possibility (Peter Anthony) for micro:

The scenario is based on a government decision to impose a price ceiling on gasoline. The Project is aptly title “The Invisibe Hand.” Students are members of a policy group. After listening to voice mails from a variety of stakeholders concerned about shortages and reading an editorial from a oil producer they are tasked to set priorities as to who should receive gasoline, set the price, explain how a price ceiling will lead to shortages and black markets and write their own editorial. . . 

See also from previous posts: teaching economic principles with blogs, in the "Age  of Empires," with flowcharts. Or "bring the back of the textbook to the front."

Teaching Economics

A new semester begins and I finally read the article "Fifteen Theses on Classroom Teaching" (2001). What the Best College Teachers Do is a very good book. Some books on teaching economics are here.