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I mentioned in an earlier post that I had to explain to my writing class why economists do specification checks (we’ve been reading some empirical journal articles) and how many of the students are not really familiar with the process that economists go through when we write empirical papers. I think that part of what [...]
In the Principles class, when I start the section on the structure of the tax system, I always ask students if they believe taxes are “too high, too low or about right”. The majority always answer “too high”. After reading a recent article by Bruce Bartlett [hat tip to Mark Thoma] I’m now tempted to [...]
One of the side effects of actually caring about teaching is that when I come across something that I think will be useful for my students, I really want to implement it NOW. But combine this with a full plate of research, service and (an attempt at) a personal life, and there simply are times [...]
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 [...]
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 [...]
In class last week, I did an activity with the students that demonstrated free-riding. Students are given a hypothetical dollar and have the option of keeping their dollar or contributing to the Public Account. For each dollar in the Public Account, everyone in the class receives some amount (I use $0.10 in the big class). [...]
There was an article in Inside Higher Ed last week about the difficulty of teaching writing. Rob Weir offers some useful advice about using visualization to help students organize their thoughts and structure their papers. He concludes with this caveat: These models are strictly for students who struggle with organization. Every one of them is [...]
I’m off to a conference this week (is it really going to be warmer in Richmond, VA than in San Diego by Friday?!?) so thought I’d just share a few links that I’ve been meaning to write more about… Dan Hamermesh points out two examples of externalities on airplanes. As one commenter notes, I’m waiting [...]
Mario Tama/Getty Images Markets may have rebounded in 2009, but individual investors are still edgy and shell-shocked. Even as the broad Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index remained up 56% since March, the U.S. unemployment rate crept above 10%, according to a Labor Dept. report released Nov. 6. “I don’t think many people are feeling very [...]