Feel free to use any of these materials for your own classes, or self-education.
If you decide to use my materials in your classes, let me know. Honestly, it’s just because I get a thrill from knowing that.
Also, if you have questions about my experiences in teaching economics, feel free to contact me as well.
E-mail: lengelha@kent.edu
Scholarship of Teaching Annotated Bibliography
Stephen Chew’s “How to Get the Most Out of Studying” (YouTube #1) – Dr Chew of Samford lays out some of the psychological research about studying and how to apply it. TEACHING APPLICATION: Chew’s videos also have implications for the kind of practice/assignments we should assign if we want to help students deeply learn what we teach.
Kitchen, et. al. “Rethinking Exams and Letter Grades: How Much Can Teachers Delegate to Students?” (Link) – Kitchen, et al. describe an experiment where they replace midterm exams with smaller weekly, not-for-credit, formative assessments that students self-asses using rubrics. The grade in the course is based only on the Final Exam, possibly moderated by a grade proposal from the student. The result was better learning reflected on the final exam.
Schinske & Tanner, “Teaching More by Grading Less (Or Differently)” (Link) – Schinske & Tanner report that grades don’t really do what we want them to do. In part, this is because professors grade very inconsistently – even the same professors grading the same projects using the same rubrics! Grades also do little to encourage effort, and tend to be poor at providing feedback. Schinske & Tanner recommend: (1) avoid curving grades to achieve specific distributions (as this kills collaboration – which evidence shows is an effective method of learning), (2) Balancing Accuracy-based and Effort-based grading (more on this below) (3) Using self- and peer-evaluation for feedback (students understand each other better than they understand professors or vice versa!) (4) Be skeptical about what grades mean. They don’t do a good job measuring much of anything – so we shouldn’t put much stock in them.
Swinton, “The effect of effort grading on learning” (Link) – Swinton uses evidence from Benedict College’s move to a blended effort/knowledge based grading system in freshman and sophomore courses to show that scoring on effort actually increased knowledge scores. This result seems specific to students who typically would not do well. So, this applies well to community colleges or colleges with open enrollment, where students are most likely to underestimate the amount of effort needed for various grades, as the evidence is that high-performing students are better able to tailor their effort to the goals they want to achieve.
Zinn et al, “Does effort still count? More on what makes the grade” (PDF) Zinn et al show that students believe that grades should more heavily reward effort (or penalize a lack of it) as opposed to professors who would more heavily reward performance. Despite this disagreement, professors and students agree that effort should be more heavily weighted in electives and in gen ed requirements than in major and minor required courses or medical courses. Professors and students also agree that the quality of assignments and class attendance are the most reliable measures of effort, while self-reported effort are unreliable (though students trust all these measures more than professors do).
Fink, “A Self-Directed Guide to Designing Courses for Significant Learning” (PDF) Fink provides a workbook for designing courses, with a small modification on “backward design” that he calls “integrated design”. Most of this workbook is a 12 step guide for designing your course. The workbook is especially useful in its analysis of situational factors and giving explicit consideration to what students do between class sessions.
Bowen, “Teaching Naked” (Link 1, Link 2) Bowen developed a 6 step learning process for students – (1) Entry Point, (2) Exposure, (3) Retrieval, (4) Elaboration, (5) Complication, (6) Reflection. Link 1 is a link to Bowen’s website, which has some nice handouts. Link 2 is a link to an article where Bowen had started developing some of the elements of the Teaching Naked Technique, though it doesn’t appear to have been fully developed at that point.
Syllabi
Principles of Microeconomics, Spring 2011 (Word file)
Principles of Microeconomics, Fall 2011 (Word file)
Principles of Macroeconomics, Fall 2010 (Word file)
Money, Credit and Banking, Spring 2011 (Word file)
Money, Credit and Banking, Fall 2011 (Word file)
Intermediate Microeconomics, Autumn 2009 (Word file)
Intermediate Microeconomics, Summer 2009 (Word file)
Intermediate Macroeconomics, Winter 2009 (Word file)
Intermediate Macroeconomics, Autumn 2008 (Word file)
Cooperation and Conflict in the Global Economy, Spring 2009 (Word file)
Current Economics Issues in the US, Spring 2010 (Word file)
Teaching Supplements
Principles of Microeconomics
Competitive Market Demonstration (as presented at ASSA 2014) (zip)
Excel Projects (with instructions) (zip)
Reading on Behavioral Economics (pdf)
Reading on Cap and Trade (epub)
Reading on Capital and Interest (pdf)
Reading on Health Insurance Policy (epub)
Reading on Personal Finance (pdf)
Reading on Preference, Choice, and Demand (pdf)
Reading on Supply, Demand, and Exchange (pdf)
Intermediate Microeconomics
Approaches to Microeconomics (pdf)
Austrian Consumer Theory (pdf)
Behavioral Economics (pdf)
The Perturbation Method (pdf)
Intermediate Macroeconomics
Macroeconomic Methods (pdf)
Introduction to Austrian Capital Theory (pdf)
Money, Credit, and Banking
Course Projects (zip)
Reading on Stock Market Strategies (epub)
Reading on the Quantity Theory of Money (epub)