Join us at EconEd to be a part of compelling conversations on how the way we teach economics has changed and what we can learn from this new landscape. Even though EconEd will be online this year, you can still expect the most relevant and pertinent topics, as well as engage in the sharing of teaching insights. Interested in attending? Follow the link here and then choose "Register Now." You'll have the option of signing up for as many virtual sessions as you'd like to attend.  Any questions on how to use Zoom? Find out more here! ... View more

Achieve is an online learning system that supports students and instructors at every step, from the first point of contact with new content to demonstrating mastery of concepts and skills. Below are brief videos of Achieve’s powerful resources including an integrated e-book, graphing questions with targeted feedback, and a wealth of interactives create an extraordinary learning resource for students. You can watch the videos of the activities you plan to use or learn about new assignments to add to your course. E-Book The Achieve e-book allows students to highlight and take notes; instructors can choose to assign sections of the e-book as part of their course assignments.   LearningCurve With a game-like interface, LearningCurve offers students a low-stakes way to brush up on concepts and help identify knowledge gaps. Questions are linked to relevant e-book sections, providing both the incentive to read and a framework for an efficient reading experience.   Graphing Developed by economists active in the classroom, these multistep questions are adapted from problems found in the text. Each problem is paired with rich feedback for incorrect and correct responses that guide students through the process of problem solving. These questions also feature our user-friendly graphing tool, designed so students focus entirely on economics and not on how to use the application.   Achieve Overview Achieve is a comprehensive set of interconnected teaching and assessment tools. It incorporates the most effective elements from Macmillan’s market-leading solutions in a single, easy-to-use platform. Our resources were co-designed with instructors and students, using a foundation of learning research and rigorous testing.   Achieve Spotlight: Pre-Class Tutorials Pre-class tutorials foster basic understanding of core economic concepts before students ever set foot in class. Students watch pre-lecture videos and complete bridge question assessments that prepare them to engage in class. Instructors receive data about student comprehension that can inform their lecture preparation.   Achieve Spotlight: Assessment  Powered by a robust graphing engine developed by economists active in the classroom, these multistep questions are paired with rich feedback for incorrect and correct responses that guides students through the process of problem solving. Students are asked to demonstrate their understanding by simply clicking, dragging, and dropping a line to a predetermined location. This graphing tool has been designed so that students’ entire focus is on moving the correct curve in the correct direction, virtually eliminating grading issues for instructors.   Achieve Spotlight: Work It Outs These skill-building activities pair sample end-of-chapter problems with targeted feedback and video explanations to help students solve problems step by step. This approach allows students to work independently, tests their comprehension of concepts, and prepares them for class and exams.   Achieve Spotlight: In-Class Activity Guides Each guide is based on a single topic and allows students to participate through questions, group work, presentations, and/or simulations. The guide displays the activity type, estimated prep and class time, implementation instructions, suggestions for remote implementation where applicable, and Learning Objectives and Bloom’s Level for ease of use. Our Instructor Activity Guides encourage engagement from a Pre-Class Reflection question to prime student interest and offer follow-up clicker questions to measure comprehension.   Achieve Spotlight: Stevenson/Wolfers - Decision Point Activities Decision Points activities allow students to explore their own decision-making process and how economic principles and thinking can inform their decisions. Students work step by step through decision-making scenarios, receiving feedback about how economic principles did (or did not) play into their choices. Decision Points help students apply economic insights to their everyday lives.   Achieve Spotlight: Stevenson/Wolfers - Step By Step Graphs Available only in the e-book, step-by-step graphs mirror how an instructor constructs graphs in the classroom. By breaking the process down into its components, these graphs create more manageable “chunks” for students to understand each step of the process.   Achieve Spotlight: Cowen/Tabarrok - MRU Videos MRU features perhaps the most extensive series of economics education videos available. More than 150 of these videos have been deeply integrated into the text and pedagogy of Modern Principles, extending the authors’ perspectives into the online learning space, and providing valuable tools for both instructors and students throughout the learning path.   Achieve Spotlight: Econofacts Memos Macmillan Learning has partnered with EconoFact to bring incisive and accessible analysis of current economic and policy trends into the economics classroom. The EconoFact Network provides even-handed and timely analysis of economic issues drawing on relevant data, historical experience, and well-regarded economic frameworks presented in the form of a short memo. In Achieve, instructors can access in-class activity guides to help integrate the memos into their own lectures. Instructors can also access and assign assessment on each memo that starts with basic reading comprehension and builds up to applying the analytical tools students have learned in their course to the economic or policy issue covered in the memo.   Achieve Spotlight: Discovering Data These exercises require students to use the Federal Reserve Economic Database (FRED) related to the concepts discussed in the chapter. Students will get practical experience manipulating data by being asked, for example, to track the impact of a sales tax on tobacco sales. In working these problems, students will gain a greater understanding of core concepts while also working with an impressive data resource. ... View more

You Shift My Aggregate Demand (song parody) AP Econ students parody ACDC's "You Shook Me All Long", replacing lyrics with economic concepts. ... View more

Widget production Students have fixed capital and must create ëwidgetsí (folded and stapled paper); labor is increased in each round. Resulting production data is used to calculate total, marginal and average production and costs.  [decreasing marginal product/increasing marginal costs] For large classes, can be done with a sub-set of students as a demonstrations for the rest of the class. There are many ways to vary this activity by varying the good produced (e.g., this variation is about making peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches).   ... View more

Why are some nations wealthy? (cooperative learning) Students work in groups to analyze macro data and predict which nations are rich and which are poor. For larger classes, can have multiple groups for each country (just have an equal number of groups for each country) and then pair up groups for trading. With larger classes, could collect individual answers with clickers.   ... View more

Which President generated the highest budget deficits? (demonstration) Students use CBO data to calculate and rank budget deficits for several presidential administrations. Can be completed individually or in groups.   ... View more

Which Came First - Democracy or Growth? Students calculate real and nominal GDP and GDP per capita for three countries and analyze the differences. [note: lesson also discusses growth and the role of economic freedom; can be broken up depending on how the instructor wants to use the material] With larger classes, could collect individual answers with clickers   ... View more

Where is my money? (demonstration) Students identify what is, and is not, money, and rank the liquidity of different assets. Students work individually but could also compare responses with peers.   ... View more

At the start of each school term, office supply stores tend to offer fantastic deals on school supplies. The following ad is a great example to show. Show this ad after you discuss how elasticity affects total revenue, and then ask "If school supplies are an inelastic good, why would stores discount them instead of raise prices to maximize total revenue?" This is a good way to introduce the idea that office supply stores use these ads to draw customers into the store. Indeed, some customers will buy only the school supplies on sale, which would result in a loss for the store. But as long as one out of every 5 or 10 customers who comes in buys a printer, office chair, or other higher priced item, the store would more than make up for the loss leader. I then use this example to calculate the cross-elasticity of demand for substitutes and complements. ... View more

Market efficiency is perhaps one of the most important topics in any principles course.  Yet the very related concepts of consumer and producer surplus are two of the most difficult topics for students to grasp.  They are difficult because of the high level of abstraction required from students in order to master them; in particular consumer surplus. Yet, it is critical for students to understand these concepts well if they are to understand market efficiency and deadweight loss.  So I usually have one overriding goal when teaching market efficiency to principles students: how can I make the deadweight loss concrete enough for them? The case study of the market for organs (for instance the market for human kidneys), is a great way to achieve this goal.  I usually like to begin the discussion referring to a famous article in the NYTimes describing the now famous (or infamous), auction of a human kidney on ebay. After describing the auction for students, I present the following clicker question to them: Take a guess of how much was the bidding for this auction when e-bay took it down three days after it started: a) 25K b) 100K c) 200K d) 1 million e) More than 1 million Students are always shocked to learn the auction for a kidney had reached almost 6 million in two days! From this point the discussion could go in many different and very interesting directions: Why did ebay took down the auction? Answer: as you know, it is illegal in the U.S. to sell your organs. Why does the U.S. ban the sale of organs? Answer: many possible answers. But, probably the reason has to do more with ethics than with economics.  It is interesting, though, that the sale of blood is not prohibited. Is the market for organs in this country efficient? Clearly not.  Usually the number of donors is way below the number of people waiting for an organ.  In the market for kidneys, the waiting time is about 3.5 years, which is many times longer than what the patient could wait.  The best place to get data on this market is the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network.  They offer real time data on the demand and supply data for human organs. What is consumer and producer surplus in the market for kidneys?  What happens to producer surplus when there is no way to legally profit from selling an organ? What can we do to increase the efficiency in this market? What is the deadweight loss in this market?  How does advances in medicine change the deadweight loss in this market? The answer to this last question is what makes this case study fundamentally useful to teach this concept. In this market, deadweight loss is not an abstract idea, but it is actually human lives! ... View more

Unemployment compensation (experiment) Students particilate in a double-oral auction in markets for skilled and unskilled workers, with and without government intervention. ... View more

Traditional vs. Shadow Banking Modern economies rely heavily on financial intermediaries to channel funds between borrowers and lenders. In this issue, the role of traditional banking is outlined and a parallel system— shadow banking —is explored. Article and follow-up questions are included. ... View more

Hamilton's National Bank In this lesson from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, students participate in two rounds of a role play to help them understand the role of banks in facilitating economic growth through loans. Round 1 is conducted without a bank. After the first round, students read excerpts from Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton’s 1790 report to Congress in which he proposes a national bank because the United States had few banks at the time. Students then conduct Round 2 of the role play with a bank. After the round, students read excerpts from and summaries of the statute creating a national bank, Thomas Jefferson’s opposition, and Hamilton’s rebuttal. Lesson Plan and PowerPoints Included. ... View more

This is a very simple experiment I designed to demonstrate the diminishing marginal returns problem for my students.  I welcome any feedback. https://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/iree/v7n1/vazquez-cognet.pdf Vazquez-Cognet, Jose (2008) The Production of Mathematical Problems: A Diminishing Marginal Returns Experiment  International Review of Economics Education 12/2008; 7(1):103-116. ... View more

As we all know, the theory of production can be applied to any production process, regardless of whether the output is sold in the market.  For instance, many of us use the production function for course performance to study economics education.  Using a noncommercial example to present the theory of production for the first time to students have many benefits: 1) students see how economics apply to their daily lives, and 2) students see how rules of production are independent of input costs. By far the most popular example I use in my class of noncommercial production is the production function for romantic partners. Since many of my students are usually engage in that production as they take my course, they can immediately identify with the case study.  So, here is a question I use to spark the discussion. Which of the following is the most Fixed input of in your production of romantic partners? a)    your chiseled abs b)    your cool haircut c)    your nice dancing skills d)    your pick-up line The idea here is for students to see that these inputs move from more fixed (abs) to more variable (pick-up line).  But, the point is not necessarily for students to identify the “best” answer, but more to see how production works and applies to their daily life.  I usually present this as a clicker question at the beginning of the class; let students vote once, and then allow them to think-pair-share and the vote again.  If I had assigned the question before class (as one could do using a system like FlipItecon.com), I could show some sample answers from students.  This allow the instructor to get the most of out of the classroom activity. Here are some of the best I have received from students over the years. For (a): “You can change the other things pretty quickly but you have to build abs over time.” For (c): “dancing skills take long to develop”. For (d): “my abs may fade, my hair may fall out, my body may become crippled, but i can always use my wit!” This student is clearly mixing the definition of a fixed input, so this wrong answer presents an excellent teaching moment for me. And, perhaps the best one of all: “You've got the curves to supply my demand.” I encourage you to use this, or any example that allow students to see how relevant economics is to their daily lives.   ... View more