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Improving Lecture
Presentations: Clickers and
Experiments.
Jose J. Vazquez-Cognet, PhD
Department of Economics
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Urbana, IL 60660
[email protected]
Where Do I Teach?
Why Do We Trade?
Trade Creates Value!
Break-Ice Activity: Trading
Your Gift
• It’s fun!
• Clearly demonstrates how trade
increases social welfare
• Uses students’ own intuition to
illustrate the concepts
• Uses very little in terms of class time
• Requires little in terms of materials to
be distributed to students
• Can be used in classes or varying sizes
Where was your cloth made?
•
The top (i.e. t-shirt) I am wearing was
made in:
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
North America
South and Central America
Asia
Africa
Europe and Oceania
Are We Rational?
•
What is your eating strategy at “All You Can
Eat” style buffets?
a) Eat the same way I always do.
b) Eat a little more than I normally do.
c) Eat until I’m dying…
d) Don’t eat at all.
e) I can’t decide..econ is hard..I hate this class…
What Do You Think?
• Should funding to public school
be based on student’s test
scores?
a) Yes
b) No
What Do You Think?
•
•
•
•
Do you think “three strike your out
laws” work at reducing crime?
Is grading on a curve a better way to
encourage student effort ?
Should we legalize drugs such as
marijuana?
Should NBA teams offer bonus for the
number of assists a player made during
a season?
What Do You Think?
• In your opinion, my English accent is:
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
not so bad
a little annoying
horrible, I can’t understand anything.
thick, but very sexy…
Accent; what accent?
+
Peer Instruction
Incentive: everyone gets bonus of 0.10 pts in Exam1 if 70% of the class gets the right answer
•
In what year did Adam Smith publish
The Wealth of Nations?
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
1492 Columbus lands in America
1776 Declaration of Independence
1970 The most awesome economist is born.
1800 Larry King is born.
Trick question; Adam Smith did not write
that book.
+
+
Peer Instruction
+
Incentive: everyone gets bonus of 0.10 pts in Exam1 if 70% of the class gets the right answer
•
What would happen to the quantity and price
of Pizza sold around Campustown if a
reputable newspaper publishes the results of
a research study concluding that eating Pizza
increases your GPA :
YES! a) price and quantity of pizza will increase
b) price and quantity of pizza will decrease
c) price of pizza will increase but quantity of pizza
will decrease
d) price of pizza will decrease but quantity of pizza
will increase.
e) oh man, I’m SO confused, I REALLY hate ECON.
The Wonderful Invisible Hand
1.
You are a rational, but also energy-conservation-minded
consumer, whose only goal in choosing a car is to minimize the
extent to which you deplete the planet's store of fossil fuels.
You usually drive an average of 7,000 miles every year. If you
can't afford to buy a new car, should you rent a 10-year-old
Buick ($100/yr, 20 miles per gallon) or a 10-year-old Toyota
($300/yr, 40 mpg)? To make things simple, assume the price
of gasoline is $1/gallon.
• Which of the two cars you would rent?
a)Buick
b)Toyota
The Demand for Shave Heads
•
Which of the following prices reflect a price you
would be willing to pay to buy this rose from me (at
the end of the poll, I will choose someone at
random and that person will have to buy the rose
for the price she voted)?
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
$0.00
$1.00
$2.00
$3.00
$4.00 or more
The Demand for Shave Heads
•
Which of the following prices reflect a price you
would be willing to pay to see me shaving my head
right here in front of the class (at the end of the
poll, I will choose someone at random and that
person will have to pay)?
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
$0.00
$1.00
$2.00
$3.00
$4.00 or more
The Demand for Flipping Me
•
Which of the following prices reflect a price you
would be willing to pay to see me flip twice right
here in front of you (at the end of the poll, I will
choose someone at random and that person will
have to pay)?
a)
b)
c)
d)
e)
$0.00
$1.00
$2.00
$3.00
$4.00 or more
ME
Ticket to Free Ride
• Would you donate your
dollar to the public account?
a)Yes
b)No
Some Benefits of Automatic
Response Devices
• For students
– Lower the costs of participating for each individual
student.
– Increases the social benefits from most students
participating in class.
• For instructors
– Increases the quality of the class through increase
participation.
– Allow for “on the spot” adjustment to lecture
Automatic Response Systems:
Best Practices/Issues
• Use the clickers consistently, beginning with your first
lecture.
• Experiment with peer instruction.
• Choose a grading scheme that is both consistent with
your objectives and easy to manage.
• Post grades regularly.
• Do not use ONLY quiz-type questions.
• Announce a high penalty for cheating.
What Do Students Think?
What do you think about Iclicker?
45%
41%
12%
2%
0%
I like it a lot.
I like it.
I am indifferent.
I dislike it.
I dislike it a lot.
Based on 400 students.