Introduction to Frank's Book Econ Naturalist

Here is presentation I created based on Robert Frank's book Econ Naturalist. I will be using this book for the micro section of Econ 106

Econ Naturalist Introduction on Prezi

Jeff Sach

This was an interesting interview that could be used in class.
It is Jeff Sach on CBC Canada.
Here is the link to Jeff Sachs biography.

Opportunity cost

Opportunity Cost on Prezi

First Night Econ 106

Econ 106 Spring 2012 on Prezi

I used the template created by Marc Cohen

Gap Minder

use this site for Econ 106
Here are some downloads
Here is the link for how to use in Class

Economics for Humans

This caught my attention Economics for Humans
It deals with GDP and measurements 

Suessonomics

This could be an interesting exercise for my Econ 106. Have them write a rhyme for an economic concept.

Socratic Method

I had considered applying the Socratic method in my classes. However, I never figured out how to do it in an Economics course. I am glad I never tried it because faculty members at other schools are denied tenure. Here is an Article.

Richard Wilkinson: How economic inequality harms societies | Video on TED.com

Musical Approach To Econ

I need to learn how to rap!

Reading on Game Theory

All men can see the tactics whereby I conquer, but what none can see is the strategy out of which victory is evolved.—Sun Tzu

I am thinking that students would be interested in game theory. They like the element of surprise. Last semester they would become extremely engaged only if I challenged their common beliefs. They would try to prove me wrong only to lose because I would set up the rules of the game. I need to come up with some more that will challenge their beliefs.

Debating Books

During the past two weeks I have been reading spousonomics and next I will start reading The Invisible Hook: the hidden economics of pirates. I may assign one or the other to my Econ 106 next Fall.
After reading both books the question I need to ask will students be more interested in the married life or piracy?

For a long time now I have been thinking of taking a drawing class to improve my teaching. I imagined drawing pictures that tell stories for students and gets them engaged in the lesson similar to what is done in the video below. But I ran across a website called Behaviorgap.com which does the same thing but with very little artistic ability (picture above).


Double-dip recession from Marketplace on Vimeo.

Excitement Today

This Hawk showed up today in the middle of my lecture and the students were excitied by seeing him there. I watched students who were forcing themselves to stay awake wake up in an instant. Was it the surprise element or the fact that something real was in front of them?

Diminishing Marginal Utility Experiment

Yesterday, I conducted the Chocolate experiment with my class. On Monday I gave them the lecture on Jeremy Bentham,  Utility and Marginal Utility. Most of them accepted the idea as presented and said "that makes sense"!
On Wednesday (yesterday) I conducted the experiment but made sure the result would not match the results as presented in the lecture. I gave them a variety of chocolate so that the Marginal Utility would not fall. To my surprise the students picked up on this and criticized my experiment (see the end of the first video).


After this first round, I ran the experiment as it was meant to be run. I gave all of the credit to the students and the experiment worked out as Jeremy predicted.