Thursday, June 23, 2005

Asking Student to Listen & Decipher

I often use the stories from the show Marketplace in my class. Usually I play the story and ask for students impressions, and after a short discussion jump into the lecture. My hope is to get them interested in the topic of the lecture and to show them the real life applications of the topic.
However as I was listening today I began to wonder how many of my students actually could connect theory to what they hear or read in the news?
I came up with the following idea:

  1. Play the story at the beginning.
  2. Lecture.
  3. Play the story again.
  4. Ask them to connect the story to the lecture.
  • Instead of using the story as a motivational tool use it as a testing tool (Checking Students Understanding)

The above story about South African movie theatres is a good one for Demand. The story talks about falling price of movie theater tickets leading to more South Africans going to the movie. The relationship between Price and Quantity is one. However there is more! The substitution effect is discussed too. One movie goer states that it is cheaper to go to the movie than to buy the DVD. The idea of compliments is also illustrated in this story.

No comments:

Post a Comment