Saturday, October 10, 2009: 9:30 AM
I teach both undergraduate and MBA students the applied logic of allocating resources to competing ends to maximize or minimize a final goal. This is a universal problem students’ face in their various roles as family member, citizen, employee and employer.
The approach I use follows the logic of constrained optimization theory. However, I never share with students the calculus that validates the logic of the reasoning I teach. I take a completely literary approach. This presentation takes about two weeks to complete with an assigned reading that illustrates its application.
I teach this material using a learning-by-doing pedagogy and a modified Socratic approach. Students use workbook types of materials in class that gives them enough information on each topic to begin thinking about a question or problem they then address or solve. I conduct the class in a highly interactive manner with students allowed to speak with each other before asked to provide an answer to a question or problem. I and other students always elaborate on given answers.
The framework I present uses the following vocabulary derived from constrained optimization theory applied to resource scarcity problems: final goal, competing ends, economic constraint, economic resource, accounting prices, economic prices (i.e., opportunity costs) and choice. This framework can describe any microeconomic problem. Applied to this framework is the economic reasoning process of thinking at the margin, calculating costs using economic prices, and ignoring sunk costs.
The analytical structure I present and the reasoning process I teach has many important implications for solving personal microeconomic problems (e.g. calculating the true cost of attending four years of college) and thinking about public policy issues like global warming. Students immediately grasp the importance of this material.
My goal in presenting this material is to get students to think economically. I teach it free of ideology – remember, it’s applied logic. I tell my students whether they’re communists, fascists, socialists, or a capitalistic pig like myself this way of thinking will improve their decision making. I have informal evidence that my approach works at getting students to think using economic prices or opportunity costs. Finally, my student evaluations indicate strong approval of this approach.
The approach I use follows the logic of constrained optimization theory. However, I never share with students the calculus that validates the logic of the reasoning I teach. I take a completely literary approach. This presentation takes about two weeks to complete with an assigned reading that illustrates its application.
I teach this material using a learning-by-doing pedagogy and a modified Socratic approach. Students use workbook types of materials in class that gives them enough information on each topic to begin thinking about a question or problem they then address or solve. I conduct the class in a highly interactive manner with students allowed to speak with each other before asked to provide an answer to a question or problem. I and other students always elaborate on given answers.
The framework I present uses the following vocabulary derived from constrained optimization theory applied to resource scarcity problems: final goal, competing ends, economic constraint, economic resource, accounting prices, economic prices (i.e., opportunity costs) and choice. This framework can describe any microeconomic problem. Applied to this framework is the economic reasoning process of thinking at the margin, calculating costs using economic prices, and ignoring sunk costs.
The analytical structure I present and the reasoning process I teach has many important implications for solving personal microeconomic problems (e.g. calculating the true cost of attending four years of college) and thinking about public policy issues like global warming. Students immediately grasp the importance of this material.
My goal in presenting this material is to get students to think economically. I teach it free of ideology – remember, it’s applied logic. I tell my students whether they’re communists, fascists, socialists, or a capitalistic pig like myself this way of thinking will improve their decision making. I have informal evidence that my approach works at getting students to think using economic prices or opportunity costs. Finally, my student evaluations indicate strong approval of this approach.