The use of blogging in an academic setting has accelerated rapidly over the past 3 years. As I indicate over on Arizona Econ, I was introduced to blogging as an instructional tool in economics by our colleague Greg Mankiw. I recently ran across:
Guide: Using Blogs in Economics from the Economics Network of the UK's Higher Education Academy.
The article begins with a quote from Brad DeLong
What is the case for blogging among the economics community? One of the most famous blogging economists, Brad DeLong of the University of California at Berkeley, says that blogging gives him access to an "invisible college" of people who will react to his opinions, point him to more interesting things, help him to raise the level of debate on economic issues and bring it to a mass audience. He neatly sums up blogging as "turbo charging of the public sphere of information and debate", which he hopes will make him smarter and more productive.
This post is an excellent overview and rationale for the use of blogging in economics instruction.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Friday, April 6, 2007
Interesting Textbook
I recently completed a review of Economics by Stephen Slavin.
What I found provocative about Slavin's approach, was his emphasis on economic history. He begins his book with a Brief Economic History of the United States and continues the use of history throughout the text to illustrate key points.
While references to Adam Smith and David Ricardo are common to most introductory texts, in Slavin's book we find:
John Kenneth Galbraith
Thorstein Veblen
Milton Friedman
Frederick Hayek
Ludwig Mises
Frank Knight
Frederic Bastiat
As an instructor of classes in economic history and the economic history of the US, I found Slavin's integatration of history as a key thread in his text very useful.
On the downside, Slavin suffers from the challenge of McConnell and Brue and many other texts, this book is overly comprehensive.
When Mankiw's first principles book was published, his competitive advantage was topic selection and brevity. Now in the 4th edition, Mankiw is suffering from content creep, but Slavin and McConnell certainly are at the top of the size scale. Few survey course can treat all the topics found in Slavin with any depth.
As Colander points out in The Complexity Vision and the Teaching of Economics, the market tends to push textbook authors into a similar approach in terms of breadth and depth.
Slavin falls into this trap, however instructors looking for a strong thread of economic history and tools to introduce the history of economic thought might well review this book.
What I found provocative about Slavin's approach, was his emphasis on economic history. He begins his book with a Brief Economic History of the United States and continues the use of history throughout the text to illustrate key points.
While references to Adam Smith and David Ricardo are common to most introductory texts, in Slavin's book we find:
John Kenneth Galbraith
Thorstein Veblen
Milton Friedman
Frederick Hayek
Ludwig Mises
Frank Knight
Frederic Bastiat
As an instructor of classes in economic history and the economic history of the US, I found Slavin's integatration of history as a key thread in his text very useful.
On the downside, Slavin suffers from the challenge of McConnell and Brue and many other texts, this book is overly comprehensive.
When Mankiw's first principles book was published, his competitive advantage was topic selection and brevity. Now in the 4th edition, Mankiw is suffering from content creep, but Slavin and McConnell certainly are at the top of the size scale. Few survey course can treat all the topics found in Slavin with any depth.
As Colander points out in The Complexity Vision and the Teaching of Economics, the market tends to push textbook authors into a similar approach in terms of breadth and depth.
Slavin falls into this trap, however instructors looking for a strong thread of economic history and tools to introduce the history of economic thought might well review this book.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Introduction
Welcome
As a long time economics instructor I have wondered about the efficacy of the tools we use to prepare ourselves for instruction as well as the tools we use to assist in our instruction of economics. While my teaching experience has been predominately at the community college level, I suspect my colleagues in the high school, college and university levels have also wondered about the preparation for economics instruction as well as the tools we use to teach.
In the spirit of this speculation, I have established this blog to discuss textbook, other instructional media, professional organizations dedicated to economics instruction, professional growth, in short anything related to economics instruction.
My first post will deal with a book by David Colander that I have found particularly relevant to my teaching. David Warsh described Colander as, 'a member of a rare and valuable tribe -- an insider to economics who speaks clearly and introspectively to outsiders about what the insiders are doing. . . . "Research is nice," says Colander, "but good teaching is priceless." '(Economic Principals)
The Complexity Vision and the Teaching of Economics edited by Colander, builds on his work with the Santa Fe Institute to argue that the instructor in economics has an obligation to be cognitive of the role that complexity and the theory of complexity plays not only in the theoretical arena in which economists work and publish, but in the instructional area as well.
The book is organized into 5 partes. The first two deal with complexity in economics.
For the economics instructor, the next two parts provide nine essays with descriptions about how the complexity vision might be integrated into the instruction of economics in courses ranging from the principles classes to econometics.
As a long time economics instructor I have wondered about the efficacy of the tools we use to prepare ourselves for instruction as well as the tools we use to assist in our instruction of economics. While my teaching experience has been predominately at the community college level, I suspect my colleagues in the high school, college and university levels have also wondered about the preparation for economics instruction as well as the tools we use to teach.
In the spirit of this speculation, I have established this blog to discuss textbook, other instructional media, professional organizations dedicated to economics instruction, professional growth, in short anything related to economics instruction.
My first post will deal with a book by David Colander that I have found particularly relevant to my teaching. David Warsh described Colander as, 'a member of a rare and valuable tribe -- an insider to economics who speaks clearly and introspectively to outsiders about what the insiders are doing. . . . "Research is nice," says Colander, "but good teaching is priceless." '(Economic Principals)
The Complexity Vision and the Teaching of Economics edited by Colander, builds on his work with the Santa Fe Institute to argue that the instructor in economics has an obligation to be cognitive of the role that complexity and the theory of complexity plays not only in the theoretical arena in which economists work and publish, but in the instructional area as well.
The book is organized into 5 partes. The first two deal with complexity in economics.
For the economics instructor, the next two parts provide nine essays with descriptions about how the complexity vision might be integrated into the instruction of economics in courses ranging from the principles classes to econometics.
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