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.