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Failing Intro Economics

jamesgmartin.center

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Re: Failing Intro Economics

#21

Post by RcouF1uZ4gsC »

> First, attendance was sporadic with many of my students. They have been told not to attend class “if they are not feeling well,” and many take that warning quite literally.

Did the author forget about Covid. These students has their last two years of high school completely overturned by Covid and broad shutdowns. Of course, they are going to take the warning literally for school.

I think the Covid shutdowns really hurt young people’s education, and we are only just seeing the evidence for how much.

Re: Failing Intro Economics

#22

Post by mihaic »

anoonmoose wrote: post #2

AUTHOR: Socrates (469–399 B.C.) QUOTATION: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyranni…

I see this quote or mentions along this line popping up every single time someone says there is a regression in a newer generation.

But some generations actually are worse than their predecessors (at least in certain aspects). There are universal complaints about teenagers: loud, rude, etc, and there are specifics I see for youth today: they are emotionally more fragile and underdeveloped, are more passive in general, understand complex situations less, and have a harder time in accepting reality.

I'm not blaming anyone (if I were it would be the boomers that ruined the youth today), but blanked dismissal of issues because "this is how things have always been" doesn't help. For most of human history we've been at war and at the brink of starvation, and all the while there was a concentrated effort to handle those issues.

Re: Failing Intro Economics

#23

Post by mstipetic »

mihaic wrote: post #22
anoonmoose wrote: post #2

AUTHOR: Socrates (469–399 B.C.) QUOTATION: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyranni…

I see this quote or mentions along this line popping up every single time someone says there is a regression in a newer generation. But some generations actually are worse than their predecessors (at least in certain aspects). There are universal complaints about teenagers: loud, rude, etc, and there are specifics I see for youth today: they are emotionally more fragile and underdeveloped, are more passive in general…

What is this objective reality people struggle to accept?

Re: Failing Intro Economics

#24

Post by hikingsimulator »

Having had economics classes in the past, I echo the teacher's feeling that economics is a somewhat stagnant or entrenched field.

I would further say that it is fairly ideological and terse up to being cryptic at times to some extent. Econometrics and how it's taught come to mind.

If you grant this assumption, I wonder how much students' lack of interest may come from the field's teachings clashing with a person's everyday life and experiences.

Re: Failing Intro Economics

#25

Post by apwheele »

fny wrote: post #19
apwheele wrote: post #5

Utility(Sleeping In) > Utility(A in MacroEconomics)

That's microecon (which I agree is meh). Macroecon is very useful. Anticipating how governments and central banks will react in the face of economic conditions can make you a better business operator and investor.

That was part of the joke (I meant macro on the right hand side, not micro), but will concede I am not a terribly funny person.

I think micro is much easier/more intuitive personally (I think you are projecting a bit saying anything in intro macro has clear usefulness in running a business or investing). But I am sure you could make macro more relevant/interesting than what I took in school as well via clearer analogies to current situations.

Re: Failing Intro Economics

#26

Post by UweSchmidt »

anoonmoose wrote: post #2

AUTHOR: Socrates (469–399 B.C.) QUOTATION: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyranni…

I see no reason to outright dismiss Sokrates' analysis, nor the professor's, who is giving quantifyable data (deteriorating grades, grade inflation) and mentioning plausible issues (deteriorationg attention spans).

The world is constantly changing and influencing each upcoming generation, for the better or worse, and Sokrates considered this issue important enough to discuss.

Re: Failing Intro Economics

#27

Post by musingsole »

capnrefsmmat wrote: post #15
wildrhythms wrote: post #3

I genuinely believe a lot of professors are out of touch, especially around this point: >Fourth, students seemed reluctant to come to the office seeking help. [...] I suspect there is an increased factor of intimidation associated with being lost in the material and asking a much older male professor for help. Let's ignore the weird second half assumption about 'older males' for now... Young people do not have a conc…

> I wonder how many times a student has taken time out of their day to trek across campus to the professor's office only to find the professor away, or head-down busy grading papers, or just about to leave? Typically, professors announce office hours during which they will be available to answer questions, so this is not an issue. From a professor's perspective, online options for tutoring students are vastly inferio…

> Typically, professors announce office hours during which they will be available to answer questions, so this is not an issue.

Saying something once or even a couple times that is at odds with the listener's inherent behavior doesn't count as communicating.

Insisting it does sounds like the type of out of touch professors GP is talking about.

Re: Failing Intro Economics

#28

Post by smallerfish »

> First, attendance was sporadic with many of my students... Unlike in other courses, these students then had a permanent deficiency in that important topic.

Well that's easily fixable with low effort - at minimum make a web conference for each of the lectures, but better yet save the recordings onto a platform that students can refer back to later.

Re: Failing Intro Economics

#29

Post by johnnymorgan »

capnrefsmmat wrote: post #15
wildrhythms wrote: post #3

I genuinely believe a lot of professors are out of touch, especially around this point: >Fourth, students seemed reluctant to come to the office seeking help. [...] I suspect there is an increased factor of intimidation associated with being lost in the material and asking a much older male professor for help. Let's ignore the weird second half assumption about 'older males' for now... Young people do not have a conc…

> I wonder how many times a student has taken time out of their day to trek across campus to the professor's office only to find the professor away, or head-down busy grading papers, or just about to leave? Typically, professors announce office hours during which they will be available to answer questions, so this is not an issue. From a professor's perspective, online options for tutoring students are vastly inferio…

The zoom option turned teachers into streamers :)

There is some meat in that concept and it's an interesting problem that doesn't have a solid solve yet.

I love remote work,learning,etc but for that free flowing of data in a group or one on one setting it lacks positional audio.

I can't whisper under my breath to the person beside me or break out with a small team and still have people near us hear the convo and maybe chime in.

Tip: stream the class and give them the YT link so they can ask questions. Not ideal but should work and you might find a new process in there.

Cheers

Re: Failing Intro Economics

#30

Post by ysavir »

ianbutler wrote: post #4
anoonmoose wrote: post #2

AUTHOR: Socrates (469–399 B.C.) QUOTATION: The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyranni…

This is a quantified reduction in ability, not a subjective gripe and one that is very commonly observed. A lot of programs are admitting under prepared students.

> This is a quantified reduction in ability

How effectively is it controlling for factors?

> A lot of programs are admitting under prepared students.

Sure. But there remains the question of _what_ should the students be prepared for, and are educational institutions providing that substance? Meaning, are students under prepared because they don't know how to succeed in a college environment, or are students under prepared because colleges don't know how to teach in a modern environment?

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