ECON 402 is a semester long introductory course to microeconomics. This is designed to be the first of two introductory courses in the foundation of economics. This course was taught Fall of 2018 and met 3 times a week for a total of 3 hours. In these classes the last 20 minutes was reserved for either an end of the day quiz, a “group work” highlighting a particular set of skills that would be needed to complete the upcoming homework assignment, or a “muddiest point” writing assignment where students write a 1-2 sentence response about what confused them the most about the day’s lecture. Topics covered included basic supply and demand modeling, construction of individual and firm level decision making, and different market structures.
Students were assessed via in class quizzes, homework assignments, and exams. These were all written to help gauge students’ conceptual understanding of the course material, as well as demonstrate their thought process as they grapple with theoretical economic topics. The other two student assignments, muddiest point and in-class group work, are designed to help foster students’ meta-cognition.
My goals for this class is to primarily give students a foundation into how economists conceptualize the world. Primarily, my goal is to help students understand how to think about “how we make decisions” given various factors. With this foundation I hope to either give students a launching platform for deeper exploration of economics or even themselves.