ECON 605 is a semester long course with a more nuanced investigation of microeconomic theory. This is designed to be one of two in-depth investigations into the core theory of economics. This course was taught Fall of 2017 and Spring of 2018. This class met 2 times a week for a total of 3 hours. In these classes the last 30 minutes was reserved for either an end of the day quiz or a “group work” highlighting a particular set of skills that would be needed to complete the upcoming homework assignment. Topics covered included: mathematical underpinning of individual decision making, firm-level decision making, different market structures, and how to bring them together in a partial equilibrium model.
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 end of the day activities also served to help student grow their meta-cognitive skills by identifying what I think is important and gauging how well they’ve learned the topic.
My goals for this class is to challenge students to think more critically about how economists conceptualize the world. Primarily, my goal is to help students understand the theoretical and mathematical underpinnings of “how we make decisions” given various factors. With this class I hope to strengthen students’ abilities to think like an economist, as well as allow them to be more informed critical thinkers with regards to political-economy events.