American Economic Association Committee on Economic Education Poster Session
January 4, 2014, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
William Alpert, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut
Oskar Harmon, Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut
Adam Nemeroff, Instructional Developer, Institute of Teaching and Learning, University of Connecticut
Robert Szarka, Graduate Student, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut
Paul Tomolonis, Graduate Student, Department of Economics, University of Connecticut
As instructors we know student engagement is key to improving learning outcomes. But when it comes to preparing for class we appreciate new ideas for engaging activities. Our poster session will demonstrate this type of activity. We have developed an activity that consists of problem sets where students use Google Drive's Drawing tool to create diagrams like the ones they see in their textbooks. We have found students are engaged by the activity. Many already know how to use Google Drive (its tools are intuitive); they respond to the challenge of creating a variation of a diagram they have studied in their textbook; and many like to manipulate objects on their computer screens. We have found that the range of topics that the basic template can be used for is quite extensive.
We have also provided two templates to get you started with your own graphs:
The simple screencast videos below were created using Jing. We found this software relatively easy to use, but the length limitation was inconvenient. (The presentation above was created using CamStudio instead.) The videos were made available to our students within our learning management system. The Drawing tool is intuitive enough that this brief introduction was sufficient for most students.