Mark S. Walbert

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Teaching Portfolio (Abridged)

What I Teach

This year I once again taught the Honors sections of Principles of Microeconomics (Fall) and Principles of Macroeconomics (Spring). Last Spring I taught a pilot course for the new General Education program on Experiments with Supply and Demand (ECO 289.24). This Fall I continued to teach Intermediate Microeconomic Theory.

I teach the Principles courses because I keenly enjoy working with first-year college students, and I am interested in presenting undergraduate non-majors with an opportunity to improve their understanding of the world in which they live. By helping students see the world in a new, clearer manner, one that is fun as well as enlightening, I am repaying a debt to those few college faculty that changed forever my view of the world and my place in it. I continually seek to incorporate the use of instructional technology in these courses where the learning task cannot be performed as well if at all for the students without the technology. This currently takes the form of simulations using spreadsheet templates and web-based course materials.

I teach Intermediate Microeconomic Theory because I want the chance to take Economics majors especially those with whom I have helped learn the Principles to a deeper understanding of the functioning and failures of markets. My use of instructional technology is rather heavier at this level (in fact, the class is taught in a computer classroom) because it provides the means by which to extend the analytical reach of my students. I am now able to use simulations to explore some microeconomics models that I once felt were too advanced for the intermediate level and I successfully add more such models each time I teach the course.

I developed and taught the GenEd pilot course "Experiments with Supply and Demand" as an outgrowth of my interest in and practice with using experiments to promote active discovery of economic concepts. In most experiments, students play the role either of a buyer or a seller. Armed only with the knowledge of the benefits or cost to themselves of each additional unit of a good consumed or produced, students use the classroom as a "trading pit" and orally announce bids to buy or offers to sell. By varying the conditions faced by buyers or sellers, different aspects of the market mechanism for allocating goods and resources is experienced by each student.

How I Teach

In the Spring of 1993, I completely changed the way I taught all my courses. I went from a "teacher-centered" approach to a "student-centered" approach. Instead of behaving as a "sage on the stage", I began working as a "guide on the side". Instead of lecturing to students, I began to work with them to learn the material. Instead of encouraging them to compete with one another for a grade, I found ways to encourage them to collaborate with one another for a more complete understanding of the material (yes, they still receive a grade).

I was initially drawn to this change by a growing dissatisfaction with the impact I was having as a "lecturer" on student learning. Over time I began to notice that those "brilliant" lectures that left me feeling great seemed to help student learning less than those "boring" problem-solving sessions where the whole class worked together. I also was stimulated to change by a desire to reduce the lag time between when problems are issued and when the students (and I) learn that they are not "getting it" which was usually at least a week.

The format my classes eventually took was based on one of the principle ideas of Total Quality Management the focus on teamwork. The basic approach was outlined by William Glasser¹; my implementation of it was refined through additional readings² and discussions with Tom Bierma (Health Sciences), Jack Chizmar (Economics), and Bill Gnagey (Psychology). In Glasser's approach (reinforced by Johnson et al.), students work as a team to solve problems, while the instructor monitors each team's (and each team member's) understanding. The rationale for the team approach follows from the observation that the work done by teams is more accurate than the work done by individuals. On an assembly line, teams turn out products with a much narrower range of defects. In the classroom, I hoped this approach would turn out fewer defects in learning (e.g., a smaller standard deviation on tests, fewer lost students, better attitudes about economics, etc.). Closely monitoring the team's work enables me to detect any defects in learning early each day in this case well before a quiz, exam, or written assignment is due. The efficacy of this approach as a way to improve the students' attitude about the course is reinforced by the First Report of The Harvard Assessment Seminars³.

To date, I organize my courses with the following six objectives, each of which is designed to promote an environment in which students are able to actively pursue the highest quality learning:

1. Establish high demands and standards for learning, with opportunities to revise and improve work before it receives a final grade⁴ (Light 1990).

2. Create a collaborative learning environment to reduce the variance in what is learned and to promote greater student involvement in the course and a keener interest in Economics as a major or minor⁵ (Glasser 1992, Johnson et al. 1991, and Light 1990).

3. Use instructional technology where it can enable the student to complete tasks that could not be performed as well if at all without the technology⁶ (Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, 1972).

4. Incorporate the regular use of writing to promote long-term retention⁷ (Light 1992).

5. Use One Minute Surveys (in ECO 240), e-mail and NetForum, and Quality Circles (in ECO 101 and 102) to gain continuous feedback on how well students are mastering the material.

6. Offer frequent assessment checkpoints, use a variety of forms of assessment, and give immediate feedback via answer keys handed to the student as he or she leaves the class or posted on the web, and graded assignments returned by the next class period (Light 1990, p. 31).

A Typical Class Session

My students now spend most of their class time working in small learning teams to solve problems. Each set of problems is either chosen from the textbook or developed by me to give students plenty of practice mastering a set of specific learning objectives. These specific learning objectives are designed to promote attainment of a set of proficiencies developed by Lee Hansen⁸ as a guide to what undergraduate students majoring in economics must be able to do upon graduation. Because the Principles courses are not just for majors, I use a subset of the proficiencies as my primary learning goals there. This subset, which appears on the Syllabus as the course Learning Objectives, encourages students to develop their ability to think, analyze, and convey their understanding of basic economic knowledge in writing. In both the Intermediate Micro and Experiments courses I add projects and assignments that encourage students to further develop their ability to think and to analyze more complex economic phenomena, and to convey their understanding of both existing and new economic knowledge both orally and in writing.


In the Principles courses, students spend most of their class time writing out the answers to problems that facilitate their learning key economic concepts and models. These written assignments are not graded, but the writing promotes retention and that helps them prepare for weekly quizzes). At the start of the second class session on a chapter, students converse briefly with their team and write on the board the question(s) they could not answer. I then work with the class as a whole to uncover the method for finding the solution to those questions. This work takes the form of question redirect and other techniques for getting the students involved in finding the answer themselves. Fairly often, my role is simply to clarify the question being asked. Occasionally I reveal completely the method for answering a question. When we have finished working through the questions, students take a quiz. These weekly quizzes are taken individually, but each student may earn bonus points if their team does well on the quiz.

Students complete two two-page writing assignments out of class that are graded. These writing assignments require finding news stories on current economic events and apply existing economic knowledge to explain those events. In ECO 101 students also complete four major projects that require the manipulation of a spreadsheet template that simulates the workings of increasingly advanced economic models. In ECO 102, in lieu of model simulations, students complete three written analyses of real macroeconomics data retrieved from one or more sources on the Web. The writing assignments, model simulations, and data analyses may be completed alone or with a "study buddy", in order to extend the benefits of team learning to out-of-class work. Students are encouraged to rewrite all of their news analyses based on my written feedback of their writing. They are also encouraged to rewrite the first model simulation and data analysis.


In the Intermediate Micro course, learning teams also spend most of their class time writing out answers to problems, but their work is graded individually, although students are encouraged to work with their team or a study buddy out of class as they complete their answers. Each class begins with a discussion of questions the students have about the concepts or models studied in that chapter. During the next 40 - 50 minutes, students spend time at the computers working in teams to solve problems based on Excel templates I have created. These templates are designed to give the student a controlled opportunity to explore the fundamental workings of the concepts and graphical models typically taught in Intermediate Micro. They access the Excel templates and the text files containing the problems via the course schedule Web page. The students answers to these problems are collected two days after a chapter is finished, and an answer key is posted on a Web page shortly after all the assignments are in.

Here too students work out-of-class on additional writing assignments that check whether they have mastered key graphical models and concepts. One assignment involves conducting a regression analysis of actual market data, the other assignment allows them to display their ability to use what they've learned in the course in a written analysis of current economic events.

In class, the GenEd course (289.24) followed the same format as the ECO 240 course. However, during the last four weeks of the course the students gave oral presentations of their three news analyses and created a spreadsheet template of the perfectly competitive market model.

I use two instruments to get continuous feedback on student learning. These are: 1. The One-Minute Paper⁹ (OMP); and 2. The Quality Circle¹⁰(QC). The OMP is a daily survey that asks the students in ECO 240 and ECO 289.24 two questions: (a) What is the most important thing you learned today? and (b) What is the muddiest thing remaining at the end of today's class? During the last few minutes of each class the students in these two courses log onto the course Web site and type out answers to these questions. I compile their responses after class and, after sending individual messages to those wanting an immediate reply, I post the unedited compilation of responses to the class discussion list (NetForum) in 240 and a separate Web page in 289.24. A discussion of the "mud" listed by the students serves as a starting-off point for the next class.

In ECO 101 and 102, I meet once a week with students who are chosen by their team as a representative to the QC. The role of the quality circle is to bring to the group's attention questions, complaints, and suggestions on how the class format limits the students' ability to pursue the highest quality learning. Quality Circle representatives have the power to change any aspect of the course except content; decisions made by a unanimous vote of the QC are final.

Why I Teach This Way

If I have learned anything about teaching over the last 14 years, it is that "talking" is not effective teaching, and "listening" is not effective learning. Such is the message in the ancient wisdom printed above. If you want to learn something well, then you must do "the thing". Following that advice, I endeavor to provide my students with many opportunities to learn by "doing the thing". Because not all students have the same learning style, I try to offer a variety of "things" for them to do. My goal is to create an environment with a number and variety of learning experiences that will allow students to discover and construct economic knowledge for themselves. I endeavor to manage the learning environment so that they can produce the highest quality learning. I consider it the student's goal to take responsibility for achieving the highest quality learning.

Changing the format of my courses has been enormously rewarding! I get to know the students much better when I work with them to solve problems related to the course's learning objectives. I learn a great deal more about what helps and what doesn't help students master the concepts and models and what concepts and models are essential for them to master (economic theory textbooks are quite encyclopedic in their scope). Furthermore, although student learning (as measured by their semester grades) is somewhat better, their attitude about the process of learning is much better, and the number of students from my Principles course that choose Economics as a minor or a major has more than tripled!

How I Evaluate Student Learning

The evaluation instruments I use to assess student learning are nearly the same in all my courses. Because writing aids retention, students spend much of the class period working in teams to write out the answers to problems and discussion questions designed to help them master key economic concepts and models. In ECO 101 and 102, this writing is not graded; in ECO 240, it is graded. Furthermore, in the senior class the questions and problems which the students are answering include the model simulations studied by the introductory honors students as graded out-of-class projects.

My students complete a large number of quizzes. The introductory students take one or two quizzes per chapter (fourteen in all); the Intermediate students take one quiz per chapter (eleven in all). I do not give exams. The weight and frequency of quizzes make it very costly to miss class or not keep up with the readings and the problems. It also gives the student a short term goal to work toward. But the quizzes do not only test short term knowledge, because many of the quizzes ask questions about material that was learned earlier in the semester but is still relevant to the current chapter.

Each class seeks out current news stories relevant to the course and submits a summary and analysis of the economic knowledge contained in the article. The Introductory and Experiments classes write two or three such analyses, the Intermediate class writes one. These news analyses may be rewritten using my feedback, allowing the student to improve his or her understanding.

In lieu of a final exam, students in all but one class this year completed a final project designed to help them "put it all together". In 101 and 240 the final project involves using a complex spreadsheet model showing the interrelationships between the product and resource markets. The model simulates how changes in one market affect the other, and how those changes feed back through the whole system. It is a project that is unique; I am aware of no other University course in Microeconomics that makes use of this type of "general equilibrium" model. In fact, without the computer it would be impossible to use such an assignment as a learning experience. (Yes, there is a paper in this...) As part of the final project in 102, students participated in The National Budget Simulation Game at UC-Berkeley, a project of UC-Berkeley's Center for Community Economic Research. The students were presented with two tasks. Task 1 required that they access the UC-Berkeley site on the Web and manipulate the (1995) Federal budget so as to reduce the budget deficit by one-seventh (the goal specified by President Clinton for last year's Federal budget). Task 2 required a 2-3 page report to Congress on the impact the new budget would have on the economy (using the graphical models of the macroeconomy developed in the course). The students in the GenEd course (289.24) took a traditional cumulative final exam.

Finally, each course has one or more special out-of-class projects that allow the students to make use of instructional technology to complete a task that could not be performed as well if at all without the computer. ECO 101 students run spreadsheet simulations of four key microeconomics models, answering a long list of questions which guides their inquiry. ECO 102 students gather data from the Web on three key sets of macroeconomics variables. This data is then put into a spreadsheet and summarized graphically. Students then write a memo to President Clinton informing him of the information about the nation's economy conveyed by the data. ECO 240 student use Excel to complete a regression analysis which estimates the demand for a good based on real world data. They then write a report to the company's bosses about the implications of that data analysis for future pricing decisions made by the company. The GenEd class (289.24) created individual spreadsheet models of a competitive market. Creation of this spreadsheet model allowed each student to demonstrate their grasp of the nature of the competitive market model, including the underlying mathematics. This template was created in such a way that it was usable by anyone wishing to analyze the impact of a change in the non-price determinants of supply or demand on equilibrium price and quantity in a competitive product market.

Footnotes

1 Glasser, William (1992). The Quality School, 2nd edition. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.

2 Johnson, D. W., R. T. Johnson, and K. A. Smith (1991). Active Learning: Cooperation in the College Classroom. Interaction Book Company.

3 Light, Richard J. (1990). The Harvard Assessment Seminars: Explorations with Students and Faculty about Teaching, Learning, and Student Life, First Report.

4 Light (1990) notes that "An overwhelming majority [of the students studied] are convinced that their best writing takes place when they have a chance to submit an early version of their work, get detailed feedback and criticism, and then hand in a final revised version for a grade." (pp. 31-32).

5 Light (1990) notes that the payoff from having students work in small groups of between four and six "comes in a modest way for student achievement, as measured by test scores. It comes in a far bigger way on measures of students' involvement in courses, their enthusiasm, and their pursuit of topics to a more advanced level." (p. 70).

6 This is the second of two recommendations on the use of instructional technology made in The Fourth Revolution, The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education (1972). The first recommendation is that the teaching-learning task to be performed [with instructional technology] should be essential to the course in which it is applied.

7 Light, Richard J. (1992), The Harvard Assessment Seminars: Explorations with Students and Faculty about Teaching, Learning, and Student Life, Second Report, pp. 24-42).

8 Hansen, Lee (1986). "What Knowledge is Most Worth Knowing For Economics Majors?", American Economic Review 76(2), pp. 149-152. Hansen suggests that economics majors be able to demonstrate proficiency in the following (in increasing order of complexity): 1. Gain access to existing economics knowledge; 2. Display command of existing economics knowledge; 3. Display an ability to draw out existing economics knowledge; 4. Utilize existing economics knowledge to explore current issues; 5. Create new economics knowledge (pp. 150-151).

9 Cross, K. P. and T. A. Angelo (1988). Classroom Assessment Techniques: A Handbook for Faculty. Ann Arbor: National Center for Research to Improve Postsecondary Teaching and Learning, University of Michigan.

10 Hirshfield, C. (1984). "The Classroom Quality Circle: A Widening Role for Students", Innovation Abstracts 6(12).

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Last updated September 3, 2003 Original graphics © FTSS
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