Starting Point: Pedagogic Resources for Teaching and Learning Economics

Abstract

This article describes Starting Point: Teaching and Learning Economics, a Web-based portal that makes innovative pedagogic resources and effective teaching practices easily accessible to economists. Starting Point introduces economists to teaching innovations through 16 online modules, each containing a general description of a specific pedagogic method, theory and evidence supporting effective use of the method, classroom implementation guides, and a library of economics-based examples that illustrate use of the teaching method. In addition, each module includes an online form allowing faculty to contribute their own classroom-based teaching examples to the examples library.

Keywords:

• pedagogy
• resources
• teaching innovations

JEL code:

• A2

Acknowledgments

Support was provided by the National Science Foundation (DUE 0817382). The authors thank William B. Walstad and the anonymous Journal of Economic Education reviewers for their helpful suggestions.

Notes

1. While Starting Point was developed with face-to-face classroom teaching in mind, many of the teaching practices discussed on the site can be easily adapted to online teaching.

2. Simkins and Maier (2011) illustrate the adaptability of these and other pedagogies for economics education.

3. See http://serc.carleton.edu/sp/library/pedagogies.html.

4. Research for a similar pedagogic portal (Iverson, Fox, and Manduca 2006) indicates that instructors are as likely to enter the site in search of ready-to-use examples for an upcoming class as they are to obtain teaching information.

5. Information about contributing examples to Starting Point is available at http://serc.carleton.edu/econ/about_submit_activities. Example submissions are reviewed before being accepted for inclusion in the site.

6. Each Starting Point module is grounded on well-established learning sciences research and, in most cases, draws on empirical evidence indicating learning gains in economics or other disciplines.

7. This structure, proven effective by SERC through more than a decade of experience, has led over one-third of all college-level geoscience instructors to use the pedagogic modules in the Starting Point: Teaching Entry Level Geoscience pedagogic portal, an analogue to the Starting Point: Teaching and Learning Economics site (Iverson, Manduca, and Fox 2008).