Laying the groundwork for in-class groupwork with readings beyond the textbook

Abstract

The author of this article describes individual pre-class and group in-class assignments based on current news articles. Guided student pre-class readings of periodical articles can form the basis for engaging in-class group assignments. Many economics instructors seek to develop student skills at applying the concepts under study to analyze current events, but news articles can be difficult for novices because the economic content is often misconstrued by journalists and is presented along with many extraneous details. Assigning short-essay questions with the readings can help students identify the economic content while holding them accountable for the assignment. The complexity of event analysis based on news article readings makes these readings excellent material for engaging students in in-class group assignments that build on the individual student preparation.

Keywords:

• Collaborative learning
• cooperative learning
• peer instruction
• problem-based learning
• team-based learning

JEL code:

• A22

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Note

Notes

1 The Summer and Fall 2014 special issue of the Journal on Excellence in College Teaching (Cox, Richlin, and Wenzell 2014) focuses on four prominent small-group-learning pedagogies: cooperative, collaborative, problem-based, and team-based learning. Starting Point: Teaching and Learning in Economics—Team-Based Learning (Simkins, Maier, and Ruder 2018) provides a detailed description of TBL in economics classes and offers an extensive library of application exercises that can be used in classes taught with TBL and other student-group-based pedagogies.