tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post4157073338439561179..comments2016-12-05T14:44:49.938-08:00Comments on ECON 490 Fall 2016: Course ReviewJoan Robinsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-19026890264202975692016-12-05T14:44:49.938-08:002016-12-05T14:44:49.938-08:00Your suggestion about the course outline seem to b...Your suggestion about the course outline seem to be helpful. I think it would help a lot in helping us understanding the big picture of the course. <br /><br />I particularly agree with your opinions on the blog commenting. If the commenting is organized as an ongoing discussion, it would be much more helpful. A lot of the comments from our teammates are very interesting and inspiring, and I actually did try to reply once. But I later found it takes too much of my time if I wanted to wrote a reply with good quality. The blogging, reading teammates' blogs, writing comments to their blog, and replying to professor's comments, have already taken a great amount of time, so although I wanted to, I did not keep on replying to group-mates' comments. But it would be definitely beneficial if the conversation is continued. Glenn Hubbardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07766977751088787120noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-20530525034322964632016-12-03T22:16:26.741-08:002016-12-03T22:16:26.741-08:00I agree with what you said about each student buil...I agree with what you said about each student building their own narrative about the course; I definitely have done this in a lot of my classes over the years and I have a lot of thoughts about the overarching lessons in this class, though I am not sure if they are too heavily based on my own past experiences and patterns of thought. I think it would be interesting to have some sort of baseline at the beginning of the class that everyone brainstorms together, then we each build off of that baseline for ourselves as the semester progresses. <br /><br />I did not think of it in this context before, but there is definitely irresponsible behavior that I see while working as an RA. For example, when I host a monthly floor meeting, just under half of the residents will show up, if I'm lucky. A lot of times, residents will completely ignore the emails I am sending them or the meetings I ask them to attend. I guess I did not consider this shirking because they are not working for me and thus are not required to do anything. Also, I do see students display irresponsible and sometimes dangerous behaviors in the hall. I considered this an inevitable part of the residence hall life experience, though maybe I should reconsider my views on it. In terms of the workplace, it also makes sense to say that shirking is inevitable in an organization, so it must be accounted for.Joan Robinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17604276521034974754noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7925763023620140455.post-1063321298035320312016-12-03T06:29:07.845-08:002016-12-03T06:29:07.845-08:00One of the issues for me as a teacher is whether I...One of the issues for me as a teacher is whether I get feedback about what you are thinking during the live class session. Over the years I have learned that some students prefer to listen than to participate by responding to my questions. And as long as there are some students who are responding, overall that can work reasonably well. When nobody responds, however, the listeners in the audience don't get as much out of the session. For that reason, I think many instructors try to encourage students to open up, even if that creates some discomfort for them. <br /><br />It is interesting to hear you wanting to prioritize the information and that I/the course should do that for you. My view on this is that you build your own narrative of understanding about what we are discussing. Information that fits into that narrative becomes important. Not everyone builds the same exact narrative, because parts of the individual are in it. <br /><br />Now, of course, on the math modeling there is closer to a "right answer" than there is on the blogging and it is with the math modeling that you seemed to have a hard time. So there are some puzzles there which you might still work through. <br /><br />I also found your comments about shirking interesting, especially since you've told the class that you are an RA in a dorm. Doesn't juvenile/irresponsible behavior of students come out on occasion in that context? Or does everyone act in a mature way from the get go? I would be very surprised if that were true. <br /><br />You are right that the commenting is an imperfect mechanism. But I will say that I did encourage people to write some about the prompt from the week before, yet only one student in the class took the bait on that one. If students really did that then the comments of other students might be more meaningful to the author.Professor Arvanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15256000730474030475noreply@blogger.com