THE TEACHING ECONOMIST - William A. McEachern 
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Issue 24, Spring 2003
William A. McEachern, Editor
Other Active Learning Projects
Here are some other active learning projects funded by the National Science Foundation that were presented at an ASSA "poster" session in January.
With a $75,000 NSF grant, Sheryl Ball, Kevin Oliver, and Catherine Eckel, all of Virginia Tech, are developing "Classroom Experiments for Large Lecture Courses." Their Wireless Interactive Teaching System (WITS) allows students to participate in economic experiments by communicating with an instructor's laptop via personal digital assistants (PDAs), such as Palm Pilots, which are smaller and less expensive than PCs or laptops. This technology allows for running experiments in real time in large classes. They are also testing the effectiveness of this approach. Professor Ball's address is sball@vt.edu.
Todd Porter and his colleagues at Youngstown State in Ohio received $75,000 from the NSF for "Teaching Microeconomic Principles Through a Simulated Economy on the Internet." The project simulates an economy of growing complexity, allowing students to explore economic concepts in a dynamic setting. This work was inspired by Ecosim, developed by Antony Davies of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. The investigators will assess the effectiveness of their approach over the next two years. Principles students in the current academic year are serving as the control group. Students next year will be the treatment group. To find out more, go to http://www.as.ysu.edu/~tsporter/simhome.htm.
Anne Bresnock of
Cal. Poly Pomona and Neil Garston of Cal. State-Los Angeles got a $496,000 NSF
grant for "SimEcon: Economic Issues and Principles." They are creating
a set of topic-specific modules so introductory students can apply basic concepts.
The modules employ simulated relationships between key variables, allowing students
to explore "what if" questions. For example, as the operator of a
competitive firm, the student selects the quantity that maximizes short-run
profit after the price and costs are changed. If you are interested in reviewing
any of the 15 existing modules, contact Professor Bresnock (aebresnock@csupomona.edu).