Issue 35, Fall 2008

William A. McEachern, Editor

Odds and Ends

• The Experimental Economics Center at Georgia State University supports EconPort, an online library that specializes in economic experiments. The site, http://www.econport.org/econport/request?page=web_home, offers teaching modules, a game-theory handbook, a glossary of economics terms, and software for running experiments.
• According to a recent survey, the share of students applying to six or more colleges increased from 18% in 1997 to 28% in 2007. The share applying to just one college dropped from 25% to 17%. Minorities applied to more colleges: 52% of Asian Americans applied to six or more colleges (for a 6.1 average), as did 36% of Latino students (5.0 average) and 32% of African American students (4.9 average). Only 23% of white students applied to six or more colleges (for a 4.1 average). For details, go to http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/heri/PDFs/pubs/briefs/brief-20080512-Applications.pdf.
• According to a survey of 56,818 students entering 262 four-year colleges, 58% of those with an A average in high school completed college in four years and 78% completed in six years. Those with a C average in high school (a much smaller group) had a four-year completion rate of only 8% and a six-year rate of 20%. Among students with a combined SAT score of at least 1300, the four- and six-year completion rate was 62% and 77%. Among those scoring less than 800, it was 18% and 40%. Students with an A average and combined SAT of 1300 finished in four years at a 69% rate and in six years at an 83% rate. For those with a C average and SAT of less than 800 it was 8% and 20%. The study by UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute is based on students entering college in the fall of 1994 and whose degree completion status was determined in the fall of 2000.
• For a great example of video as a learning tool, see this three-dimensional explanation of Möbius transformations by two University of Minnesota math professors on YouTube at http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=JX3VmDgiFnY.
• Alan Enthoven, now emeritus at Stanford, used to say that policymakers at the highest levels could learn as undergraduates all the economics they needed to know for their policy jobs. But he believed that graduate training was necessary to convince them that what they learned as undergraduates was true and relevant.
• The University of Chicago Law School blocks Internet access from classrooms. According to the dean, "One student will visit a gossip site or shop for shoes, and within 20 minutes an entire row is shoe shopping."
• "Has any economist ever attracted the kinds of cheering crowds that Barack Obama has—or even the crowds attracted by Hillary Clinton or John McCain? If you want cheering crowds, don't bother to study economics. It will only hold you back. Tell people what they want to hear—and they don't want to hear about supply and demand." –Thomas Sowell
• "I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed." –George Carlin

Citations in this Issue:
Ted Bergstrom, "Clickers" at http://www.econ.ucsb.edu/~tedb/Courses/Ec100BS06/clickers.html.

Robert Kaleta and Tanya Joosten, "Student Response Systems: A University of Wisconsin Study of Clickers," Educause Center for Applied Research Bulletin, Issue 10 (May 8, 2007) at http://www.blog.utoronto.ca/in_the_loop/files/ClickersERB0710.pdf.

Margie Martyn, "Clickers in the Classroom: An Active Learning Approach," Educause Quarterly, 2007, Vol. 30, No. 2 at http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/ClickersintheClassroomAnA/40032.

For helpful comments on a draft of this issue, I thank William Alpert, Sarah Greber, Dennis Heffley, Charles Martie, Stephen Miller, Stephen Sacks, Dave Shaut, and Susan Smart.

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