Another semester draws to a close. Here's what I learned from my little experiments in teaching this semester:
1. [EC6012] Asking students to give other students feedback on presentations isn't smart: everyone will give everyone else a B+.
2. [EC4004] Text messaging in large classes works, but could be more effective if integrated properly into the lecture.
3. [EC6012] Modeling and numerical problem solving are preferable to problem-based methods in such a technical subject, with such defined end goals.
4. [EC4414] Students respond well to zero PowerPoint, though they take time to adjust to having technical pieces to read instead.
5. [EC4333] It's always better to think in terms of concrete examples when teaching heterogenous classes, graphical models like the AS-AD and IS-LM need to be motivated carefully.
6. [EC4024] Students need more time with harder, abstruse material, like the Black-Scholes and APT models.
-For Next Year-
1. Improve and enhance the text message doo-hickey.
2. Rewrite the course outline for EC4333 to be based around successive historical episodes and case studies rather than putting the history part first and the analysis afterwards.
3. Strip out some of the macro modeling in EC4024 to make way for more time spend solving numerical BS/APT/etc examples. Spend more time in tutorials on this as well.
4. Consider not using PowerPoint for EC4333 this year entirely.
5. Include experimental and behavioural experiments in the tutorials in EC4004.