Curriculum design and development

Here I will focus on the curriculum design and development that I have done. I would like to focus on the various courses I have been involved with thus far and present the following for each course: the curriculum design and development, teaching methods and assessments. Evidence is either presented as images or links.

ECO133: Principles of Economics

Taught with: Ms Rochelle Beukes (coordinator, rgbeukes@uwc.ac.za) and Mr Velenkosini Matsebula (vmatsebula@uwc.ac.za)

The course is an introductory course and contains elements of both macroeconomics and microeconomics. The course was designed to introduce students from various degree programs to economics and basic concepts in economics. These concepts include:

• Microeconomics:

  • Economic systems

  • Opportunity cost

  • Demand and supply

  • Equilibrium

  • Elasticity

• Macroeconomics

  • Gross Domestic Product

  • Inflation

  • Unemployment

  • Economic growth

  • Monetary and fiscal policy

The teaching and learning activities for the course included weekly lectures and tutorials. The assessments for the course consisted of a short test written in the tutorials, bi-weekly online assessments, two module tests and a final exam. The tutorial tests were re-introduced after attendance to tutorials was weak at the start of the semester. The continuous assessments throughout the course ensured an 80% pass rate for the course. This was much higher than in previous years - the course is known as a "killer" course with pass rates often below 50%.

My responsibilities for the course were to prepare for and lecture each week, prepare tutorials as well as discuss the tutorials with the appointed tutors, and set tests and exams.

ECO152: Macroeconomics

The course was first introduced in 2018 to align UWC's first-year courses with our competitors. In 2019, I was responsible for the coordination of the module as well as teaching. The main change I made to the course was not to focus on any components that use the concepts of demand and supply as the students did not have a full course in Microeconomics yet. I also introduced the group assignment as discussed under Good teaching practices.

To further aid the students' online learning with this course, as well as with ECO151: Microeconomics, I created videos on each chapter that summarises the main concepts from the chapter and provides applications to real-world problems. An example can be found here and are available via the Department's YouTube channel.

A complete module description can be found here.

ECO232: Macroeconomics

Taught with: Mr Velenkosini Matsebula

The course was revamped and reworked in 2017 and we utilised a new textbook. The textbook used before was considered out of date and its explanations were often not concise. The new textbook was a global textbook used in most South African universities, but that has been written in collaboration with South African scholars to make it relevant for South African students. The main components studied in the course are:

• IS-LM model, and the respective goods and financial market

• The labour market

• Long-term equilibrium through the AS-AD model

• Phillips curve, its adjustments and inflation expectations.

• An introduction to an open economy

The course’s assessments were two module tests, an essay and tutorials. The teaching and learning activities were lectures and tutorials. The pass rate for the course was almost 90%, a significant improvement from previous years.

I was responsible for the design and development of the course outline and expected outcomes, as well as lecture planning. I lectured the first term of the course, while Mr Velenkosini Matsebula lectured the second term. I was also responsible for the formulation of tutorial questions, essay questions and tests and exams.

Similar to the ECO133 groups, the focus on graduate attributes is to be critical of scholarship and citizens, and collaborative and creative problem-solvers. To encourage engagement with the scholarship, the assessment is formed from current events to ensure that the students are aware of how the theory that they are taught in class must be applied to the contexts outside of the university. This also means that they can be leaders in the business world and be responsible for changes that can happen. In future, I would like to schedule in-class debates on these issues in order to stimulate the lifelong learning of students and show how they can achieve goals within economics.

A full description of the course can be found here.

ECO335: International Trade

After discussions with two colleagues, I decided to revert to an older format of the course. The Department had received complaints about the teaching of the course in both 2013, 2015 and 2016. The course’s aim is to introduce students to concepts of international trade. I also re-introduced the gravity model and a session on trade in history. The main topics of discussion in the course are:

• Classical trade theory

• Neoclassical trade theory

• Imperfect competition

• Trade policy

• International trade bodies

• Economic Integration

• Gravity model

• Trade in history

I was solely responsible for the design and planning of the module. The module’s assessments consisted of three class tests, a structured question exercise, a module test, an essay and a final examination. The structured question exercise was designed to expose the students to South Africa’s current trade policy and involved reading and analysing the policy document. The essay questions were formulated around current world events, while test and exam questions revolved around the application of theory to specific scenarios. This design has remained in place since 2017.

The course is also offered to part-time students. These are students who often are already working and can only attend evening lectures. In 2017, only three part-time students registered for the course. In order to accommodate these students and their respective working schedules, the part-time lectures were scheduled over four, longer sessions spread throughout the semester. The students were also allowed to submit their exercises electronically and I designed online tests for these students, for their respective class tests. After speaking to both the part-time and full-time students, they indicated that they prefer to have the class tests online, which I implemented even before the pandemic. I was partly involved with the course in 2020 and created various videos of the prescribed materials, as well as accompanying slides and scripts.

I attempt to work on all four graduate attributes in this course. First, a critical attitude toward scholarship is achieved through the application of theory to current world events. Second, to be critical citizens and work for the social good, we also discuss economic transitions and the history of world trade in order to demonstrate where the theory comes from and how it can be developed in the future. In future, I would like to expand this by including sections on environmental sustainability and the effects on trade. (These topics would normally be offered in an Environmental Economics course.) To be lifelong learners, I encourage the students to critically engage with the material and how this will impact their future. I also identify students with the potential to continue their studies through postgraduate studies. I would like to, in future, think more about how to incorporate the communities from which the students come and how they can return their knowledge to the communities in the future. Finally, to be creative problem-solvers, I create in-class exercises of varying degrees that apply the theory to situations in order for the students to create new ideas on the problems and to encourage deeper engagement with the scholarship.

A full description of the course can be found here and a sample of a summary made using Concept Mapping of the Neoclassical trade theory is shown below.

The course achieved a 100% pass rate in 2017.

ECO739: Mathematical Economics

The course is designed to give Honours students the mathematical tools for the analysis of economic problems. The main topics discussed and covered in the course are:

• Nature of economics, mathematics, and mathematical economics

• Linear models and matrix algebra

• Comparative statics and derivatives

• Rules of differentiation and their use in comparative statics

• Comparative-static analysis of general functions

• Constrained and unconstrained optimization

• Integral calculus

I introduced more regular assessments to the course to ensure the students have enough exposure and exercise before Module Tests and the Final Examination. As mentioned before on the page Understanding UWC students, I used flipped classrooms before the Covid-19 pandemic and have continued with the practice since under the online teaching methods. Given the mostly positive feedback from the students, I plan to continue this practice in future. In order to aid the students' time management and expectations, I used weekly lesson plans with checkboxes to help students with task completion. The figure below shows an example for week 2. These lesson plans also include links to the prescribed materials and expected assessments for the week.

During the pandemic and with online teaching, assessments for this module became key. The reason for this is the mathematical nature of the course and the availability of online calculators. This meant in 2020 many students scored high marks for the course. Therefore, in order to test the true level of learning, I changed my assessments from straight forward questions like "Multiply the following matrices with each other" to providing the students with an example and expecting them to be able to identify the mistakes in the answers. They are also expected to provide the the correct answer in 2021. An example of this can be seen in the image below.

Because of the requirement that they should be able to identify the mistakes in the calculations, this eliminated the reliance on online calculators. However, I suspect students shared their answers with each other given the similarity in some answers. To further counter this in 2022, I gave student individuals tests and final assessments. In order to prepare students for this, I used the tutorials as formative assessment and the module test as the summative assessment of the various chapters. While the questions were the same to ensure fairness across students, their final answers and steps will differ due to the different values. This also means the economic interpretation of the answer will differ. In 2020 and 2021, I used the Drop Box function for students to upload their assessments. However, with this function, it was difficult to control how long the students spend on the assessment and difficult to enforce a deadline. To counter these problems, I used the Assignment function in 2022 and created Assignments for each student, as shown below and the full course outline can be found here.

ECO740: Economic history

In 2018, I designed and developed a new course to first be presented in 2020 for postgraduate students. Before my joining UWC, there was another economic history course offered but was made inactive due to staff shortages in the Department. This course was also focused on the history of economic thought and not the new economic history as explained below. The course will be only the second of its kind to be offered at an Economics Department in South Africa after Stellenbosch University.

In order to develop the course, I research various courses like the Stellenbosch course, but also various courses at universities in the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2019, I was supported by the University's Capacity Development Grant to visit Queen's University in Belfast, where there is a large group of economic historians with various areas of specialization and an established economic history course. It was here that I was able to determine that the course should focus on both recent empirical research but also the seminal papers that anchor the various sessions. While the seminal papers explain the importance of the topic to the students, the empirical papers offer insights into how economic history functions and can be applied to economic thinking. To further aid students' diverse learning, they are provided with specific papers that they either have to summarise or that they must present as if at a conference. The students are required to summarise the seminal papers and present the empirical papers. This can be seen in the module outline here. To ensure students meet the requirements, they are provided with the instructions for the summaries and presentations.

The course will introduce students to Economic History and various topics relevant to the field will be studied:

• Renaissance of African economic history

• Demographic transitions

• Industrial Revolution

• Colonialism

• Innovation and technology

• Social savings

• Institutions and economic growth

• Human capital and education

• Health

• Trade, globalisation and migration

• The Cold War and Apartheid

The course is designed to be research-based learning. The main content of the course comes from articles published in peer-reviewed journals with additional material from books. These papers are uploaded at the start of the semester to ensure all students have access to the articles. The image below shows this on the iKamva page, and the weekly video and summary. Given this research-based learning, the assessments for the course are mainly essay writing and discussions of the articles.

The course was first offered in 2020 and, due to the coronavirus pandemic, it was fully online. Students submitted prepared presentations, summaries and essays online. From feedback from students in 2020, I had more online lessons and summaries during the 2021 semester to ensure thorough engagement with the students. For future courses and when we are back in person, I plan to take the students to archives and on field trips. This is discussed more in Professional Networks and Community Engagement.

The full description and reading list can be found in Module Outline (link available above).