Economics Case Study



Course Background

Principles of Microeconomics (ECON 202) is a freshman or sophomore general education introductory economics course and is typically the first economics course a student takes at Colorado State University (CSU). College algebra is the only prerequisite to the course.

This course is high-enrollment (approximately 2200 resident instruction students per year), is foundational—it is a part of the university core curriculum—and is a gateway course, a required class in over 40 majors. Each section of this 3-credit course is structured in a lecture-recitation format taught by instructors and assisted by graduate teaching assistants. Students attend a large 90-, 180- or 270-student lecture twice weekly led by the instructor and a small 30-student recitation once weekly led by a graduate teaching assistant.

There are characteristics of the course that lead to several challenges:

  • Challenge 1: The course is taught by relatively new graduate instructors (non-tenure track (NTT) faculty) who may only teach the course once.
      • Each semester, there are typically 5-6 sections taught by 3-5 senior level PhD graduates students (fourth, fifth, and sixth year) who are NTT faculty and assisted by 12 first, second, or third year PhD graduate teaching assistants which can result in very different course structure and content, assessments, and student expectations.
      • These graduate student teachers are often enthusiastic about teaching, but their limited experience can lead to reduced effectiveness .
      • Graduate student teachers are transient by nature (they will graduate) and by design (the department allows the graduate teachers to teach different courses each semester). This means that the graduate student teachers may face a new course prep each semester limiting course content mastery.
  • Challenge 2: Large-lecture format is not conducive to active learning.
      • The recitation sections provide for a small-class experience with more student-to-student and student-to-instructor interactions, but most of the course time is spent in large lectures, where such interactions are difficult to foster.
  • Challenge 3: This foundational and gateway course is important to students' curriculum trajectory.
      • The course is core-curriculum satisfying the All-University Core Curriculum (AUCC) requirements for Social/Behavioral Sciences (Category 3C) and is approved under gtPathways in the content area of Economic or Political Systems (GT-SS1).
      • Students who are transferring to the College of Business must earn a B- or better in this course, a B- or better in Calculus, and have a CSU cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher on a minimum of 15 graded, college-level credits to be admitted. Admitted Business students must must maintain a minimum grade point average of 2.000 in business and economics courses as a graduation requirement. About 30% of students taking this course fall into these categories.
      • Few students taking this course are Economics majors (approximately 2%).

Redesign

These characteristics create interesting opportunities to redesign the course to improve consistency in teaching, enhance active learning experiences in recitation, and adopt adaptive courseware, all with the goal of improving teaching, learning, and grade outcomes.

In 2016, with instructional design assistance from The Institute for Learning and Teaching (TILT) at CSU, the course sections were were developed in a coordinated fashion to include adaptive courseware assignments and enhanced active learning. This coordination, supported by funding from TILT, created a harmonized structure for the lecture and recitations and developed a strong instructor team. Additionally, the Economics Department funded a course coordinator to teach 1-2 sections of the course, support the other instructors and teaching assistants, to assist in course design and pedagogy, and to be a liaison with TILT.

Redesign features:

  • Course Content Coordination: The course followed the same course schedule, covered the same content and learning objectives in lecture and recitations, students completed the same quizzes and adaptive learning assignments, and exams questions were drawn from a pool of questions developed by the instructors. Assessments included iClicker points for nearly every class session, almost weekly adaptive learning assignments and quizzes, two writing assignments, and three exams.
      • Helps solve Challenges 1 and 3.
  • Incorporation of Adaptive Learning Assignments: Adaptive learning assignments (using the publisher provided tool LearnSmart from McGraw-Hill Education) were assigned as post-lecture, pre-recitation low-stakes assignments. The timing of the assignment was intentional because students would have demonstrated mastery of the lower-level Blooms competencies prior to recitation. This important preparation meant that recitation was taught at a higher level with more active learning.
      • Helps solve Challenge 3.
  • Integration of Active Learning: The instructors incorporated more active learning activities into the class. The structure of the course means that high impact practices (HIPs) (such as discussions or group-based problem solving) were mostly integrated into the smaller 30-student recitations. Although most of the HIPs were integrated into the recitations, a classroom response system (i.e., iClicker) was utilized in the large lectures.
      • Helps solve Challenges 2 and 3.
  • Development of a Strong Teaching Team: Weekly meetings were held with the entire teaching team (coordinator, instructors and teaching assistants) to review recitation content, discuss pedagogy, coordinate grading of exams and writing assignments, and to identify and resolve any student or teaching issues.
      • Helps solve Challenge 1.
  • Consistent within-week Course Content: Each semester, the instructors jointly decide on a weekly course schedule and then each instructor takes the lead to design several weeks worth of content as a public good. Each week's worth of content includes: designing instructor lecture notes, in-class PowerPoint presentation (which is also distributed to students), lecture and recitation clicker questions, and recitation content and activities; leading the week's team meeting; creating the adaptive learning assignment and quiz; and creating a pool of easy, medium, and difficult exam questions. Often the prior semester's content is used as a base to build upon and enhance.
      • Helps solve Challenges 1 and 3.
  • Alignment with Text: To support student success, the instructors and graduate teaching assistants followed text closely in lecture and recitation to support the adaptive courseware integration and to create strong linkages between content presented in lecture and recitation, the textbook, and on the assessments.
      • Helps solve Challenges 1 and 3.
  • Integration of Learning Assistants: The course coordinator utilized learning assistants for one section during the spring semester. This section was structured differently in that there was no separate recitation section. Instead, students attended all class sessions with the faculty member (and learning assistants). In this section, there were multiple group activities in every class session which were facilitated by the learning assistants.
      • Helps solve Challenges 2 and 3.

Results

Improved Teaching: Instructors only had to focus on designing several weeks worth of course content so that content is very high quality and the extra time is spent improving in-class presentations, working with students, and responding to emails.

      • The Economics Department's Instructor Mentor is a faculty member that has extensive experience with teaching and this mentor visits all NTT instructors' courses once per semester to evaluate teaching and to provide feedback. The instructors teaching the Principles of Microeconomics redesigned courses were consistently evaluated much higher than their peers and the department award for outstanding graduate teaching in 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 were awarded to instructors who taught Principles of Microeconomics.
      • Additionally, 20-30 minutes of the team meetings during spring 2017 were devoted to teaching pedagogy to improve the teaching skills of the graduate teaching assistants. Topics covered included how to limit bias in grading, how to design an exam and evaluate its quality, and the science of learning, among others. Graduate teaching assistants reported increased confidence in the classroom.

Level Playing Field: Students, regardless of instructor, are treated consistently.

      • Students can expect a similar experience in every section of the redesigned Principles of Microeconomics sections. For example, students flow through the same course content at the same rate, complete identical quizzes, adaptive learning assignments, and writing assignments, and complete very similar exams. Grading of writing assignments and essay questions on exams was standardized with rubrics and through rigorous grading meetings to minimize bias and improve consistency and fairness.
      • The move to this highly coordinated system has been iterative. Prior to 2010, instructors could choose text, schedule, course difficulty, etc. with little structure or guidance. Between 2010 and 2014, graduate teaching instructors were required to use the a single text chosen by the department. In 2015, the instructors of Principles of Microeconomics additionally chose to coordinate class schedules. Eventually, with the support from TILT and the support from the department, Principles of Microeconomics was redesigned to its current level.

Consistent Course Grade Outcomes: Course grades between sections and instructors was not statistically significantly different.

      • For example, during the fall 2016 semester, four instructors taught five sections. Average course grades were 78.6% (out of 100%) and varied +/- 1.5% between sections. During the spring 2017 semester, the same four instructors as the previous semester taught five sections. Average course grades slightly improved to 79.2% (out of 100%) and variability decreased to +/- 0.3% between sections.

Challenges to Continuation and Extension

There are two primary challenges to continuing these innovations and extending them to other courses:

  1. Support
    • There has been strong support from the Economics Department to improve outcomes in Principles of Microeconomics. The department supported and continues to support a course coordinator and provides broad leeway for the coordinator to integrate the active learning and adaptive courseware in ways that support student success. This level of department support is unusual at the university.
        • To extend this model to other courses, this support must be expanded.
    • When Learning Assistants were implemented, they were funded through a grant from TILT.
        • To extend this model to other courses, this support must be expanded. There is no budget to provide learning assistants at any level. If learning assistants are desired, and their use extended to other courses, additional resources are required.
    • Supervision of Learning Assistants was an additional burden on the instructor, and there is not support for reducing effort elsewhere or giving additional assistance.
        • Moving to this new model of instruction has meant, for the instructor, approximately 4 extra hours per week, in meetings with learning assistants, in increased correspondence with students, and increased numbers of hours for problem sessions. All of these are desirable changes, but the fact that this new model means spending more, rather than less, time teaching makes it a hard sell to other instructors.
  2. Nature of involved faculty
    • The course is taught by graduate teaching instructors who are NTT faculty. These instructors often care deeply about instruction but are under pressure to complete their dissertation and graduate. These instructors are typically rehired because they are making satisfactory progress on their dissertations and and not because they are successful instructors. These instructors are often open to trying new approaches and appreciate the outcomes of improved teaching while personally preparing fewer weeks worth of material. These approaches are less likely to be adopted by tenure track (TT) faculty because they take more effort, require teaming, and for these faculty, professional success and advancement is only weakly connected to their performance in the classroom. Additionally, these TT faculty are exempted from this highly coordinated system.
        • To continue this level of coordination, a dedicated and long-term course coordinator must be supported.
    • NTT faculty are less likely to stay in their positions for a long time, and the changes they have implemented will not always survive their departure.

Final Words

It has been been incredibly satisfying to work with TILT, the department, and the enthusiastic instructors on this project. We have a model that works, that has allowed us to improve teaching, create a level playing field for students, and increased the consistency of course grade outcomes. But this model is unlikely to be extended to other courses unless there is increased levels of support from the university and department.