At the high school level, especially teaching advanced classes to primarily Seniors (12th grade), the material I teach can not be fully understood and mastered with only the exposure to what we do in the classroom. Besides the distractions of texting, sleeping, doodling, and daydreaming, there isn't enough time to cover it all. For those sensitive to bias, it also by definition limits the student to only being exposed to one point of view. Some of the things we cover in economics and nearly everything we do in Statistics must be practiced in order to be mastered. I've got a ping pong table - I have to actually play to get better; I can't just sit here at my computer and watch YouTube videos on how to play and hope to get better. Whether you realize it or not, the same is true of academic subjects.
So, dear former students, how does a caring, dedicated teacher devise a system that would have you actually read a textbook, ideally on a timely basis? How do we come up with a system that would create the proper incentives to get you to read and to do assigned homework problems? Graded? Completion? Daily? Weekly? By Unit? Extra Credit on tests or separate grades?
The best approach would be the one they get to use in college - you don't do the work at an acceptable level, you fail. As you all probably realize that is not realistic in our high school environment for reasons of administration policies, parental pressures, student's college admission needs, etc. But since I probably can't get away with failing the majority of my students because they have "Senioritis" and I desperately want them to learn and master my subjects, what am I to do?
Help!
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Impeach President Trump, again
3 years ago
I would seek to adopt Coach Fuller's system with the addition of your lectures. That being, receiving a general overview of the current coursework for a set period of time (Coach's two/three-week span seems quite ideal) and allow the student to choose to work or not. Following the two/three-week span, there is a test that follows the style of the IB test.
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree with his methodology on distributing coursework and lesson plans, I feel that his system could be improved by your general knowledge of economics dispensed through your everyday lectures.
In terms of homework, I generally say no, because it's too easy for students to get away with stuff at home. However, tests that significantly affect grades force a student to know coursework in a situation where they do not have aiding resources except their own knowledge.
Furthermore, Coach's system generally divides the class into the groups of those who wish to succeed and those that do not care. This system would hopefully force more students into the former category and thus provide our generation with a greater understanding of economic knowledge.
Also, when can I get Applied Economics from you?
Thanks, Christian. Specifically are you thinking in terms of changing the "overview" material to be more like Coach's assignments, doing away with the Fill-in-Blank syllabi, adding to them, or what? I tend to agree that daily homework does not seem as aligned to the IB Econ course - it's a bigger issue in Statistics and to a lesser extent AP Econ (due to the difference in testing requirements).
ReplyDeleteI had Applied on the bench - somebody in my house must have brought it in. I'll find it and put it out again.
One of the biggest lifesavers for me in college has been the course syllabi. Having the advanced notice and hardcopy of due dates just helps with the mentality of "ok, I have an assignment due this day for this class, but I have a paper due this day for this class...which should I do now and which should I do later."
ReplyDeleteTo get homework done, I wouldn't make it all textbook work. The most helpful thing I remember from your class is when you would give us articles that applied what we were reading about in our textbook to real world problems. As the sister of one of your students this year, I can tell you that for students like my brother, they need to know how it's going to apply in a concrete sense, rather than the abstract of theories.
I don't think Coach Fuller's system would be ideal to an AP style test at all. I also don't think it would be good for a first class of anything. That history class was the last history class of our high school career, and there was such a broad amount of history in the curriculum, that a "study as much as you want to" from this time period proved beneficial. That way, students could study sections they liked more, etc. With economics, where it is mostly theories backed up by world events, I believe the theories must be explained thoroughly.
ReplyDeleteHowever, I would go with a "you don't do the work at an acceptable level, you fail" methodology. It's a higher level class in the highest level of high school. In all respects, students are taking that class hoping to get a college freshman level education on that topic. As much as I liked your class, and I did moderately well on the test, I think I could have learned more if 90% of the people in the corners of the classroom weren't talking at full volume.
@Balthrop - I believe you ought to keep everything in class the same, but distribute syllabi at an interval over the course as opposed to the vast overview at the beginning of the course. Basically, add IB-style tests (as you did) every two/three weeks (as you see fit) in which it basically tests how much they pay attention in class. Also, I'll pick up the book today.
ReplyDelete@Ryan - My point is that Balthrop adopts Coach's methodology IN ADDITION to his own style. Yes, economics is all theory, but that's what Balthrop's lectures are for. I just believe that adopting Coach's method would forcefully divide the class between those who care and those who don't, and that the grades and test scores will reflect as that.
One of the most important obstacles the U.S. will be facing is the inherit problems of its public education system and the dismantling of family values. These two things together are one of the main reasons I believe we have found ourselves in the economic problems of today. The tables have turned-in the classroom and at the dinner tables leaving the next generation with false notions about accountability and responsibility. The attitude used to be yes we have the freedom to do one thing, but I know through my parents and education that it should or should not be done. Now we live in a much faster, ignorant society with a new attitude instead of becoming educated ethical people who can choose right from wrong-we'd rather Uncle Sam do the work for us and restrict our freedoms. This is a dangerous new precedent we are beginning to set that could end disastrously. Now on how to get kids to do their hw especially in econ. This is how I would approach it. Mr. Balthrop the book and syllabi are very important and I would make the syllabi worth a few points in the grade book and not accept them anymore if they are over a week past due. Furthermore I would base 5 - 10 min of the classroom lecture on something in the nightly reading-if students had not read then they cannot follow the lesson. This at least put them in an uncomfortable position that may motivate them to study. Furthermore Mr. Balthrop I would tell the cold hard truth. If you aren't naturally gifted and I mean gifted in all areas like a superb student and you choose not to study-fine, but the chances of the diploma are very low. Now if these things don't work then I'd be happy to stop by one day and see what I can do lol.
ReplyDelete@Sean - Wall of text, much?
ReplyDeleteMost definitely is but I've been thinking a lot lately and every national problem we face-drugs, obesity, poverty, the economy, almost every major political problem can fall back on education and then family values. I think its time we stop trying to rebuild the walls of our metaphorical castle, but instead update the core and fix the infrastructure.
ReplyDeleteI think that you shouldn't change your teaching ways at all. You made economics understandable and it helped me through all my college courses. At the point in high school that your teaching, there is little you can do to stop the daydreams and the doodling, You can't teach everyone and the way you teach, I think, already reaches the average student who has no idea what economics is. Keep teaching the way you do, and I don't know about other people, but when i was sleeping in your class, I still learned a lot.
ReplyDeleteSeeing how I was never in Coach Fuller's class. I can't say that I know much about integrating his own style of teaching with the lectures. I don't know how to say it, but I think it already is divided into those who care and those who do not care but... it doesn't really help that we have months in between the fall tri and the exam we're supposed to take and with the qualifier requiring a 2 eliminating some students who care but just had a bad test and forcing other students who may have cared to be dropped out of the process. I'd hate to shift the subject but knowledge retention is a problem too, especially for people with not so good of a memory as myself which is why I had to go to the review sessions and whatnot whereas others may not have known about them or had been too busy with other AP Exams during the crunch time, considering as I only had four this year it wasn't really that big of a deal for me to work around my schedule and come to some of them, missing some because of other things such as work or just oversleeping sometimes. I know you can't work around everyone's plans/schedule though.
ReplyDeleteI wish I had more ways to help out in terms of the classroom experience and encouraging through grades and whatnot to read the book without going overboard, but that's my two cents for what it's worth.
Give them a lesson in life, treat them like a college proffesor and an employer would, if someone can not care at all and make good grades, then that's their business... the world wouldn't care as long as they produce, but that doesn't mean that the second they make a bad grade, they get help. But definitely don't aid those who don't do work and fail, but then look at you with sorrowful eyes later. (I seem to remember receiving a 99.5 on a test which I missed no questions, and kevin turned in a quarter of the test, and made a 70). If they fail and don't care, they fail. That's the way it goes, but don't baby them in hopes that they'll one day turn around and try to help you out by making a good score on a test that reflects upon you.
ReplyDeleteBut by the other token, in the real world and in college a student or worker that is there to work and work hard but has a hard struggle with the material should be helped out with simpler grading or the benefit of the doubt(i.e. free points for caring), as they would later on. I've heard many a tale about students in college who have no idea what they're doing in a course and are sure that they couldn't have gotten more than 25% of the questions right on their final exam and yet passed with a B simply because they were CONTINUOUSLY seeking further guidance after class. Give them an incentive to care, and a consequence for not caring. That would be most optimal.
So far as actually getting the information to your students... I don't know if there is a better way than the way you already had it set up through real world articles and practical examples and your lectures, now I too never experienced Fuller (BY CHOICE) but all I know is that when you spoke and I listened (as opposed to playing on my iTouch or making plastic cup bow-ties) I learned things and did well on the tests, and when I didn't I did less well, or at least I wasn't dripping with arrogance about my mastery of the subject.
I am horrible at keeping up with reading assignments for class. The only class that I did all the readings was for my Marketing class last semester. The professor wrote the exams so that half the questions were from lecture and half were from the text. If you miss class you miss his unique examples and stories to illustrate the concept. If you don't read, you miss the questions he pulled directly from the book. Either way, you had no chance of passing the class unless you participated in both aspects. ~Sarah L
ReplyDeleteEconomics was one of the hardest subjects in school for me, I just couldn't seem to grasp the concept no matter who tried to help me. Being in college one of the things that has helped me the most is the syllabi, giving me a play by play of what to expect in the coming semester. Another thing one of my professors does in his class is called "yellow slides." In the notes he gives in class he puts in yellow slides that have random facts about himself or things going on on campus or in the world, and on the test he gives us bonous questions to answer based on the "yellow slides." This made MOST of the people pay more attention because they wanted the extra credit.
ReplyDeleteI know being a senior is hard because by December most people have already been accepted to college and they think they don't need to work anymore to get the grade because they are alredy going to college. For current students who are reading this, make sure you pay attention because it comes in handy when you get to college!
Maybe give the IB students an AP test over any material they share. The book or any other reading material could provide the study tool. More then likely the test is harder then IB ones, and will force them to read the book for that part.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was taking the lab for anatomy and physiology 1 and 2, if we didn't do the reading and homework sheets over the reading we would take quizzes every week over the material instead of having our homework graded. I really found that this was the first time I EVER seriously read a textbook. Not only did I not have to cram (which I always seemed to do in highschool), I got an A in the course.
ReplyDeleteIn microbiology, we used the teachers notes instead of the textbook. She had everything essential in them but she was extremely picky when it came to test time. I liked that, instead of having to read a textbook...but I can understand that it would be a lot of work making notes like that!
I hope somebodys info helps, but I don't think anything helped me when I was in highschool. It really was something I had to take the initiative to learn on my own, when the stakes were higher.
Oh, and don't give IB students AP tests. I don't think they'd appreciate that one at all :)
Frankly, as one of those Seniors with an advanced case of "senioritis" (I caught it about 3 weeks after the start of my junior year, I believe), about the only thing that dragged me out and made me do work was some sort of interesting in-class activity (wheat trading, anyone?). The activity itself wasn't the lesson, but it created a desire to study more and figure out why the in-class experiment went the way it did. That in turn led to more reading/studying, and even (wonder of all wonders) actually paying attention in class. Frankly, I think that Senioritis is not so much a problem of apathy as it is one of "we've done this a hundred times before". Lecture this, read that, multiple choice test, next subject. Anything that throws off the "been there done that" syndrome can't help but help.
ReplyDeleteI personally never took AP or IB classes, my in put could not help you much, but I can give you a very advanced knowledge of the inner workings of the regular high school student.
ReplyDeleteGenerally, they never want to do the homework, and 90% of them are just in school because their parents made them go. You always have that select few that actually want to learn the information, and do well, but are not always a talented kid. They sometimes have a harder time understanding things, and don't grasp it right away, but they still work to get it. Doing things like having no homework might help them but you could only do a weekly test from them because as people above had said, it would weed out the ones who don't care vs. those who do not care.
If you show a passion for things more people will follow you, conformity is the root of High School Existance. Kids do like to learn, they have that spark in them, they just need someone to light the spark within them.
This is some good and useful stuff, keep it coming. I would like to tweak it a bit - believe it or not I'm not as interested in suggestions for my specific class as I am in hearing from you college guys. Can you get away with not reading or doing homework in college? If not, why not? How do your college professors get you to do work we couldn't get you to do in high school? What was your epiphany about the connection between reading/homework and learning and success?
ReplyDeleteI swear in college it wasn't the reading that saved my grade but the homework I did. Which essentially you have to go back to the text but now you're forced to if you want to get your homework done. I mean we're all ADD and reading can get slow and boring at times, in one ear and out the other. Half the time I didn't really soak in what I was reading. But when applying it, that was when it really stuck out in my head and helped a lot during the test.
ReplyDeleteI know you may laugh at this seeing as how I constantly fell asleep in your class Mr. B. haha. Or you know got speeding tickets and used you for legal advice you know the usual. lol.
But my studying habits had to get better and they did and like pop quizzes helped me simply bc they forced me to keep on top of the material. And our pop quizzes were just applying what we had learned to real life situations. They really did help. And in doing so I didn't cram for tests just like Katherine said. I made way better grades in college than in high school.
I liked having reading assignments instead of a teacher going Ok learn all of chapters 1-4 by next week. See ya later! Putting it all in tiny pieces makes the entire work load WAAAAY easier.
I'm currently taking a Seminar in Corporate Finance, and I think that several of the techniques used in my class would be relevant here.
ReplyDeleteWe have four homework days scheduled throughout the semester. (It’s only a summer session, so roughly one homework day per week.) The homework that is due is from any chapters that have been completed since the last homework day. This means that the only homework we are currently responsible for is material that has been covered in class. During these homework days, the entire class period is devoted to working through problems. Students are able to go up to the chalk board and show the class their proposed solutions to problems and ask for help. Students are then able to go up and correct the proposed solutions or offer alternative methods.
What makes this work? What ensures that students ask questions and participate? Participation counts for 25% of our grade. While this is a graduate level course and 25% may be a bit extreme in the high school setting, knowing that participation factors into my overall grade forces to me contribute. Students get points for asking questions AND offering solutions.
This method achieves several goals. Students who know that participation matters will step up and ask questions. Even offering wrong solutions is a learning process. By asking questions, students get better. Those students who choose not to take advantage of the participation points probably wouldn’t be doing the homework in the first place, and their grade will more accurately reflect their effort. Also, many students will have the same questions and either don’t know what to ask or are too afraid to speak up. This method allows the students to help teach each other while learning themselves.
Hope this helps! I’m taking a History of Economic Thought class in the fall. We’re reading Marx, Keynes, and Smith as well as other primary texts. Because of my AP scores, they waved six hours of prerequisite courses. Thanks for all of your help!!
You hit on it and dismissed it in the post. Make the class very difficult and graded much like college work. Make the tests hard to finish within the class time and require a somewhat large amount of "busy" work to be done if possible.
ReplyDeleteCollaborative projects usually keep good students in line because they don't want to look stupid, but if they work too hard they won't look cool. This is a somewhat big factor in a high school students willingness to learn.
Fuller's laissez faire system of projects and notecards could work as a supplement, but the classroom should still be about a good teacher interacting with students to understand as well as he/she does. Emphasize how the teacher is a friend and the difficulty of the class is the enemy to be overcome. Many students including myself have resisted learning because of a grudge against the difficulty of a class transferring to the teacher.
From what I remember your class was very engaging when you were teaching but at times there was some wasted downtime. I would recommend limiting this by using very difficult group projects that are based around either economic theory or actual case studies.
Include participation grades but limit them, as i've never felt the majority of students take participation seriously enough to ask questions that help other students.
Finally I would say have ample extra credit assignments in the form of book reports on a predetermined list of economics related books and maybe to even run their own blog and grade on the number of constructive posts and comments. Make the blog posts only related to current events and articles such as the economist links you've been posting.
This way the group benefits the most, but the overachievers can still get their 5.0, and with your guidance, a few 7's on HL. Good luck!
ok im going to try and explain this...if it doesnt make since then i will be more than happy than to meet with you and explain.
ReplyDeletei took an econ in college...it kicked my butt alittle but i worked really hard. the part that saved me was the professor used real life situations to explain concepts. for example - remember on precint line and harwood where there use to be two gas stations (now there is a duncan donuts and what use to be seekers) the teacher explained supply and demand using those two businesses (but he did not reveal the location and business till the end) he then added a third business down the street and explained the pressure from that business on the two business that were already in competition.
along with real life examples the teacher had a participation grade based on students who could answer defintion words and "easy concepts" from the txt-this showed that students were atleast reading the txt and also didnt "punish" for students who could not understand the text completely. the participtaion grade also included a time when he would at the end of class give an example and have us draw graphs to match the example. our class was rather small so i understand in bigger classes it may not be possible to have indivdual work like that (groups could work too) but i think the biggest part of econ is being able to graph and show the changes along with explaining how the changes effect the company.
hope this helps!
Haley Brown
Mr. Balthrop,
ReplyDeleteI think that a student has to take the initiative to learn, and no matter how hard you try, some students will inevitably fail. It's just the nature of the beast. Economics, for me, was just torture....i dont know why i always was so sleepy in your class. Perhaps because it was the last class of the day....anywho, i think that making more interactive assignments where students get together to do projects that they present in class would be helpful. For me, having to learn something to teach to someone else helps me learn it much better because i know someone else needs this information from me. I feel like "hey, they are counting on ME and i cant let them down!" The only downside to group projects is that you will always undoubtedly have one person who will let the others do all the work....but this can be nipped in the butt if you anonymously have the group members grade each other and make it so that there are two grades involved, a group presentation grade and an individual grade, the latter being the one that counts the most. I would encourage more study groups in class. I remember Mr. Wooley had groups in his world history class.....we were responsible for certain class projects he'd assign, but he would encourage us to meet together and study as well as trade S/N's so we could talk outside of class, and talk about world history OUTSIDE of class so we could be completely immersed in the subject and learn it better. I think that the more a student feels like their counterparts are understanding the subject, the more they are going to want to learn it too. That also makes it so that there is a sort of unspoken "competition" between students on who can learn it the most effectively, and that competitive spirit may make students more eager to learn the subject.
Anywho, i hope these ideas help! :)
~Mirielle Caamano
History is marked by progressivism. Conservatism (i.e. "family values) is what defines everything we know today as 'wrong,' like mercantilism, slavery, segregation, and other civil rights issues.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to homework I know that in my dual credit courses the syllabus was the most foreign, most helpful thing ever. Knowing what will be discussed in class and what all the assignments will be 12 weeks in advance was great (also the professor didn't ALWAYS stick to the syllabus; if some material had t be covered more, it was).
I also think that there are some fundamental problems in America's public education system to begin with. In school there should be more freedoms given to the student concerning what he/she WANTS to learn. THis may seem contradictory to my normal ideology until I add that I think there needs to be higher taxes to pay for a better public education system.
First, (let's face it) some teachers just aren't good at their job. I know they do their best and want their students to achieve success, but sometimes the classroom is a hinderance to their maturation. This is why I would propose a type of annual 'board of review' for every teacher. Afterwords a decision would made whether the teacher deserves a raise, a paycut, a promotion, or needs to be let go.
The other part of high school I thoroughly did not enjoy was the mandatory preparation for AP exams. Forcing someone to do something never does anything. I would propose, again, more freedoms being given to the student. In fact I KNOW that if I had been given the CHOICE to take the English Composition AP exam, I would have chosen to take it because I enjoy persuasive writing. This in itself, though, is flawed. You cannot 'teach to the test,' as so many people have brought out before. THis brings me to my last point.
There is something called Rote Learning, a technique many are familiar with. Wikipedia says: "Rote learning is a learning technique which avoids understanding of a subject and instead focuses on memorization." Sometimes this works for people. Sometimes it doesn't. To me (a right-brained person (yet right-handed)) memorization is actually very difficult and is much harder than actually knowing the facts. Learning by repetition (a technique used extensively in foreign language classes) works, but it also encourages stagnation among the pupils.
I lied. This is my last point: there needs to be teacher-student understanding. If the teacher knows the BRAIN CHEMISTRY of their student, then the true potential of the student can be brought out. This is why I would propose classes based on ideological standpoints: keynsian macroeconomics vs. supply-side macroeconomics; English III with a concentration in Logic vs. English III with a concentration in Philosophy; evolutionary science classes vs. science classes that teach creationism. All students who chose to enroll in these classes would have to understand both ideologies, taught to them by someone who truly BELIEVES what they teach (like you Mr. B!). The student when then make their own choices rather than have a dogmatic organization 'lay down the law.'
Ok, so from a former student (C/o 2002) who did not attend college after high school, I loved your class! You are one of the only teachers I really remember from school. (Mr. Mike Schille's english class being the other) You made it interesting to learn about economics. And I think the fact that you didn't care if we wanted to sleep...made me not want to sleep.
ReplyDeleteI jumped right into the carrier world with the 401K and all, and first thing I thought about? "Mr. Balthrop said that if I start and IRA I could be a millionaire!!" So I did, and I'm not.
But that's not the point. The point is, I am a 25 y/o female with a 401K and an IRA! Each year when I get a raise, I bump up the amount that goes into each. I'm not meaning to brag, beacuse trust me, it's not a lot of money, I just don't think I would have ever understood the importance of all of this without your class.
So yeah, for me, it was all about the money. I like money. I like making money. And I like watching my money make itself. So thank you Mr. B. for teaching me about money. :) I'm not sure how your teaching style has changed over the years, but for me, it worked.