Committee
on Economic Education of the American Economic Association
Minutes
of the Meeting of January 4, 2003
Grand
Hyatt Hotel, Washington, DC
Present: William Becker, Rae Jean Goodman, Charles
Holt, Mark Maier, Greg Mankiw, Michael Murray, Michael Salemi, and William
Walstad (chair). Robert Duvall,
President of the National Council on Economic Education attended. Absent: Dan Hamermesh. The meeting was called to order at 12:45
p.m.
1. Introduction
Bill
Walstad opened the meeting by reviewing the status of the CEE membership. He reported that Paul Romer had been
appointed to serve a three-year term by the AEA President. Dan Hamermesh and Bill Walstad were
reappointed to serve second three-year terms.
Bill will continue as CEE chair.
2. Past Minutes
The
minutes of the meeting of January 5, 2002 in Atlanta were approved as written.
3. DC Sessions
Bill
asked for a report on 2003 AEA sessions organized by the CEE. The responses from the CEE members were very
positive on the four of the five AEA-CEE sessions that had been conducted. Paper Session #1 “Preparing and Improving
the Economic Teacher” (Greg Mankiw chair) drew about 70 participants. Paper Session #2 “Outcomes Assessment in
Undergraduate Economics” (Bill Becker chair) attracted 70–80 participants. Workshop #1: “Funding Projects to Advance the Teaching and Learning of
Economics” (Mark Maier chair) was attended by 60 participants. Workshop #2: “Web Games and Strategies: Recipes for Interactive Learning in
Economics” (Charles Holt chair) had about 50 people participate. [Note:
Workshop #3: “Poster Session on
Active Learning” (Rae Jean Goodman chair and held after the meeting) drew about
70–80 participants.]
4. Reports
a. Journal
of Economic Education
Bill
Becker gave the highlights of the JEE annual report that had been mailed
to the CEE members in December (a copy of this annual report is available at
the JEE website: http://www.indiana.edu/~econed/anrpts.htm). Bill thanked Bob Duvall and the National
Council on Economic Education for its renewal of a commitment to provide
on-going support for the JEE.
The JEE website continues to receive a great deal of attention
from faculty members at many universities, not only in the U.S. but also
abroad. Bill also expressed some
concerns about publishing problems at Heldref (the JEE publisher) and
also explained the relationship between the CEE and the JEE. Bill Walstad reported that copies of the
Fall 2003 issue of the JEE had been distributed at the Economics
Department Chair’s breakfast and attention given to the article on “Foreign
GTAs Can Be Effective Teachers of Economics” by Belton Fleisher, Masanori
Hashimoto, and Bruce Weinberg at Ohio State.
b. National
Council on Economic Education (NCEE)
Bob
Duvall, President of the National Council on Economic Education, gave the NCEE
report that described the recent major activities and publications of the
NCEE. Of particular interest was the
National Symposium on Economic and Financial Literacy that the NCEE organized
and conducted with the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in May, 2002 in
Washington. Bob provided recent data on
requirements for pre-college economics in the various states. He also described developments in the NCEE’s
work on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) test in
economics, which is to be conducted in 2006.
Bob invited all members to attend a reception the NCEE was hosting that
evening.
Greg
Mankiw, Chief Economist for the NCEE, reviewed the new list of NCEE
publications and programs as part of the report. Greg also suggested that high school teachers be invited to
attend the AEA meeting because some of the sessions would be of interest and
value to them. Several suggestions were
offered about how to achieve this objective.
We could start by inviting teachers in the host city. We could focus on AP teachers. We could prepare a teacher guide to the
meeting. Bob Duvall and Bill Walstad
will follow up with John Siegfried to develop this idea for AEA.
c. Regional
Teacher Workshops
Mike
Salemi presented a report summarizing the status of the regional workshops that
had been conducted under the sponsorship of the Committee and the NCEE, and
which were funded by the Kazanjian Foundation.
Nine workshops proposals received funding in 2002. Eight of the nine workshops were conducted
in 2002. See www.unc.edu/~salemi for more
information. The 2002 workshops
attracted 225 faculty participants and received high ratings as did the 2001
workshops. This program will continue
for one more year with funding from the Kazanjian Foundation.
d. CEE Annual Report
Bill
Walstad invited Committee members to make suggestions to him about the Annual
Report that he had sent out prior to the meeting. No additional comments were offered, so the report will appear as
is in the May 2003 AER Papers and Proceedings.
5. Program for the January, 2004 Meetings in San
Diego, CA
a. Paper
Session #1
Bill
presented a proposal for a 2003 session on “Recent Research in Economic
Education.” This session would consist
of three papers that were products of funding proposals initiated at the May
2000 AEA–CEE Research Projects Conference:
(1) A research report on the efficient use of technology in economic
education that evaluates the effectiveness of different technologies in
introductory courses (Kim Sosin, Betty Blecha, Rajshree Agrawal, Robin
Bartlett, and Joe Daniel); (2) An investigation of the long-term effects of
studying undergraduate economics based on an analysis of survey data collected
from alumni at four universities (Sam Allgood, William Bosshardt, Wilbert van
der Klaauw, and Michael Watts); and (3) A study of the match between knowledge
and skills acquired by new economics Ph.D.s during a graduate program and the
knowledge and skills required by new Ph.D.s during their first year of work (W.
Lee Hansen and Wendy Stock). The papers
from this CEE-sponsored session would be published in the AER Papers and
Proceedings (May, 2004). Michael
Murray, Mike Salemi, and Bill Becker volunteered to serve as discussants. The CEE approved the session proposal.
b. Paper
Session #2
This session will focus on economics
and journalism. Four economists will
prepare articles describing their experiences in educating the public and
writing about economics for news media: (1) Greg Mankiw: “The Economist as Public Intellectual”; (2)
Klaus Zimmermann: “Advising Policy-makers
Through the Media: A European
Perspective”; (3) Hal Varian: “How to
Make a Scene”; and (4) Dan Hamermesh:
“Maximizing the Substance in the Soundbite: Economic Education through the Media.” The discussants are yet to be identified, but CEE members
suggested that one or two journalists be included as discussants. The set of papers and perhaps the discussant
comments would be slated for publication in the JEE. (This arrangement for publishing papers from
AEA–CEE sessions in the JEE has a long history.)
c. Three Workshop Sessions on Teaching and
Learning
The
discussion turned to the three active learning workshops. Mike Salemi presented a workshop proposal to
have a session on “Teaching to Literacy in the Principles of Economics
Course.” Suggestions were made by CEE
members to re-focus the workshop on the learning and retention of economic
principles, and Mike agreed to do so.
His plan called for having a mixture of a standard session and a poster
session. There would a speaker to give
an overview of the issues and the session.
Then there would be teaching modules presented by other faculty members
who would explain how they teach economic principles with an emphasis on
mastery and retention.
Rae
Jean Goodman and Mark Maier will be organizing the traditional poster
session. They will also help Mike
Salemi organize his workshop session.
Both workshop sessions are requesting poster presentations, so there
would need to be coordination between the RFP and presentation selections for
these workshops. The current plan calls
for Mike, Rae Jean, and Mark to prepare and submit RFP ads to the AER
and JPE this winter calling for poster submissions on Mike’s workshop
topic of learning and retaining economic principles, and the general topic of
teaching and learning in undergraduate economics.
Charlie
Holt also agreed to conduct another workshop on web-based experiments and
strategies that would be similar to the one he led this year. The new feature of this session is that it
would use web games and experiments to show how new ideas from economics
research that reflect the most current thinking in the profession can be taught
to undergraduate students. The CEE
authorized Charlie to organize this workshop.
6. New Business
The main subject for new business was to begin
considering ideas for sessions for the 2005 ASSA meetings in Philadelphia. Bill Walstad invited CEE members to send him
suggestions or proposals by August 1 so that the CEE has full proposals to
consider early this fall.
a. Paper
Session #1
To start the process, Bill presented a draft proposal for a session that would be devoted to perspectives on whether economics teaching and research are complements or substitutes. Suggestions for papers were given and briefly discussed. The papers from this session would be slated for publication in the AER Papers and Proceedings.
b. Paper
Session #2
Bill
presented a concept for this session that would focus on “The Changing Role of
Textbooks and Supplements for Principles of Economics Instruction in a
Multimedia Environment.” About 4–8
textbook authors would be invited to present papers. There would be 4–8 discussants.
These paper and discussant comments would be slated for publication in a
special issue of the Journal of Economic Education.
c. Workshops
Michael
Murray suggested a workshop on international economic education. It would cover such topics as the effect of
trips and study abroad on the development of economic understanding, how to
conduct an effective trip or study abroad program in economics, and faculty
experiences in providing trips and study abroad programs for learning
economics. He agreed to develop a
workshop proposal for CEE consideration.
The
meeting adjourned at 2:20 p.m.