American Economic Association
Committee on Economic Education
Minutes of the Meeting of January 6, 2007
Hyatt Hotel, Chicago, IL
Members Present: William Becker, David Colander, Kenneth Elzinga, Rae Jean Goodman, William Greene, Alan Krueger, KimMarie McGoldrick, Michael Salemi, Wendy Stock, and Michael Watts (chair). Attending as Invited Guests: Robert Duvall and Richard MacDonald, President and Vice President for EconomicsAmerica, respectively, of the National Council for Economic Education; and William Walstad, immediate past Chairperson of the AEA CEE.
After a buffet lunch the meeting was called to order at 12:30 p.m.
1. CEE membership
Mike Watts began his first meeting as CEE Chair by welcoming the committee members appointed immediately after the 2006 meetings in Boston, who had worked through the year but were attending their first meeting, Bill Greene and KimMarie McGoldrick. Bill Green replaced Randy Kroszner, who had just begun a term on the committee but had to step down when he accepted his appointment with the Federal Reserve. Watts announced that, at the invitation of AEA President Tom Sargent, Alan Krueger had agreed to serve a second term on the committee starting in 2007, and that Benjamin Friedman would join the committee as a new member. Watts then thanked Rae Jean Goodman and Mike Salemi as they completed six years (two terms) of service to the committee, and pointed out that Salemi had also served earlier terms, including six years as Chairperson.
2. Approval of 2006 Minutes and Annual Report
The minutes of the meeting of the January 7, 2006 meeting in Boston, and the 2006 report of the committee that will appear in the May 2007 AER Papers and Proceedings were approved as written. These documents will be posted on the CEE Website: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/
AEACEE/index.htm
3. Reports on New Grant and Proposal Projects
a) Dave Colander and KimMarie McGoldrick, who are serving as co-principal investigators, gave a brief report on a $75,000 grant just awarded to the CEE by the Teagle Foundation, to prepare a report with responses and commentary on the role of the economics major in a liberal education. This was one of six grants awarded to groups from different academic disciplines, which will lead to reports in each of the fields. For the economics project a small conference will be held at Middlebury College later this year. Input will be solicited there and in a variety of other venues and formats from academic economists at different kinds of schools, from current students and past graduates, and from employers of economics graduates. Preliminary versions of the report and responses will be featured at regional economics meetings, with a CEE session on the final report to be offered at the 2009 AEA meetings.
b) Bill Walstad presented a brief report on a draft proposal to offer a workshop on advanced econometric methods in economic education research. Walstad and Watts are serving as project administrators; Bill Becker will serve as the Chief Faculty Member; and CEE members Bill Greene and Alan Krueger will also serve as faculty. The NCEE will help in securing funding for the program, and with participant recruiting and program administration.
4. Update on the NSF-funded Teaching Innovations Program (TIP)
Mike Salemi distributed a report on the 5-year TIP program, for which he and Bill Walstad serve as co-principal investigators. In 2006 teaching workshops were offered in Chicago and Santa Fe for 68 economists. In 2007 workshops will be offered in Santa Barbara on May 18-20, and in Boston on June 8-10. Phase II of the program provides follow-up support through Blackboard modules on such topics as Assessment, Case Studies, Context Rich Problems, Cooperative Learning, Discussion, and Experiments and Interactive Strategies for Large Classes. Seventeen participants have now completed at least two of these modules, and were awarded Certificates of Achievement by the CEE, as approved at the start of the TIP program. Phase III of TIP began in 2006, and entails hosting a series of sessions at national and regional meetings in which TIP participants present papers on research and teaching innovations at national and regional meetings. One of the CEE sessions at the Chicago AEA meetings featured presentations by TIP participants. A website on TIP is available on the CEE Webpage: http://www.vanderbilt.edu/AEA/AEACEE/TIP.htm
5. Report from the Journal of Economic Education (JEE)
As the editor of the JEE Bill Becker serves as an ex officio member of the CEE. The 2006 JEE annual report was mailed to all CEE members in December, so only two points were highlighted in the verbal report to the committee. First, the JEE publisher (Heldref) has agreed to continue the additional pages it provided to JEE last year, to work off some of the extensive backlog of accepted manuscripts. Second, Bill Becker noted that in the “not too distant” future he would be retiring from Indiana University and stepping down as the editor of JEE. The NCEE has the legal authority and responsibility to appoint the editorial staff of the JEE, but Becker noted that in all earlier appointments of a new JEE editor, dating back to the first editor and Editorial Board, the CEE had also played a major role. Bob Duvall suggested that two or three CEE members be appointed to participate in the search. There was no objection to the committee playing that role again, and Mike Watts agreed to make these appointments when the general timeline and procedures for the search have been determined.
6. Report from the National Council on Economic Education (NCEE)
Bob Duvall and Rich MacDonald reported on a wide range of funding and programmatic initiatives at the NCEE. In the area of research and evaluation, and based on the voluntary national standards for K-12 economic education published by the NCEE, the first National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in economics has now been conducted, with results to be released later this year. A second administration of the NAEP in economics, in 2012, was recently approved by the NAEP Board (pending usual funding approvals in annual federal budgets). A new edition of the Test of Understanding College Economics (TUCE) is currently at the printer, and updates of standardized tests for middle school and upper elementary grades are also underway. In its K-12 curriculum initiatives, the NCEE is focusing its work in four key areas: economic literacy, financial literacy, international economics, and entrepreneurship. It also publishes materials to promote infusion of economics in other subject areas, such as history, mathematics, government and civics, geography, environmental issues, and elementary language arts. Two major federal grants are currently supporting NCEE initiatives, one for domestic programs and one for international programs in developing and transition economies. One of the CEE sessions at the Chicago meetings featured K-12 research papers funded under the domestic Excellence in Economic Education program, and Bob Duvall noted that he found the papers in that session to be extremely valuable in terms of reporting results and demonstrating accountability to both private and public sponsors. The NCEE will host another Summit on Financial and Economic Literacy in Washington DC in June, 2007. Finally, for the past four years NCEE had supported meetings for secondary economics teachers who attended the AEA meetings, but with only five teachers attending last year in Boston and none this year in Chicago. With full agreement from John Siegfied at AEA and the current and past chair of the CEE, the NCEE has decided to discontinue this program.
7. CEE Sessions and “Events” at the 2007 (Chicago) AEA meetings
As in recent years, the CEE sponsored three sessions of research papers, three teaching workshop sessions, and a breakfast for directors of undergraduate programs. The CEE Chair also makes a report at the AEA Breakfast session for Department Chairpersons, and provides the annual report for the CEE to the AEA Executive Committee.
The first research session was organized and chaired by Alan Krueger, on “The Market and Premarket for Graduate Students in Economics.” Paul Oyer of Stanford presented “Initial Positions, Long-Term Outcomes, and Organizational Structure in the Market for Economists.” Wayne Grove of LeMoyne College and Stephen Wu of Hamilton College presented “The Search for Talent: Doctoral Completion and Research Productivity of Economists.” Susan Athey (Harvard), Lawrence Katz (Harvard), Alan Krueger (Princeton), Steven Levitt (Chicago), and James Poterba (MIT) presented “What Does Performance in Graduate School Predict? Graduate Economics Education and Outcomes of Graduate Students.” CEE members Mike Salemi, Wendy Stock, and Dave Colander served as discussants. The session was well attended, with an audience of over 100. These papers are slated to appear in the 2007 AER Papers and Proceedings.
The second paper session was organized by Mike Watts and chaired by Barry Chiswick, and dealt with “Evaluation and Time Allocations in Teaching Economics.” Bruce Weinberg, Belton Fleisher, and Masanori Hashimoto (all of Ohio State) presented “Student Evaluation of Teaching Revisited.” Cynthia Harter (Eastern Kentucky), Michael Watts (Purdue), and William Becker (Indiana) presented “Time Allocations and Reward Structures for Academic Economists from 1995-2005: Evidence from Three National Surveys.” Sam Allgood and William Walstad (both of Nebraska-Lincoln) presented “Time Allocations to Undergraduate and Graduate Teaching in Economics and Other Disciplines.” Sam Allgood (Nebraska-Lincoln), William Bosshardt (Florida Atlantic), Wilbert van der Klaauw (Federal Reserve of New York), and Mike Watts (Purdue) presented “The Long-Term Effects of Economics Coursework on College Graduates’ Behaviors and Outcomes in the Labor Market.” The discussants were Barry Chiswick (Illinois-Chicago), Tisha Emerson (Baylor), Art Goldsmith (Washington and Lee), and KimMarie McGoldrick (Richmond). This session was also well attended, with an audience of about 75 despite a remote and somewhat obscure meeting room location.
The third paper session was organized by Liz Webbink, Bill Walstad, and Mike Watts, and chaired by Rich MacDonald. It featured papers on K-12 economic education funded under the NCEE’s Excellence in Economic Education program, described above. The audience was about 35, which compares favorably with K-12 sessions offered in previous years. Robert Hodgin (Houston-Clear Lake), Steven Cobb (North Texas), and Alberto Davila (Texas-Pan American) presented “Field Testing Novel Digital Learning Modules for Economics.” Paul Grimes, Meghan Millea, and Kathleen Thomas (all of Mississippi State) presented “Establishing a Baseline Measure of Teacher Economic Literacy in Mississippi.” John Swinton (Georgia College & State University), Benjamin Scafidi, Jr. (Georgia State), and Thomas De Berry (North Georgia College & State University) presented “Evaluation of Effectiveness of Workshops Offered by the Georgia Council on Economic Education.” Cynthia Harter and John Harter (both of Eastern Kentucky) presented “Assessing the Effectiveness of Financial Fitness for Life in Eastern Kentucky.” The discussants were William Bosshardt (Florida Atlantic), Jane Lopus (California State – East Bay), Rich MacDonald (NCEE), and Helen Roberts (Illinois – Chicago).
The first teaching workshop was organized by Mike Salemi and Bill Walstad, and featured presentations by participants from the NSF-funded Teaching Innovations Program (TIP), described above. Mike Salemi chaired the session, which drew an audience of about 45. Jill Caviglia-Harris (Salisbury) presented “Cooperative Learning and the Essay Exam.” Robert Rebelein (Vassar) and Nicole Simpson (Colgate) presented “A Classroom Demonstration on Exchange Rate Determination.” Neil Creahan (Morehead State) presented “New Insights from In-Class Experiments: Using Excel to Post and Analyze Results on the Spot.” The discussants were Gail Hafer (St. Louis Community College) and Pavel Kapinos (Carleton College).
The second teaching workshop session was organized by Paul Romer and chaired by Mike Salemi. It featured presentations by Ken Elzinga (Virginia) on “Teaching the Dismal Science Socratically,” Gail Hoyt (Kentucky) on “A Fresh Look at the Daily Quiz: Engaging Students in Principles Courses,” and Bill Wood (James Madison) on “The Principles of Macroeconomics Class: Teaching Aggregate Thinking.” The session was extremely popular, drawing an audience of at least 110, with discussions and questions from the audience continuing well after the allotted session time.
The third teaching session was the annual Poster session, organized by Rae Jean Goodman with assistance from Wendy Stock. Eleven presentations were featured, by Wayne Joerding (Washington State) on “Collaborative Assignments without Regrets,” Pavel Kapinos (Carleton) on “Using Excel to Teach New Keynesian Economics,” Maureen Kilkenny (Nevada-Reno) on “An Experimental Market for the Classroom to Test if Speculators Stabilize Prices,” Carsten Lange (Cal State Polytechnic) on “The Hogwarts System: An Internet Based Utility to Foster Students’ Active Class Participation and Attendance,” Mary Lopez (Occidental) on “Service or Community-Based Learning Projects,” Michael Quinn (Bentley) on “An On-Line Scavenger Hunt with Blackboard,” Jean Shackelford (Bucknell) on “iPods in Economics? Technology for Enhancing Active Learning,” Neil Sheflin (Rutgers-New Brunswick) on “The End of Teaching? The Use of Active Technology in the Large Introductory Economics Class,” John Smith (NYU) on “Active Learning Exercises for Microeconomic Theory,” Sue Stockly (Eastern New Mexico) on “Demand Analysis with ‘Real’ Data – A Written Assignment for Intermediate Microeconomics,” and Jonathan Wight (Richmond) on “Top Ten Lessons on Ethics in Economics: The Templeton/NCEE Project.” Audience estimates for this session are always a bit problematic, given the “come and go” format, but the rough estimate is about 75 attendees.
The continental breakfast meeting for directors of undergraduate programs was organized by Paul Romer and chaired by Gail Hoyt (Kentucky) and Dirk Mateer (Penn State), filling in for Paul. It appears there were communications problems this year in getting notices sent from department chairpersons to these directors. As a result only four directors were present, which is a drop of about 16 from last year. The four directors attending strongly encouraged CEE to continue the session, with better notification methods that are now being put into place.
Mike Watts gave the annual briefing on CEE activities at the Chairperson’s breakfast, and began by noting that since it being established as a standing committee in 1956, the CEE has never had or requested a regular budget from AEA. Instead it works with a number of different groups and organizations, or seeks funding for special projects through grants, such as the current TIP Program funded by NSF and the new grant from the Teagle Foundation (both described above). Copies of a recent issue of the Journal of Economic Education and a special offer for departmental subscriptions to JEE were distributed to the Chairpersons. Handouts on preliminary results were also provided by John Siegfried from the AEA annual survey of departments, suggesting that for the first time in a decade the number of undergraduate economics majors fell in 2006, mainly at public schools with doctoral programs. Those who wanted more information on these or other activities of the CEE were encouraged to access the CEE website.
8. CEE Sessions and “Events” at the 2008 (New Orleans) AEA meetings
At the 2008 meetings the CEE again plans to sponsor three research paper sessions, three or perhaps four teaching workshop/discussion sessions, and the breakfast for directors of undergraduate programs. The first paper session will feature papers on the first National Assessment of Educational Progress in economics (by William Walstad and Stephen Buckles), the new edition and national norming data for the Test of Understanding in College Economics (by William Walstad, Mike Watts, and Ken Rebeck), and assessment practices and trends over the past decade in undergraduate economics courses (by Georg Schaur, Mike Watts, and Bill Becker). This session is slated for publication in the 2008 AER Papers and Proceedings.
The second paper session will feature three or four papers selected from 12 papers that were received by December 1, 2006, in response to a call for papers that was published in the AEA journals and JEE in the spring of 2006, and also featured in an e-mail blast message from the AEA. Three members of the CEE reviewed the 12 papers to select those that will be presented, and are providing comments and suggestions to the authors of those papers.
The third paper session will be organized by Rich MacDonald and William Walstad, and will again feature papers on K-12 economic education funded under the Excellence in Economic Education project, described earlier.
The first workshop session has already been organized by Dave Colander, and will feature a panel discussion on “What Should Be the Core of Graduate Economics?” The panel will include Edward Glaeser (Harvard), Bo Honore (Princeton), Blake LeBaron (Brandeis), Derek Neal or Gary Becker (Chicago), and Michael Woodford (Columbia).
One or two workshop sessions will feature presentations by participants from the NSF-funded Teaching Innovations Program (TIP), discussed above. KimMarie McGoldrick will oversee the organization of these sessions, with Mike Salemi and Bill Walstad helping with the selection of presenters.
The final teaching session will be the annual poster session, with Wendy Stock overseeing the selection of presenters from those who respond to the call for posters.
9. Preliminary Plans for CEE Sessions and “Events” at the 2009 (San Francisco) AEA meetings
Bill Greene has agreed to organize a session of research papers, slated for publication in the AER Papers and Proceedings. Ken Elzinga will organize a teaching workshop session, perhaps dealing with training programs for teaching assistants, and which might become a special section of papers for the Journal of Economic Education. Dave Colander and KimMarie McGoldrick will organize a paper or workshop session on the Teagle project, described earlier. Ben Friedman will organize a session on addressing normative issues in economics classes in either 2009 or 2010. It is anticipated that the Poster session, a paper session based on an open Call for Papers, one or two teaching workshop sessions based on the TIP program, and a paper session based on the K-12 Excellence in Economic Education program, all described above, will also be continued.
The meeting adjourned at 2:20 pm.
Respectfully submitted,
Michael Watts