1. Improving Student Motivation through Interactive Lectures and Seminars
Welcome and introduction to centre staff
New initiative supporting learning and teaching in higher education economics
John Sloman

2. Tell me and I will forget Show me and I will remember Involve me and I will understand Step back and I will act
(Chinese proverb)

3. I've taught
Snoopy to
whistle
I said that I'd
taught him, not that
he'd learned
I can't
hear him
whistle

4. Learning
Learning is fundamentally about making and maintaining connections: biologically through neural networks; mentally among concepts, ideas and meanings; and experientially through interaction between the mind and the environment, self and other, generality and context, deliberation and action.
Learning is enhanced by taking place in the context of a compelling situation that balances challenges and opportunity, simulating the brain’s ability to conceptualize quickly and its capacity and need for contemplation and reflection upon experiences.
James Eison, Teaching Strategies for the Twenty-first Century, 2002

5. Rethinking the Seminar

6. Traditional approaches to seminars
Pre-prepared worksheet / problem sets
Nature
Pre-set questions
Students assigned to present answers
Clarification by tutor as necessary
Strengths
Structured study by students
Can reinforce material in lectures/reading
Chance to ask questions of tutor
Chance to evaluate progress

7. Traditional approaches to seminars
Pre-prepared worksheets / problem sets (cont.)
Weaknesses
Largely passive for students
Students are poor tutors
Problem when students have not done the answers: question of incentives
Answers?

8. Traditional approaches to seminars
Giving a paper
Nature
Individual (or two), possibly with respondent
Discussion (with pre-prepared questions?)
Tutor steered
Strengths
Gives students opportunity to present (key skill)
Helps develop research skills
Useful for further work (e.g. essay), helped by tutor feedback in seminar

9. Traditional approaches to seminars
Giving a paper (cont.)
Weaknesses
Poor learning experience for other students
Can degenerate into dialogue between presenter and tutor
Other students may not prepared for it (being solely concerned with their own presentation)
May encourage overspecialisation by student
Answers?

10. Interactive Teaching Almost always appeals to students
Increased involvement = increased responsibility for learning
Improves understanding
Improves motivation
Often leads to higher pass rates (lower referral rates)

11. The first seminar Establishing expectations
Student expectations of
Tutor
Other students
Themselves
Informal contract
Revisit contract in subsequent seminars

12. Seminar activities Reporting back on pre-prepared work Individual work
Reading
Calculations
Preparing answers to questions
Working in pairs or threes
Clarification of ideas
Comparing and agreeing on answers
Composing essay plans
Marking each other’s work; deciding marking criteria

13. Seminar activities Working in fours or fives Pyramid Fishbowl Envoys
Debating topic and arriving at team view
Preparing answer for plenary (use flip-chart / OHT)
Project team with division of labour
Pyramid
Bring together small groups which do preliminary work
Fishbowl
‘Fish’ discuss issue, others observe and note
Envoys
Individuals change groups to inject new ideas

14. Seminar activities Formal debates ‘Your Witness’ / ‘The Moral Maze’
Individuals assigned roles in advance
Given topic in advance: small groups prepare one side and then tutor chooses presenters
‘Your Witness’ / ‘The Moral Maze’
Panel to ask questions of pre-assigned witnesses
Presentation with primed respondents
One presenter, one respondent, others have to bring pre-prepared questions
Two or more presenters (different aspects)
Group presentations

15. Seminar activities Role playing Games, simulations and experiments
Pre-allocated roles and scenario
Pre-reading; roles allocated at time
Games, simulations and experiments
Whole class
In groups
Single session or over long time period
Videos
Followed by quiz, debate or small-group work
Computer lab sessions (individual or pairs)
Virtual seminars

16. Lectures and Large Workshops

17. Activities and breaks Student attention Diminishing returns
Attention wanes
Comprehension and learning declines
Give students things to do that aid their learning
Don’t worry about not ‘covering so much’
Even give them a break
Less is more!

18. Less is more
Comparing lectures in which 90% v 70% v 50% of the sentences disseminated new information (with the remaining time in case being used for restating, highlighting significance, giving more examples, and relating to the students’ prior experience) it was found that students given the lower level of new content learned and retained the lecture information better.
Russell, I.J. et al., 1984, ‘Effects of lecture information density on medical student achievement’, Journal of Medical Education 59: 881-9

19. Active and Passive learning
When students are constrained to the role of listeners while a lecturer delivers a monologue, they tend to be passive, not only at a behavioural level, but on a cognitive level as well
They do not engage actively in the kinds of elaborative information processing that helps to ensure understanding, retention and transfer
Jessica Ball, ‘Strategies for Promoting Active Learning in Large Classes’, Journal of teaching Practice, vol 3, 1994

20. Activities and breaks Activities Break Tests/quizzes (use of PRS?) .
Brief discussion with neighbour
e.g. policy implications
List of advantages / disadvantages
Doing a calculation / completing a diagram
Worksheets
Hybrid between lecture and workshop
Break
Watch video
Compare notes
Tidy up your own notes .
Entertainment

21. Building on the lecture
Note takers
Post on discussion board
Use for seminars
Post questions on discussion board
Use it as FAQ
Start debate going with students
Directly link to seminars/workshops
Material covered
Activities in the lecture
Online study guide: your own or published
Think of incentives for use
Preparation for next lecture

22. Workshops in Lectures Can be used with large lecture groups
Use worksheets
Useful for technical and other closed-ended questions
Student work through questions in pairs
Lecturer goes through them at front
Other considerations
Layout of room
Use of GTAs
Use of audience voting system

23. Classroom Experiments
Learning by doing

24. Games, experiments and role playing in PBL
Strengths
motivation, involvement, empathy, fun!
encourages active and deep learning
illustration and contextualisation
Potential weaknesses
over-simplification
not taken seriously

25. Games, experiments and role playing in PBL
Overcoming the drawbacks
clear guidelines
feedback and reflection
drawing on concepts in later classes
linked to seminar activities
The Exeter FDTL5 project (link)

26. Game 1: A trading game Students divided into buyers and sellers
Students given cards
Black for sellers of the item
Number on card gives cost of item in £s
Want to sell above value of card
Red for buyers of the item
Number on card gives value of item in £s
Want to buy below value of card
Trading takes place
Individual buyers and sellers agree prices
Mark their gain on their sheet
No deal gives no gain or loss

27. Game 1: Reflections
Students get considerable insight into the working of pit markets
Equilibrium prices rapidly emerge
Can vary the cards to see the effects on equilibrium
Easy to demonstrate producer and consumer surplus
Can discuss information issues
Can introduce a tax of £x on suppliers

28. (b) One we tried earlier
£2 tax imposed on sellers
(b) Potential gains
(b) One we tried earlier
An 18 player game

31. Game 2: Expected value game
TV show: Deal or No Deal?
Channel 4, six days per week (45 mins)
US version playable online (link)
26 people each with a suitcase of money, the amount not known to them
Sums of money vary from 1¢ to $1,000,000
One contestant us selected to play
… who eliminates suitcases in batches, whose contents are then revealed
After each batch, the contestant is offered a ‘Deal’ by the ‘Banker’, based on the values yet to be eliminated
The contestant chooses ‘Deal’ or ‘No Deal’

32. Game 2: Reflections
Virtually all students will be familiar with the game
Easy to set up:
It can be played online
Or with envelopes and the sums of money on the whiteboard
Illustrates decision-making under risk
Expected value; risk premia; probability; risk attitudes and what affects them

33. Game 3: Production function game
Activity
Production runs (2) in a factory, involving moving balls from one place to another
Extra workers are added one at a time
Equipment:
About 30 balls (e.g. tennis balls)
4 buckets (or baskets or cardboard boxes)
Students divided into two teams
Object to get as many balls from one end to the other in 30 seconds

34. Game 3: Reflections Easy to set up and fun to play Can demonstrate
Can bring alive a potentially dry subject area
Flexible: can be played with 1, 2 or more teams
Can demonstrate
Diminishing returns
TP, AP and MP
Can derive TC, AC, MC, TR, AR, MR and Profit
Shifts and movements along product and cost curves from technological change
Effects of changing fixed and variable costs

35. Game 4: Public goods game
Aim
Aim is to make as much money as possible, irrespective of what others make
Activity
Each person (or pair) is given four cards of the same value (e.g. four threes or four queens)
Each person plays two cards each round
Scoring
Black cards have no value
Red cards are worth £1 for everyone if played and £4 just to the individual if not played.

36. Game 4: Reflections Very easy to set up and fun to play
Can easily be played in a seminar
Flexible: can be played with up to 13 individuals or pairs
Can demonstrate
Public goods and external benefits
Prisoners’ dilemma and Nash equilibrium
Collusion versus competition
Motivation and altruism

37. Game 5: Auctioning a pound coin
Activity
This is a simple auction of a pound coin
The only difference is that both the winner and the next highest bidder have to pay
At the end
The money earned can be returned to students (but don’t tell them this at the start).
A discussion can then take place about the issues raised

38. Game 5: Reflections Simple and flexible Can demonstrate
Simple equipment: a pile of pound coins and a sheet for recording results
Can be played in a seminar group
Can demonstrate
Sunk costs and marginal costs
Risk attitudes
Collusive bidding
Concepts of equity

39. Game 6: A ‘Keynesian Beauty Contest’
A game about investor expectations
predicting share prices based on what you think other people will do
Simple to play
No equipment required other than:
a calculator for the tutor
a whiteboard/flipchart for recording results
The game (each round)
Students have to select a number from 0 to 100
A prize is given in each round to the student who selects a number closest to 2/3 of the mean

40. Game 6: A ‘Keynesian Beauty Contest’
Each person of N-players is asked to choose a number from the interval 0 to 100.
The winner is the person whose choice is closest to p times the mean of the choices of all players (where p is, for example, 2/3). The winner gets a fixed prize (e.g.a chocolate).
The same game should then be repeated for several periods. Students are informed of the mean, 2/3 mean and all choices after each period.
Students should write down each time (or at the end) a brief comment about how they came to their choice.
Time to think in each period: about 3 minutes

41. Game 6: Reflections Link1 Link 2 At the end Can demonstrate:
Students can be asked to explain their decisions
Can demonstrate:
Expectations formation
Iterative thinking / progression
Movement to Nash equilibrium

42. Game 7: Tradable Permits Game
Six teams
Each represents a polluting firm
Each team is given a worksheet and a marginal abatement cost (MAC) curve
Each team is given an emissions allocation
The same for all firms (1480 units)
Round 1
Establishes cost of abatement with no trading
Round 2
Teams can now trade allocations
Price is adjusted by tutor until demand equals supply
Establishes the cost with trading at market clearing price

43. Game 7: Reflections Uses MC = MR analysis in a different context
Demonstrates how emissions trading can achieve any given pollution reduction at minimum cost
Flexible: no. of permits can be varied to demonstrate
Effect on equilibrium price
Abatement costs
Seminar can analyses worksheets of all teams after the game

44. References Classroom Expernomics Charlie Holt’s Games papers
Charlie Holt’s Games papers
Charlie Holt’s Veconlab
Charles A. Holt, Markets, Games and Strategic Behaviour, Pearson/Addison Wesley, 2006
Bringing Economic Experiments into the Classroom (FDTL5 project: Univ. of Exeter)

45. Note taking
Evidence suggests that for immediate recall of a lecture, students who take most notes themselves come out best and those who rely on tutor notes come out worst.
In the medium term (a couple of weeks) those who listened, but took no notes, came out best.
Longer term, and with the chance for revision, those who took no notes came out worst, and those how have tutor notes come out best.
Liz Barnett, LSE, 2003

46. Audience response system