ABOUT THIS EPISODE
How do you explain inflation to a student who is working two jobs and raising kids? Brian Lynch hands them a cup of water with holes in it.
This week I sit down with Brian Lynch and Meena Beri, co-editors of TRECC (Teaching Resources for Economics at Community Colleges). The newsletter reaches about 3,000 economics instructors, many of whom are the only economist at their college.
We talk about:
- Brian’s leaky cup activity for inflation and purchasing power, and building supply and demand out of pool noodles, string, and painter’s tape
- Meena’s online students graphing equilibrium with crochet hooks and pipe cleaners
- The props that flopped, including a tricycle and a karaoke session
- Why today’s students seem less resilient, and what to do about it. Meena explains her procrastinator-type exercise and how it showed her that students weren’t lazy, they were anxious.
- Trauma-informed teaching, and why a $90 textbook can push a student out of college
- The hierarchy in our profession between two-year and four-year faculty, and why it needs to go
Meena put it best: relevance and rigor are not enemies. If you teach the only economics course most of your students will ever take, this episode is for you.
https://www.decodeecon.com/articles/brian-meena
English
United States
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