🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <DDFr-110193133204@law-mac-3.uchicago.edu> DDFr@Midway.UChicago.Edu  
(David Friedman) writes:

> In article <1hl507INNoaq@terminator.rs.itd.umich.edu>, Hal.Varian@umich.edu
> discusses his views on teaching economics in the context of his textbook
> and classes. 

> One of the problems in teaching economics is that the students think they
> already know it. The subject is all around them, and many of our technical
> terms are words, such as "efficiency," whose meaning they think they know.
> So a student goes along for a month "translating" the logical structure he
> is being taught into a much fuzzier form along the lines of what he already
> knows and only discovers that he is missing something when he fails the
> midterm.

 > One solution to this I like is to get strongly counterintuitive results.
> When you reach a conclusion the student knows is wrong (one of my favorites
> is the argument showing that legalized polygeny benefits women but not
> necessarily men, and vice versa for legalized polyandry) he suddenly has to
> pay attention.

This is a very good idea; I do it too.  On page 11 of my undergrad text I argue  
that turning 100 apartments into 100 condominiums has no effect on the rent
for the remaining apartments.  Most students find this surprising.  There are  
many, many more examples like this in my book.  (And in David Friedman's book,  
too, I hasten to add.) 
 
> So far as computer programs, I think it is possible to do much more than
> automated testing. 

I also agree strongly.  I've been doing a lot with symbolic math packages  
lately.  For example, I wrote 25 Mathematica Notebooks to accompany my graduate  
textbook which are posted on MathSource.  [To use MathSource, send e-mail to
mathsource@wri.com with the message "help intro".  You might also send another
e-mail with the line "find economics" to find the Notebook I posted.]
I also have edited a book called "Economic and Financial Modeling with
Mathematica", TELOS/Springer-Verlag, 1993, ISBN 0-387-97882-8. This book  
contains a lot of research-oriented examples that are, I think, very  
stimulating.

These are example of the use of computers at the graduate and postgraduate  
level.  But I think that there are many promising applications at the undergrad  
level as well.  For example, I'm now translating several workbook problems into  
Mathematica format and I'm going to try using these in the classroom next time  
I teach the course.
--
Hal.Varian@umich.edu    Hal Varian
voice: 313-764-2364     Dept of Economics
fax:   313-764-2364     Univ of Michigan
                        Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1220