{"id":197,"date":"2014-05-23T06:55:50","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T10:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/?p=197"},"modified":"2015-04-06T08:42:33","modified_gmt":"2015-04-06T12:42:33","slug":"opening-up-your-thinking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/2014\/05\/23\/opening-up-your-thinking\/","title":{"rendered":"Opening Up Your Thinking"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week’s department meeting I was asked to bring one of the things I am doing in my classes, and after some deliberation I decided to bring the thing I was debating about scrapping only a week earlier. \u00a0I brought the game I tried with my students to help them understand the development of a modern economy. I’ve called the game Dunshire Abbey<\/a>, and so far it has required a lot of pushing<\/a>. \u00a0To finish this class with an exploration of a firms supply curve, and talk about the math and the economics around the concept, I was worried I was going to scrap my ideas\u00a0for the project. \u00a0After talking about the game with my co-workers I have a much clearer idea of how I can get students to understand the concepts and experiment with them in the game as part of the final project.<\/p>\n

What is the game about?<\/h4>\n

The basic gist of the game in my head was as follows. \u00a0Students begin as villagers in a town where the people are just slightly more advanced than hunter-gatherer. \u00a0The different phases of the games would compound on each other, so early stages of the game would use “commodity money” and bartering, later stages of the game would depend on “fiat money” and market-based pricing. \u00a0The final project would involve students working individually to run a modern company as they decide how to produce goods and make a profit. \u00a0This is, of course, in my head. \u00a0What actually was happening was that we were not iterating through the earlier stages of the economy and now there might not be time to get to modern times.<\/p>\n

Boiling it down to what’s important<\/h4>\n

After laying all of my ideas out for the department, and ignoring the initial feelings of embarrassment, I felt immediately better about the project. My co-workers asked questions which reflected back\u00a0my assumptions, pointed me towards\u00a0what the major goal was, and helped give me directions on how to get there. \u00a0In my head I was really focused on having this large connected game with a complex narrative full of\u00a0historical significance. \u00a0What really\u00a0matters was if the students were learning the information they needed\u00a0to finish the project at the end. \u00a0Once my colleague’s helped me realize this, my thinking about the project kind of “unlocked”.<\/p>\n

During my next class I jumped straight into the terminology of modern perfectly competitive markets with\u00a0a lesson that was a little less interactive than I would have liked. \u00a0Students were briefed about\u00a0the knowledge that we would have developed in the game over the next few weeks so we essentially skipped those concepts. \u00a0Each student individually, and not in groups, is the owner of a modern firm and has to make a profit. \u00a0We then spent a day looking at the relationships between costs, price, revenue and profits and the context of the market in regards to the game. \u00a0Next week we can add variability to the game when students have to respond to a “Chance” card that has different economic realities, including some of the ideas that we couldn’t fit in earlier. \u00a0Finally they will have to show with graphs and in writing how the reality will affect their companies ability to make a profit.<\/p>\n

Making the shift<\/h4>\n

After the conversation about the project I had a mental shift where it felt like my thinking was “unlocked,” and I didn’t even know it was locked! \u00a0The best part the whole\u00a0my mental shift was that the Math department really didn’t have to know anything special about my topic in order to help. \u00a0I am the only person in the department who took considerable economics in college, (although one guy was a\u00a0stock broker), but the familiarity with the content area really isn’t what was helpful. \u00a0They were able to listen to what I was saying and repeat it back to me with questions that prompted me to push my thinking. \u00a0In that regard just about any thoughtful person could have helped me. \u00a0Just about any teacher may have been able to help me. \u00a0The sad part is, were I not required to present something to department I wouldn’t have asked. \u00a0The minutes before the presentation I almost brought up a more “polished’ product in an attempt to impress my colleagues rather than\u00a0open up my process\u00a0to them. \u00a0It is hard to open up, even if it is good for you.<\/p>\n

When was the last time you opened up you teaching to people in your school for ideas? \u00a0Did you have similar results?<\/p>\n

22\/34 #MTBoS30<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week’s department meeting I was asked to bring one of the things I am doing in my classes, and after some deliberation I decided to bring the thing I was debating about scrapping only a week earlier. \u00a0I brought the game I tried with my students to help them understand the development of a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[11],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4xz6U-3b","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":199,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions\/199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.coast2coast.me\/carl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}