Economics Teacher

Hi. You may have noticed I have been very quiet of late. Blogging is great fun but the daily discipline of generating 200 words for every blog has turned a joy into a chore.

I have decided to return to my first love which is writing teaching resources. I am in negotiations to link up with a major publisher. Details to follow.

I am delighted that Matt Walker is carrying on the Politics blog at http://politicsforalevel.wordpress.com/. You will need to resubscribe to continue to receive his posts at this new web address.

See you elsewhere on the web soon.

I found this great website pdftoword thanks to TES tonight.

I attached a PDF (One of my own as I was unsure of copyright of this application) and 30 minutes later it emailed it back to me as a word document.  Tables were converted into word tables making it an excellent tool!

I tried the site with a marking scheme – using the old version of word I was able to import into power point!

Just spent part of a snow day coming to grips with the latest version of Microsoft PowerPoint, 2010, and experimenting with Camtasia.

I’ve uploaded of results to YouTube. The PowerPoint is a silent animated step-by-step guide to production possibility curve

Welcome back to the New Year and the new decade! With the January module less than a month away it is time for intensive revision.

A major focus of the OCR F585 Global Economy is economic stability and how economies respond to economic shocks.

One of the dilemmas is working out the best time to introduce students to the idea that there are several schools of economic thought in economics. I now cover the Keynesian model at AS, and introduce the new classical model only at A2.

Put simply I explain:

• Keynesian economists argue that wage stickiness can result in the economy being in long run equilibrium below potential GDP
• New Classical economists argue that free labour markets clear quickly restoring law and equilibrium. Trade union and worker protection laws can inhibit the ability of labour markets to clear slowing down the market clearing process.

The focus my teaching then becomes using these two models to explain the path of adjustment in response to economic shocks, and the role of government.

I’m posting on the topic of economic shocks this week over on economics student

The Economist publishes charts on current events on a daily basis. For example here is an interesting example of how various nations use the World Trade Organisation to settle disputes.

There are some highly stimulating graphics to use as stimulus slides with classes at Visual Economics.

The graphic on Government Spending by Country also highlights the importance of quoting sources. It is will worth asking students to read the three comments on the post which challenge the data.

Here is an online resource from the IFS which if used sensitively can help students better understand income distribution and deciles.

To avoid students entering personal details you can ask them to role play and estimate the amount of income needed to fit into a given decile. As you can see I have role played myself and have doubled my teacher salary to see ‘what if’

Visual learners will appreciate the series of interactive graphs on supply and demand hosted by Biz/ed. The emphasis is on appreciating the difference between a movement along and a shift in a curve – a perennial favourite

The section on shortages and surpluses is also very useful. And there are a set of questions that can be set for homework. A 5* resource.

Given the OCR website is down,  I am sharing on this site the replacement case study sent me by e-mail by OCR today. My students are not best pleased as many of them have invested significant amount of time in coming to grips with the just withdrawn version.

The trouble with Friday afternoon’s is that I am usually shell shocked. For this reason I am still a little uncertain about the phone call I took from the Economics section of OCR.

Bottom line: one of the pre issued case studies for January is being withdrawn. I am being sent replacements to arrive within two weeks – printed on different colour paper to avoid confusion.

I am also told the update is on the OCR web site. Trouble is no mention of any withdraw on the web site. No upgraded pre issued paper. Am I going mad? Or is there a delayed response on the web site.

Is OCR talking about Unit F585 – Stimulus material – January 2010 or the old legacy Economics of Europe?

In any case, there has been some wasted effort here. Some centres are going to be very upset. Me: I am holding onto my new year’s resolution of only sweating the big stuff