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Quantitative Methods Teaching

A Collaborative Approach

Dr Sarah Keast, Dr Fangya Xu, Panagiotis Tziogkidis

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Background Motivation The Literature The Plan Resources An example

Introduction

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Economics Group◦ Faculty of Business

Students◦ Average cohort 110◦ No post 16 mathematics qualification required

Programmes◦ BSc Economics (7 separate programmes in total)◦ Core second year Econometrics and final year electives in

mathematical economics and economic modelling Module

◦ Core for all Economics programmes◦ 20 credits◦ Mathematical and statistical modelling

Background

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Motivation Traditional lecture/tutorial format not

effective for teaching QM Lack of engagement amongst some

students Increased size of cohort More efficient use of staff resources Perceived decline in quantitative skills of in-

coming students

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Economics is less popular among disciplines in the NSS, especially with respect to assessment and feedback

Recent trends in teaching and learning include:◦ Peer learning◦ Problem based approaches◦ Use of online resources to facilitate independent

reading

Literature

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ETL project in economics: the traditional lecture-tutorial mode seems to fall apart

Constructive alignment: Biggs (1996)◦ … but also align with students: Reimann (2004)

Threshold concepts for teaching QM: Meyer and Land (2003)

Problem based approaches and “learning by doing”: Kolb (1984), Barnett (2009)◦ … particularly good for QM (Aliaga et al., 2012)

Student learning in economics

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20 %

10 %

5%

30 %

50 %

75 %

90 %

Lecture

Reading

Audio Visual

Demonstration

Group Discussion

Practice

Teaching others

Retention rate The learning pyramid

Source: National Training Laboratories, Bethel, Maine

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“To teach is to learn twice” - Whitman and Fife (1988)

The “learning cell”: Goldschmid (1970) Many benefits but many challenges: Boud

et al. (2001), Topping (2005) Assessment needs to be well-thought: Boud

et al. (1999) Recent examples: Herrmann (2013)

Peer learning

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Learning opportunities◦ Resource based learning: Video ‘lectures’ ◦ Learning through teaching◦ Experiential learning

Assessment and feedback◦ Peer assessment and critique◦ Online self-assessment with immediate automatic

feedback◦ Mini viva assessed by academic staff with specific

feedback◦ Consultancy style report and presentation with

authentic feedback

The Plan

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A series of resource booklets consisting of the following material:◦ Background documents with key concepts and

intended learning outcomes ◦ TED-Ed: build an online lesson using TED-Ed and

YouTube resources http://ed.ted.com/lessons?category=business-economics

◦ Mathematical for Economics: enhancing Teaching and Learning (METAL) http://www.metalproject.co.uk/

◦ Questionmark-Perception (QMP) and MyMathLab are used for self-assessment/formal assessment

Resources

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Example: How to Calculate Equilibrium Price and

Quantity

http://ed.ted.com/activity/lessons?lesson=EJuCkuSP&state=updateShare the lesson with students and ask them toWatch-Think-Dig deeper-Discuss-And Finally

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Teaching QM in economics is challenging We propose a blend of collaborative

learning and resources Obvious benefits but pitfalls that must be

avoided

Summary