Nov 26 2009

Lesson Plan: Costs of Production Presentation for Y1 IB Economics

Published by Jason Welker at 6:03 pm under

Unit 2.3.1 Costs of Production: Team Presentation Activity

Learning Objectives:

  • Distinguish between fixed and variable costs of production
  • Understand how the law of diminishing returns affects the shape of a firm’s short-run total costs and short-run average costs.
  • Understand the relationships between marginal cost and the average costs faced by a firm
  • Distinguish between the short-run and the long-run and understand how economies of scale determines the shape of a firm’s long-run ATC curve.
  • Evaluate the importance to a business firm of understanding its short-run and long-run costs of production.

Success Indicators: Each team will create one Google Doc Presentation on costs of production. The two presentations that are created will be shared among group members, and edited as a team in class and over the weekend. Next week both teams will share their presentation with the class, and share them so that everyone can use the presentations to study for next week’s test on Costs of Production.

Process:

  1. Place students into four teams.
    • Teams 1 and 2 will research and prepare a presentation on Short-run Costs of Production
    • Teams 3 and 4 will research and prepare a presentation on Long-run Costs of Production
    • Teams will work independently. On presentation day, a team presenting on short-run costs will partner with a team that did long-run costs and combine their presentations into one. Ultimately, two presentations will be submitted to Mr. Welker for review.
  2. One person from the table will go to the website: http://docs.google.com/
  3. That person should log in to Google Docs using his/her Google account
  4. Once logged into Google Docs, select “Presentation” from the “Create New” drop-down menu. Title the presentation either “Short-run Costs of Production” or “Long-run Costs of Production”. Include teammates names on the first slide.
  5. Next, the person who created the Presentation must invite his/her teammates to the presentation so everyone can contribute to it. Go to the upper right hand corner of the screen and click “Share” and “Invite people”. Enter the email addresses of your teammates and make sure the bubble “to edit” is selected. Click “Send”.
  6. All teammates must check their email and make sure they received an invitation to edit the presentation. If you do not have a Google account, you may need to create one to get access to the document.

The assignment: Each team is to make one Google Presentation on an assigned topic based on what they learn using the web-resources provided by Mr. Welker below. Presentations will be shared with Mr. Welker and presented to the class on Tuesday, December 1.

Guidelines for presentation:

  1. Presentations must be at least 10 slides long, but no more than 15.
  2. Presentations must include definition, explanations, illustrations and examples (when possible) for the key concepts identified below
  3. Presentations must include graphs from the resources provided to illustrate concepts where necessary
  4. Presentation must use each group’s own words. Copying and pasting text from the resources provided is not permitted.

Teams 1 and 2 – Key Concepts

  • Short-run
  • Total, average and marginal product
  • Law of diminishing returns
  • Short-run total costs
  • Short-run marginal and average costs

Teams 3 and 4 – Key Concepts

  • Long-run
  • Long-run Average Total Cost
  • Economies of scale/Increasing returns to scale
  • Minimum efficient scale
  • Constant returns to scale
  • Diseconomies of scale/Decreasing returns to scale

Teams 1 and 2 – Resources on Short-run Costs of Production:

Teams 3 and 4 – Resources on Long-run Costs of Production:

Grading Presentation: Total – 40 marks

Area of assessment

High marks (7-10)

Medium marks (4-6)

Low marks (1-3)
Organization Easy to read. Font size varies appropriately. Text is appropriate length. Presentation falls within the required length limits (10-15 slides) Overall readability is difficult. Too much text. Too many different fonts. Presentation falls within the required length (10-15 slides) Text is difficult to read. Too much text. Inappropriate fonts. Small font size. Presentation is either too short or too long.
Graphs All graphs are related to content. All graphs are appropriate size and good quality. Graphics are explained clearly and illustrate the concepts from the presentation Some of the graphs are unrelated to content. Too many graphics on one page. Some of the graphics distract from the text. Graphs are explained, but explanations are incomplete or unclear Most of the graphs are unrelated to content. Too many graphics on one page. Most of the graphs distract from the text. Explanations are incomplete and unclear
Concepts The economic concepts that were assigned have been completely and accurately incorporated into the presentation. Definitions, explanations, illustrations and examples fully reflect the team’s understanding of the concepts The economic concepts assigned are all addressed in the presentation, but analysis is superficial and lacks original insight from the team members. The economic concepts assigned are not all addressed in the presentation. One or more have been left out completely, and those that were addressed were explained or illustrated incorrectly.
Individual contributions All team members contributed fully and equally to the research, creation and design of the presentation One or two team members did not “pull their weight” in the process of creating the presentation. Only one or two members of the team did all the work.

About the author: Jason Welker is a teacher at Zurich International School in Switzerland, where he teaches Advanced Placement and International Baccalaureate Economics. Jason was an international school student in Malaysia before studying economics at Seattle University then earning his Masters in Education. He calls Seattle and Northern Idaho home. In addition to maintaining an economics wiki and this blog for economics student and educators, Jason also gives presentations on using Web 2.0 tools in education at workshops and conferences around the world. His economics wiki won the 2007 "Best Educational Wiki" award from the "EduBlog Awards".

Related posts:

  1. Diminishing returns and the short-run costs of production – “Econ Concepts in 60 Seconds”
  2. From short to long: Economies of scale and the long-run average total cost curve
  3. Lesson Plan: Sources of Economic Growth and Development
  4. Lesson plan: Elasticity, exchange rates and the balance of payments – understanding the Marshall Lerner Condition
  5. China’s automobile market – an example of Economies of Scale

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