Economics in Plain English » Teaching

Welker’s Wikinomics Video Lectures – 50 lessons and still growing!

Jason Welker — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 20:03:19 +0000

Since September 2011 I have been producing and publishing around three video lessons per week covering the topics I’m teaching in my three Economics classes at any given time. With an AP Macro class, a year 1 and year 2 class going on all at the same time, this means I’ve been making videos covering everything from linear supply functions to protectionist quotas to monetary policy.

This week I posted my 50th video lesson. Since I began producing lessons on my YouTube channel, they’ve been viewed over 35,000 times and nearly 200 people have subscribed to my YouTube feed.

If you haven’t checked out my new website, The Economics Classroom, consider subscribing to the weekly newsletter from that site. You’ll receive one email a week with links to the latest videos covering Micro, Macro and International concepts. In addition, I’ve been creating and posting free worksheets, practice activities and even unit quizzes and tests to the resource page.

If you’re wondering what my videos are like, check out the one I posted tonight to introduce the new IB Year 1 unit on Theory of the Firm, which I’ll start teaching on Tuesday this week!

Pacing in the new IB Economics Syllabus – a special post for IB Economics teachers

Jason Welker — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 14:57:07 +0000

I received the following email from a new IB Economics teacher in Prague today:

Dear Jason,

While I’ve taught Economics previously at an international school in Indonesia, I’ve never taught it at the IB level. I am having trouble working out a long term plan for sequencing my lessons to make sure to teach everything in depth enough. I was wondering if you were willing to share some tips or even examples of your own planning tools.

I thought it might be helpful for other new IB Economics teachers out there if I shared how I pace my own class. Below is the overview of the new IB Economics syllabus, along with the chapter from my new textbook associated with each section, and the amount of time I spend teaching each unit.The following table presents a possible pace with which a class could move through the IB Economics syllabus, with the corresponding chapters from my textbook, Pearson Baccalaureate Economics

The timeline below is based on my school’s calendar over the two years of the IB program. In year 1 there are approximately 35 weeks (not all complete) of contact time with students. In year 2, IB classes meet for a total of 29 weeks, for a total of 64 weeks of contact time.

In my school, IB classes meet on average three times per week, for a total of 3.25 hours per week. Over the 64 weeks, an IB class will meet for a total of 208 hours. To meet the 240 hour requirement for instructional time from the IB, I use several online learning resources including this blog and Google docs assignments, as well as social bookmarking, and video lectures (learn more by exploring my resources at Welker’s Wikinomics)

Welker’s Wikinomics turns FOUR!

Jason Welker — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 19:28:05 +0000

That’s right, February 2007 marked the beginning of this great experiment in “learning the wiki way”. If all you’ve ever known is this blog, then you probably don’t know why it’s called “Wikinomics”. Before the blog was born, this project consisted only of a Wiki where my AP Economics students shared their understanding of the subjects we studied. Not long after the wiki got started, I created this blog, where in the last four years I, along with several guest authors, have written countless posts covering every topic from introductory Economics course imaginable!

Now on our fourth anniversary, I thought I’d take a moment to look back at where Welker’s Wikinomics has come from and then give you a brief idea of where it will go in the future.

First, as an Econ teacher, I love stats, so I thought I’d share some here.

The wiki, which eventually gave birth to this blog, has actually had more visits over the last four years than the blog has, and continues to turn up near the top in Google search results for countless economics terms.

Where Welker’s Wikinomics has come from:

Here’s the latest data on the wiki:

Total visits since February, 2007: 545,468
Average number of visits per day over the last four years: 944
Number of subscribed users: 1092

And for the blog:

Total visits since February, 2007: 388,207
Most visitors on a single day ( March 1, 2011!): 1,013
Number of posts: 550
Number of reader comments: 6,275
Number of categories: 193
Number of registered users: 1,369
Number of people subscribed to the weekly email newsletter: 298

All told, the eyes of nearly 1 million economics students, teachers, and others interested in the subject have have scanned the content posted on this blog and on the accompanying wiki!

What the future holds for Welker’s Wikinomics

For those of you who visit this site regularly, you will have noticed that over the last year, I have written far less frequently than I did in the past. I do have a good excuse for this, however, as I have been consumed with writing my soon to be released IB Economics textbook for Pearson. But as that project winds down, I plan to once again turn my attention to the resources offered by Welker’s Wikinomics. Some of the projects I plan to embark on in the next year include:

A complete re-design of this blog
Updating the “brand image” of all of Welker’s Wikinomics resources (wiki, universe, etc…)
Re-designing and updating Welker’s Wikinomics Lecture Notes and Study Guides for use with the new IB Economic syllabus (to begin in August 2011)
Designing and releasing in the iTunes Store a digital, iPhone ready study guide for AP and IB Economic students

This last goal is one I have had in the back of my mind for quite some time. It has gotten the thumbs up from my tech-equipped students here in Zurich, and once I have the time, it is something I seriously want to pursue. Don’t worry Android users, I myself have switched to the Google platform, and any app I develop for the iPhone will be made available for the Android as well!

Thanks to all you loyal readers and contributors who have kept coming back to the blog, wiki and other resources offered by Welker’s Wikinomics over the last four years! I will always remember how excited I was the day so long ago I got my 1,000th visitor on this blog! (I am pretty sure it took about three months to reach 1,000 visitors). Now, four years and almost one million visitors later, I am still as passionate as ever about creating and sharing great content for the high school economics student and teacher.

As always, if you like what you read here, and think you have something to contribute, add your comments or contact me at welkerswikinomics@gmail.com if you wish to become a contributing author!

So, thanks to you all for everything!

-Jason

Excellence and teacher pay: A New York charter school is not the only school paying teachers $100,000+!

Jason Welker — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 18:28:14 +0000

Next Test – Value of $125,000-a-Year Teachers – NYTimes.com

A New York City charter school is experimenting with paying teachers nearly triple the national average teacher salary of public schools. The article below describes the result:

So what kind of teachers could a school get if it paid them $125,000 a year?

An accomplished violist who infuses her music lessons with the neuroscience of why one needs to practice, and creatively worded instructions like, “Pass the melody gently, as if it were a bowl of Jell-O!”

A self-described “explorer” from Arizona who spent three decades honing her craft at public, private, urban and rural schools.

Two with Ivy League degrees. And Joe Carbone, a phys ed teacher, who has the most unusual résumé of the bunch, having worked as Kobe Bryant’s personal trainer.

“Developed Kobe from 185 lbs. to 225 lbs. of pure muscle over eight years,” it reads.

They are members of an eight-teacher dream team, lured to an innovative charter school that will open in Washington Heights in September with salaries that would make most teachers drop their chalk and swoon; $125,000 is nearly twice as much as the average New York City public school teacher earns, and about two and a half times as much as the national average for teacher salaries. They also will be eligible for bonuses, based on schoolwide performance, of up to $25,000 in the second year…

The school received 600 applications. Mr. Vanderhoek interviewed 100 in person.

It’s amazing to me that a school in NYC that pays $125,000 a year and expects teachers to work year round gets so much attention, while some international schools have been paying teachers nearly as much for decades to work a regular school year. Yet so many American teachers seem unaware of the career opportunities available at international schools! A salary of $100,000 is not unheard of in international schools, and often times that income is tax free (at least the majority of it, since it is considered “foreign earned income” by the IRS).

In economics we study how scarce resources are allocated by supply and demand in the market place. Demand for highly skilled, qualified teachers is huge in all kinds of schools, public, private, charter and international schools alike. But only once an American school like this New York charter school comes along and offers to pay teachers a salary more than double the national average (and then receives nearly a hundred applications for every opening) do we begin to read about teacher pay in the news and reflect on the roll it plays in attracting top notch, expert educators. From one economics teacher’s perspective, it should come as no surprise at all that when a school offers a higher salary it will attract better teachers and thereby improve the quality of the education it provides.

International schools have known this simple fact for years. Unlike the American public school system, which from state to state essentially resembles the “monopsonistic employer” model (meaning each state has a “monopoly” of sorts on the hiring of teachers), the market for international teachers is highly competitive. In most big cities, even, there are several international schools competing to attract the best educators from the limited supply available. And in a particular country, for instance China, there are dozens of private international schools, all seeking to offer the best quality education in order to increase demand for enrollment, competing against one another to hire the best teachers they can.

The result of the competition between international schools for student enrollment is increased competition for skilled, qualified teachers. Add to this the fact that year after year there end up being shortages of qualified international teachers and you end up with the perfect recipe for teachers like myself and all the colleagues I’ve worked with over the years, upward pressure on the salaries and benefits packages offered by international schools.

The lesson here is clear from my perspective. Increased competition among schools for student enrollment will lead to increased competition among schools for better teachers, and therefore better teacher pay. The NYC charter school set out with a clear vision in mind for achieving students success. Attract the best teachers and we’ll provide the best education. And in order to achieve this vision, it followed the most basic of economic principles, articulated so eloquently by Adam Smith himself:

Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this: Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of.

The bargain being offered to teachers in this case is an attractive salary, and all the schools in question are asking for in return is excellent teaching. “In this manner” schools obtain from teachers a commitment to excellence and teachers obtain from schools a salary that rewards them for this commitment. Society’s need for excellent education and teachers’ need for a living wage are met. But public schools go against this basic tenet of market doctrine when the monoposony that is the state public school system pays teachers not based on their achievement, training, excellence or results but on their years of service. The lack of competition for student enrollment leads to a failure of the incentive system for attracting good teaches, and what schools find themselves with is a burnt out, underpaid, disgruntled work force and test scores and student achievement that you’d expect to follow.

I hope this charter school succeeds. I hope the students’ scores surpass those of their public school peers. I hope this not because I like to see the old model of education fail, but because I would love to see a new model, based on the simple market principle that individuals respond to monetary incentives, succeed. I can say from experience that the competition among international schools for the limited supply of skilled teachers benefits all the stakeholders in question: teachers are paid better, the schools that pay the most attract the best teachers and thereby attract the greatest demand for enrollment. The market has worked! If the New York charter school succeeds, how can this be ignored. How can America’s other public schools not admit that to improve education, competition for students and teachers must be embraced.

Using Infographics in Economics

Andrew McCarthy — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:16:24 +0000

Infographics are a great way for students to dig a bit deeper and explore an issue. They are typically a combination of graphs, maps, visuals, charts and texts that can be explored through the internet. The New York Times has produced a wealth of these resources over the past few years and this week they are showcasing their best exhibits. It is important for students of Economics to be able to read and interpret visual information, to learn about the world around them. Some of my favourites from the NY Times website are here. Click on the images to explore

For an overview of infographics

For a full list of relevant infographics for Economics, Social Studies and History – NY Times

Click on the images to explore

Can a President Tame the Business Cycle?

How Different Groups Spend Their Day

All of Inflation’s Little Parts

Debt Rising in Europe

What Your Global Neighbors Are Buying

Another Mankiw problem for the motivated Micro student!

Jason Welker — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 15:26:39 +0000

Greg Mankiw’s Blog: Take Out Your Pencils 2

Harvard’s Greg Mankiw just keep them coming! Here’s another micro problem from the esteemed professor and textbook author’s blog. Several readers enjoyed challenging themselves with his last Micro problem, so I will re-publish Mankiw’s test question here to see if people can solve it in the comment section on this blog (sorry Professor Mankiw, you have comments turned off on your blog, so how are your readers to know if they have solved it correctly?)

The town of Wiknam has 5 residents whose only activity is producing and consuming fish. They produce fish in two ways. Each person who works on a fish farm raises 2 fish per day. Each person who goes fishing in the town lake catches X fish per day. X depends on N, the number of residents fishing in the lake. In particular,

X = 6 – N.

Each resident is attracted to the job that pays more fish.

a. Why do you suppose that X, the productivity of each fisherman, falls as N, the number of fishermen, rises? What economic term would you use to describe the fish in the town lake? Would the same description apply to the fish from the farms? Explain.

b. The town’s Freedom Party thinks every individual should have the right to choose between fishing in the lake and farming without government interference. Under its policy, how many of the residents would fish in the lake and how many would work on fish farms? How many fish are produced?

c. The town’s Efficiency Party thinks Wiknam should produce as many fish as it can. To achieve this goal, how many of the residents should fish in the lake and how many should work on the farms? (Hint: Create a table that shows the number of fish produced—on farms, from the lake, and in total—for each N from 0 to 5.)

d. The Efficiency Party proposes achieving its goal by taxing each person fishing in the lake by an amount equal to T fish per day and distributing the proceeds equally among all Wiknam residents. Calculate the value of T that would yield the outcome you derived in part (c).

e. Compared with the Freedom Party’s hands-off policy, who benefits and who loses from the imposition of the Efficiency Party’s fishing tax?

New tools for the Econ teacher and student: Social bookmarking Site, iPhone App and YouTube Review Videos

Jason Welker — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:12:11 +0000

I’ve recently added two new great tools for Econ teachers to this blog that I think can really benefit teachers who decide to use them. Both of the following resources can be found in the sidebar to the right of this blog.

First, I have created a Diigo Group for Econ Teachers that is open for anyone to join. A Diigo group essentially is a social network for people with shared interests. The Econ Teacher group will be a place where Econ teachers can share bookmarks to online resources for use in the classroom. More than just a bookmarking site, however, Diigo allows users to annotate, highlight and leave sticky notes on articles, blogs, and other websites posted to the group, which can then be seen by group members, and further annotated. A website such as the CIA World Factbook, the BLS, or BEA, or an article from the Financial Times or Wall Street Journal thus becomes a shared document for discussion and reflection amongst any and all teachers who find it useful.

Diigo groups also have discussion forum features, so the Econ Teacher Group will become a forum for sharing collective research and resource ideas, as well as a forum for discussing how technology and the web can be used to enrich economics education. Join the Econ Teacher Diigo Group now to help grow this new social network for Econ teachers! (Once you’ve joined Diigo, I recommend adding the Diigo toolbar to your browser to make bookmarking and annotating sites to the group easy!)

Secondly, I am happy to endorse my friend and colleague Mike Fladien’s entrepreneurial endeavor aimed at helping high school Economics students prepare for their exams, “EconExamCram”. EconExamCram is an iPhone or iTouch App for sale in the iTunes store for $1.99. From the app’s description:

This app is available for download on iTunes. I intended this to aid students in preparing for tests in microeconomics. It’s a comprehensive review of 80% of the concepts covered in a micro class.

I believe that students today want to learn using today’s technology. Today’s technology is iPods, Smart Boards, audience response systems, flash animation and more. When I developed this app, I developed it for the on-the-go student who values appearance too. The student I envisioned was one who had a challenging schedule and one or more after school activities. They will carry an iPod with them, but not a five pound textbook. The student I envisioned was one who studied in “micro sessions” of 10 or 15 minutes. The touch was a natural tool for these students.

Congratulations to Mike on developing this app and making it available to us and our students to help prepare for the AP and IB Exams. Do your kids a favor and give them all the link to this app so they can start reviewing for your tests on their phones today!

The last great resource I have added to my sidebar this week is an RSS feed to a YouTube channel I’ve recently discovered. Jacob Clifford, an AP Economics teacher in San Diego, has recently begun producing and publishing a series of review videos for the AP Economics student. He calls them “Economic Concepts in 60 Seconds”.

Jacob is an enthusiastic, energetic young Econ teacher whose lecture style is fast paced and easy to follow. An since the lectures are on YouTube, students (and teachers!) can watch them over and over until his explanations of econ concepts is clear. In each video, he illustrates the concepts on a whiteboard while clearly (and quickly) explaining them in a fun and entertaining way. So far he has only produced videos up through perfect competition in the AP Micro course, but he promises to keep adding more throughout the school year.

You’ll be able to follow Jacob’s latest video posts by checking the RSS feed on my sidebar when visiting the blog. I’m hoping to team up with Jacob somehow in the future to get his videos a wider audience through this blog or in some other collaborative way.

Seeing the forest through the trees – An intro to Macroeconomics!

Jason Welker — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 02:54:03 +0000

At this point in the course, you may find yourself asking, “what is the difference between microeconomics and macroeconomics?” It has been a long time since we first defined these terms at the beginning of the course. The purpose of this post is to introduce some basic Macro concepts help clear up the confusing and not so obvious differences between these two areas of economics.

A teacher of mine once explained the difference between micro and macro using the example of a tree and a forest. Microeconomics is the like the study of an individual tree, standing in a thick forest of thousands of individual trees of different species. A microeconomist might study the systems that make an individual tree function efficiently, providing it with the sustanence it needs to thrive in the forest. A macroeconomist, however, will take a broader look at the forest as a whole, and observe how the thousands of trees work together in conjunction with the sun, the soil, the oxygen, nitrogen, and H2O in the environment that make the entire forest function efficiently as one giant organism.

Put literally, the tree is like an individual market. This may be a product market like the market for apples, or a resource market like the market for apple pickers. Microeconomists will study the characteristics of an individual market: the firms and their costs, tradeoffs, challenges presented by competition or the inefficiencies that result from a lack thereof, and the buyers in the market: the alternatives and trade-offs they face, the utility they receive and the decisions they make based on these factors. Microeconomics concerns itself not with the health of the economy as a whole, rather with the individual markets, firms, and consumers within the economy, and the challenges of efficiency and resource allocation faced by those markets.

Macroeconomics, on the other hand, studies the health of the economy as a whole. Macro deals with aggregates, or “collections of specific economic units treated as if they were one. ” For example, instead of studying price of a product, as a microeconomist would, a macroeconomist looks at the price level in the whole economy. Whereas a microeconomist looks at supply and demand in a particular market, a macroeconomist studies aggregate supply and aggregate demand, assessing the collective marginal benefit of all consumers and marginal costs of all producers. Instead of quantity supplied, the macroeconomist examines aggregate output, or gross domestic product. Instead of underallocation and overallocation of resources, the macroeconomists concerns himself with unemployment and inflation.

When it comes to the role of government, macroeconomics has a lot more to say about the role a central government should play in managing the economy as a whole. One major theme of microeconomics is that competitive markets, when left alone by government, tend to achieve efficient allocations of resources. You’ll find that in Macro, however, the government often plays a central part in stimulating and slowing down the level of economic activity in the economy, using tools such as fiscal and monetary policy.

Also in macroeconomics, we’ll study in more depth the role that comparative advantage plays in the economic exchanges that take place between nations. International trade also involves the exchange of foreign currencies, which we’ll try to understand by studying exchange rates and the role that governments play in manipulating and controlling the values of their currencies.

Macroeconomics will prove to be particularly relevant to the events going on in the recent turbulent global economy. If have listened to the news lately you’ve heard world leaders, political pundits and commentators from all political and economic leanings use words like “bailout”, “fiscal stimulus”, “monetary easing”, “deficit spending” and others; all concepts having to do with macroeconomics. In the next few months, you will begin to see the forest through the trees as we take on the exciting and challenging field of macroeconomics.

Assignment: Using your economics text, attempt to complete the table below. On the left are microeconomics concepts you have already studied as part of the course. In the right column, brainstorm and identify the macro concept that corresponds with each of the micro concepts. For example, in microeconomcis a when there is a decrease in demand price falls and quantity decreases. In macroeconomics, when there is a decrease in AGGREGATE demand, _____________ and _______________ change. See if you can fill in the blanks! If you get stumped, Mr. Welker’s completed version of the table can be viewed by clicking here.

Preview my Council for Economics Education presentation, feedback welcome!

Jason Welker — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 21:42:35 +0000

Council for Economic Education | 2009 Council for Economic Education / NAEE / GATE Annual Conference.

Next week, I will be travelling to Washington, D.C. to the Council for Economics Education Annual Conference on Capitol Hill. In addition to attending the board of advisors meeting for the Global Association of Teachers of Economics, I will be presenting a workshop to Economics educators titles Harnessing the Power of Web 2.0 in the Economics Classroom.

In the spirit of collaborative learning, I thought I’d post the PowerPoint presentation I’ve been working on recently for my workshop here, and solicit feedback while I still have time! I am alloted only 50 minutes for the workshop, followed by a 10 minute question and answer session. So, here is the presentation! Please leave any feedback or advice you may have in the comments!

Harnessing The Power Of Web 2.0 In The Econ Classroom

View more presentations from Jason Welker.

Microeconomics teachers: Have you discovered Econgirl yet?

Jason Welker — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 11:55:22 +0000

YouTube – jodiecongirl’s Channel.

Jodi Beggs, aka “econgirl” is a PhD candidate at Harvard where she teaches introductory Microeconomics to Masters students. She has a great blog written for econ students and casual readers called Economists do it with Models. She also produces a series of mini-lectures on topics from Greg Mankiw’s textbook Principles of Economics (a text widely used by AP Econ teachers).

In Jodi’s own words,

I’m offering up these lectures either as a complement to your current economics course or as a substitute for what you didn’t learn the first time you took economics

Another great resource for high school economics teachers! I had my students watch the videos on the Demand Curve and the Determinants of Demand today, while jotting down in their notes the topics they already knew, did not yet know, and the questions they had based on Jodi’s videos.

Thanks, Jodi! I hope more econ teachers like myself find ways to put your great resource to use in our classes!

New WW Study Guide availalbe: Unit 2.4 Market Failure and the Role of Government

Jason Welker — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:13:23 +0000

Another unit of Welker’s Wikinomics Study Guides is now available for download on the W.W. Study Guides page of this blog. The latest edition is IB Unit 2.4 Market Failure and the Role of Government. Below is an outline of the unit. It can be downloaded for free as a .pdf or the .notebook file can be ordered if you are a teacher who uses Smart Boards to teach Economics. Enjoy!

Where I’ll be next week – Richmond Federal Reserve Bank

Jason Welker — Fri, 31 Oct 2008 15:05:55 +0000

Powell Center for Economic Literacy – AP Economics Teachers Conference

Tomorrow morning I board a plane from Zurich to Virginia, which in addition to being a key battle ground state in next week’s election, is home of the Richmond Federal Reserve Bank. The Fed is hosting the National AP Economics Teachers Conference from Sunday through Tuesday, and I am lucky enough to get to attend this year.

This biennial national conference offers a forum for networking with other AP Economics teachers from across the country, updates on topics of interest, demonstrations of effective teaching techniques, as well as outstanding keynote speakers.

Keynote speakers will include Tim Harford, Columnist with Financial Times and best-selling author of The Undercover Economist and The Logic of Life; Federal Reserve Board Governor Kevin Warsh, appointed to the Board in 2006 and formerly Special Assistant to the President for Economic Policy and Executive Secretary of the National Economic Council from 2002 until February 2006; and Dr. J. Alfred Broaddus, Past President, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.

I plan to write a post for each of the four main workshops at this conference: “Demystifying macroeconomics”, “Demystifying microeconomics”, “Technology in the Econ classroom”, and “Understanding exchange rates and the value of the dollar”. Stay tuned for some great posts from an amazing professional development experience for economics teachers.

Economics for Citizenship / The 180 Degree Science!

Steve Latter — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 14:46:00 +0000

Now is that time of year when thousands of students across the world, from Zurich to Zimbabwe, will be taking their first economics course. Perhaps it will be a basic, high school introductory course or perhaps an even more challenging AP or IB course. Perhaps you are taking an introductory college course.

It seems like all economic text book authors seem make the point, usually in their chapter 1, that a primary benefit of studying economics is that it transforms us into more effective citizens by enabling us to better understand and conclude on the economic positions and promises of those running for public office.

I couldn’t agree any stronger!

In my classroom, I like to informally call the study of economics “the 180 degree science” because as the student studies this science for the very first time they often develop opinions and conclusions that are precisely the opposite of what they had originally believed before taking the course.

For example, here are 3 of my favorite “180 degree moments”, which are applicable to the United States’ economy but are generally applicable to all global economies, that you will probably learn in your first year economics’ course:

Ø Pre-Econ Course Citizen Quote: “We don’t make anything anymore in America. America’s manufacturing prowess is in a state of constant decline.”

Ø AP Student’s Response: “I disagree. The dollar value of manufactured goods in the United States, restated for price level changes so the comparison is accurate, is up over 50% in the last 12 years! Yes, it is true that the U.S. has lost several million jobs in manufacturing over that same time period, but that is primarily due to rising productivity (think machines & technology), where the U.S. can now produce more valuable manufactured products than ever before with many less people freeing those workers to be employed in more lucrative service-related businesses. Moreover, the US has maintained its share of global manufacturing product over that same aforementioned time period, whereas other manufacturing countries, such as Japan and Germany, have actually decreased their percentage share of global manufactured product. But, I think I understand where you may have gotten that mistaken notion that manufacturing in the U.S. is in decline; from the U.S.’s shrinking automobile industry, the lower employment in manufacturing due to higher productivity, and from the negativity inherent in the media and press which focuses mostly on the lost jobs.

Ø Pre-Econ Course Citizen Quote: “The U.S. government’s national debt of $9.6T is out of control. Imagine our country having to borrow $9.6T to pay its debts because it has no fiscal control!”

Ø AP Student’s Response: “The United States’ current level of national debt is both affordable and consistent with most nations. National accounting statistics show that the U.S.’s 67% national debt/national income percentage is average compared with other modern economies. Moreover, the level of U.S. national debt as a percentage of national income (67%) is at the same ratio as it was back in 1997 and 1992, and is much less than it was in 1950! The ‘”trick” is that debt must be benchmarked to income. It interesting that if someone knows that Bill Gates owes someone $10M they quickly can figure out that he’s probably fine, but if the guy at Starbucks finds out that the U.S. owes $9.6T they think the country is fiscally out of control!”

Ø Pre-Econ Course Citizen Quote: “International trade is hurting our economy as we have lost millions of jobs to lower wage countries. NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement between U.S., Mexico, and Canada) has really hurt us by having million of American jobs being lost to Mexico.”

Ø AP Student’s Response: “I challenge you to find me a reputable economist who will tell you that NAFTA, or any other free trade agreement for that matter, has not been beneficial for the United States, Mexico, and Canada. Over the past 15 years, independent and numerous studies show that free trade agreements increase employment, incomes, and standards of living in ALL countries and NAFTA is no exception to this rule. Sure, free trade does cause certain industries to lose out to better competitors but, overall, international trade increases competition with the nation’s citizens benefitting through increased product quality, lower product prices, and increased incomes and standards of living.

I really hope you work hard in your economic course so that, you too, will see your nation’s economy, and our global economy, in a whole new light. As an AP Economics’ teacher in the U.S., I see it as an especially “sweet year” for a first time economics’ student due to a presidential election.

Let the YouTube video-analysis clips of Barack Obama and John McCain begin! Our “economic analysis” hats are on… and we are ready to apply what we have learned and conclude on their economic positions.

Welcome to my 2008-2009 Economics students

Jason Welker — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 20:29:00 +0000

Today marked the first day of the 2008-2009 school year here at Zurich International School. It was a crazy day, where students rushed from class to class for quick introductions and syllabus distribution, barely having time to learn each teacher’s name before rushing to the next one. But if things were crazy for the students, they were just as crazy for us teachers.

Here’s a summary of the year ahead for me personally at ZIS:

I have five sections of Economics this year, with a total of 77 students.

One AP Microeconomics – 17 students
One Year 1 IB Standard level – 6 students
One Year 1 IB Higher level – 19 students
Two Year 2 IB HL/SL classes – 35 students

My 77 students come from around 30 different countries

In one IB class I have 16 students from 15 different countries, including: Bulgaria, Greece, Switzerland, Scotland, Italy, South Africa, Germany,
Guatemala, Finland, Romania, Australia, US, Mexico, England, and India.

I am joined by two other Econ teachers at ZIS: Joe Hauet and Sarah Goudy, both who have vowed to join this blog as occasional contributors this year.
I have abandoned paper texts this year, and we will instead use e-book versions of McConnell and Brue’s 17th edition “Economics”. Students all have their own Lenovo tablet PCs, which will allow them to read and take notes digitally.
This blog will continue to be used as a resource for expanding the learning that goes on in the AP and IB Econ classroom. In addition to the over 140 Econ students here at ZIS, around 70 students will be reading and commenting on the blog from Shanghai American School, where my colleague Michelle Close plans to continue her occasional posts on this blog as well.

With that I will wrap it up for today. It has been a truly long and exciting day here in Zurich. Tomorrow I’ll start with the year 2′s and begin picking up where their last teacher left off, with International Economics, and begin the long trek towards external examinations in May of 2009.

Goodnight, and I’ll see you all in class very soon!

A new beginning in Zurich, “the world’s most livable city”

Jason Welker — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 21:21:25 +0000

This blog has been quiet for some time. Summer will do that to a blogger; gets your mind off work, Economics, teaching, content, learning, all those activities that make up the daily life of a teacher for 10 months out of the year are blissfully absent from our daily routines during the summer months.

Alas, all good things come to an end, as does summer every year come mid-August. With the end of this summer, however, a new adventure begins as I find myself settling into a new school in a new city and country. So far, I have had an amazing two weeks in and around Zurich Switzerland with my wife, who is here for a while before heading back to Shanghai for one more school year.

In my short time in this amazing country, I have already had several ideas for future blog posts analyzing the unmatched economic efficiency I have observed in the daily routines of the Swiss people, buearacracy, transport and waste disposal systems, etc… Switzerland is the country with the highest Environmental Performance Index (EPI) rating, indicating that it best manages its natural and environmental resources, which as I have observed is the result of a well implemented system of economic incentives on multiple levels of Swiss society. From petrol tariffs to recycling schemes to half fair rail passes, all in a country with some of the lowest income taxes in Western Europe, Switzerland has somehow figured out the secret formula that so many developed and developing countries have yet to grasp: how to achieve a strong economy AND a healthy environment.

Throughout the coming school year, during which I will be teaching four sections of International Baccalaureate Economics and one section of Advanced Placement Economics, I will attempt to focus my posts to this blog on some of the issues faced by Switzerland and its European neighbors in the modern global economy. Additionally, I will attempt to unravel some of the Economic secrets that have helped make this city of 300,000 the world’s most livable city for three consecutive years.

I will be joined this school year by some new faces here at Welker’s Wikinomics. Steve Latter of Fairfax, Virginia, will continue to post articles, as will my former colleague Michelle Close from Shanghai American School. I am also hoping to recruit my new teaching partner here in Zurich, who may also be keen on using the blog as a means of extending the learning of his AP and IB Econ students.

For now, I will enjoy my last 10 days before classes begin full speed ahead here in beautiful Zurich, Switzerland. I will resume regular posts sometime later this month, so please stay tuned!