Attending to your cultural education - in addition to learning economics.

This being Halloween, if you've never heard the Monster Mash before, you should watch this video.  It is from 1962.

And, since you haven't been laughing at my joke in class in spite of the impeccable delivery, here is some modest creativity from the professor, inspired by Aaron Judge winning the Home Run Derby at that All-Star game this year.  It is called The Derby Smash.  

Lanny on Learning: The Derby Smash - Lyrics via kwout

A totally optional discussion group for the spring semester.

I normally make this announcement at the start of December, but this year we seem to have a large number of students who will graduate after this semester.  I wanted those students to be aware of this possibility, in case you do stick around town for the spring.  You would be more than welcome to be part of the group, although you would no longer be enrolled at the U of I. 

The last few years I have invited students to join me in the spring for a weekly discussion group on the topic of how they might get more out of their learning.  Four years ago, I didn't get enough nibbles.  Three years ago I had three takers.  We met each Friday afternoon throughout the spring semester.  It was an interesting experience, unusual for both the students and for me.  Two years ago I had two takers initially, but one soon dropped.  The other person was extremely shy and it was kind of odd to have conversations with him.  We went for a while but didn't meet quite as regularly. Likewise, last year I had one student in the spring and it was more mentoring than discussion group.  I have another student this fall, where again it is more mentoring.  The mentoring thing is okay, but for students with an eye on the job market, I'm probably not the right person to mentor that.  I think the discussion group approach would be more interesting, but it does take a few students to make a group.

This year I'd like to do something similar but on a different topic.  I maintain a reading list on leadership and learning.  We might start with a few pieces from there to help us find a rhythm.  After that, I'd hope that students would offer up their own pieces for us to discuss.

When the group seemed to work well we went for somewhere between 90 minutes and two hours and met in BIF.  That much of what we did I'd like to keep.  Based on that experience the ideal number of students is at least 3 and probably no more than 5.  If we can get that this time around we'll be a go.

If you are interested you can indicate that either by commenting on this post (and maybe that will attract some others to do likewise) or you can send me an email.

Let me say one more thing about scheduling.  I am not teaching next semester so I am pretty happy to meet whenever is convenient for the group (if such a time exists).  But I would prefer daytime to evening.  You should probably treat that as a firm constraint in assessing your own availability for this.

A few things

1.  I plan to spend the first part of class today explaining what student teams need to do next with their class project.  If your team is not represented in class today, it will be at a disadvantage moving forward. 

2.  In a little while I will do an update to the grade book in Moodle.  This will include one Excel homework on the math of risk, one blog post on managing income risk, and an update on the bonus points for completing surveys about the class session.

3.  There will not be any more bonus points allocated of the sort described above.  I have now made a different form that you can use for commenting about a class session.  This is not for credit, but I do appreciate getting the feedback.  There is a new tab on the homepage called Feedback On Class where you can find the form. 

First Drafts In - A Little Droll Humor

I am just back from a nice tailgate at a friends house (so we avoided the bad weather).  The first quarter of the game had ended and the Illini are down only one touchdown - a moral victory. 

Every team has now submitted a draft.  I relabeled many of the submissions so the team name comes first.

At the tailgate, my reputation is to crack jokes in context (not canned ones as I have told in class) and I did that and then some.  That coupled with the very good food has tired me out.  So it is nap time for me.  After that, I will start in on reviewing the papers.

I did want to point out that some of you said funny lines, I think inadvertently.  There were a couple of teams that labeled their submissions as Rough Draft, which might be accurate but isn't very good marketing.  What am I to think of it, given that label.  Some others, wishing to be polite in their messages, said - enjoy your weekend.  If you were reviewing student papers, would you enjoy the weekend?

Remember that your professor is a princess, as in the story.  Your writing is the pea.

Reaction to Class Yesterday/Attendance and Course Performance/Teamwork and Project Teams

First, we are down to 25 students enrolled in the class.  Yesterday, 16 were in attendance.  For an upper level course in the major, that is not a great batting average.  I understand that some of you are interviewing for jobs.  When that happens the adult thing to do is to let me know about it ahead of time.  A few of you do that.  Most of the absences remain unexplained, from my view.

Yesterday I mainly lectured but then tried to verbally quiz students about the concepts as we proceeded.  While my measurement is admittedly subjective, it seemed to me that most students weren't getting it, even while this is the part that is straightforward.  Next week there is real subtlety in the homework.  How can you make that step up if you are not standing on terra firma now?  

My sense is that many students are mechanically doing the Excel homework without really thinking through the questions and the text that is there to explain things.  The approach allows you to submit the key, but there is little take away from the exercise that you can use elsewhere.  (In other words, it is not building human capital.)  For students who were present yesterday, you experienced the quizzing that I was doing.  Can you do that yourself while you do the homework and/or after you submit it but then want to make sure you understand it?  Something like that is needed.

* * * * *

I took the class attendance data that is not perfect (meaning some dates are not included) but is more extensive than I've previously collected and plotted it against current course points as reported in Moodle.  I completely threw out the first two weeks of attendance, because some students added the course then and I didn't know how to control for that in a simple way.  (The entire exercise took me about 15 minutes.)  

You can see the scatter that was produced and there is a regression line as well.  There is no doubt that attendance and class performance correlate.  You may recall that one day I mentioned John Nash, popularized in A Beautiful Mind, who never went to class but did pathbreaking work.  We don't seem to have another John Nash in our class, the instructor included.  For the rest of us mere mortals, putting in more effort in the learning matters regarding measured performance.  Coming to class, which I would have hoped is something to be enjoyed for the most part, appears to be its own form of effort. That's my interpretation of what the data show. 

* * * * *

During the past week several high attendance students have told me about teammates who have missed team meetings and haven't yet done their share of the work on the first draft.  I gather that the free riders are low attendance students.  There is, then, the matter of what should be done about it, if anything? 

Let me first describe the ideal from the instructor's view.  The holy grail in teaching is to elevate each and every student.  For the already high attendance students, that is to get them to consider the ideas of the course in a deeper way and to encourage that they learn in this deeper way in their other studies.  For the currently low attendance students, the next step would be to encourage greater diligence from them.  Attending class more frequently would be one indicator of that.

There is research that supports the hypothesis that students learn from other students, perhaps more than what they learn from their professors.  So there was some hope that the project teams might provide that type of learning.  And maybe on teams that are functioning well, that is happening.  But on other teams where there is some free riding, it is evident that the experience is not sufficiently intensive to overcome the larger patterns in the class that are evidenced in the scatter on attendance and performance. 

Now, as to what to do about it, here are a few thoughts.  First, teams must self-insure so that what is turned in represents a good effort.  This should happen even when one of the members is free riding.  Second, I hold out hope that things can be made better, so I ask team members to encourage a teammate who has been slacking so far, to participate in full for the remainder of the project, if the person is willing to do so.  Third, note that the bulk of the points in the course have still not be allocated.  That is a feature, not a bug.  (Some economics explanation for that will come in a few weeks.)  While I will continue to give all team members the same number of points on their projects, that was in the rules I set up and I need to go by the rules, note, for example, that I was pretty generous on the points for the blog posts first half among students who missed posts.  I will be sterner in my evaluation in the second half.  Seeing evidence of student effort in the course (or not) will impact that evaluation. 

If You Happen To Have A Spare $40 M Lying Around

I am sitting in BIF typing this message.  Somebody just gave me an orange and blue button with the I-mark that says Gies Business.  There are two big banners that say Gies College of Business on each side of the commons area.

Before the massmail was sent out with this announcement, I heard about it from the former dean, who is a good friend of mine.  I asked him if that meant BIF will also go through a name change.  Apparently it won't, but the naming rights are still available.  I told him I would take it into consideration as I do my estate planning.

Evaluation of Eighteenth Class Session

Here is the form.   The economics itself is getting more subtle now and with that comes added difficulty in understanding the concepts.  It would be good to comment on your sense of understanding of the issues.