[MUSICAL TONES]
Students come to your
MOOC with a variety
of background experiences.
How do you keep
everyone appropriately
challenged but not frustrated?
It's a hard thing.
And I'm still learning.
I think what I try to do is
have levels of the course.
So there's a basic video
which covers a concept.
There's some
applications for those
who want to see fun examples
of how you can apply it.
And then, in many cases,
technical additional videos
on the graphics and
mathematics that students might
need to know for the AP exam.
You make a point
in your MOOC videos
about models being
represented in three ways.
Could you talk about those three
ways that you represent models?
Sure.
So the three ways are first, and
most important, is intuitively.
I don't expect most
viewers of my videos
to go on and get a PhD in
economics, unfortunately.
I expect they're going to
go out and have other jobs,
do other things.
And I want them to be more
educated consumers of news
and to understand what's
going on in the world in terms
of economic policy.
And so intuitive is
the most important.
The second is mathematical.
As Paul Samuelson, the
most famous economist
of the 20th century,
taught us here at MIT,
with the tools of
mathematics you
can very quickly move from
one intuition to another.
You can quickly derive
important lessons.
And so mathematics
provides a useful framework
for doing that.
And the third is graphical.
Because, much like
the mathematics,
graphics is another way that you
can really take a lot of words,
a graph is worth
a thousand words.
And you can take
a lot of intuition
and compress it fairly
nicely into a graph.
And do you usually recommend
teaching the models
in that order?
Intuitively,
mathematically, graphically?
I sort of think of it
as a bit of a sandwich.
So to start them
with the intuition.
Then sort of go into
to the graphics next.
The mathematics, typically for
most consumers of this course,
they won't need to know.
So that's last.
And often, in this
course, in the edX course,
not often covered.
But then I like to come back
to the intuition at the end.
I think it's important, both
going in, that you understand
why you're doing something,
and having done it,
you understand what you learned.
That makes sense.
Could we talk a minute about
the real world applications?
OK.
It's a really interesting
part of the course.
You have LeBron James's college
decision, the Uber surge
pricing.
Tell us about your
decision to really anchor
the course with these
real world applications.
It's what makes economics fun.
I mean, once again,
I'm not training people
to be economics PhDs here.
I'm training people to
think like an economist.
And thinking like an
economist, if you've
got a very facile
mind and you sort of
look at the basic theory
videos I teach you,
you can understand it.
But you only really
understand something
when you go out in the
real world and apply it.
And so it's a chance for people
to see the ways that economics
rules the world, but to also
apply what they learn to make
sure they understand it.
What tips for
educators do you have
about selecting really
good applications?
First of all, have
really good assistants
with the course, who can help
you find the applications.
I had excellent assistants
with this class,
to help me find a lot
of great applications.
OK.
But second of all,
I think it's just
a matter of trying to find
examples in the real world that
are relatable to students, that
are companies they've heard of
and issues they think about.
And that, in a not
necessarily obvious way,
teach you about the
lessons you want to learn.
I have an application in the
course about demand and supply,
about Kim Kardashian
tweeting herself
out a picture of
an exercise corset.
And that increased demand
for exercise corsets.
And that's not an
obvious link you
draw when you see that video.
No.
And so thinking about how
something, where students
can see it and
say, wow, I hadn't
realized that economics helped
me think about that problem.
Let's talk about blending.
I'm sure there are many
economics educators who
are looking at your course.
What tips do you
have for them for how
they might use the ideas in the
course to enhance their face
to face teaching?
Yeah.
I think that the idea is
that the teacher is still
the key conduit.
That live learning is still
better than video learning.
That's where the real face
to face learning happens.
And that I hope that
the teachers will
think about this as a complement
to the face to face teaching.
Now how it complements
can be in different ways.
Some people it's with a
flipped classroom, where
they like doing problem solving
in class and more the learning
happens online.
That's not my preference.
I prefer to think of it as
teach it two different ways.
Let it be online.
And then teach a different
example you like,
or a different approach
to the problem you like.
These are hard issues.
I'm not claiming that I know
the best way to explain it.
I've chosen one
way to explain it.
Repetition is really critical
with complicated concepts
like this.
I think the idea is to think
of it as a belt and suspenders
approach.
To say, OK, here's
how John Gruber
approached it, that's great.
Now I think about it
slightly differently.
I'm going to
approach it this way.
I want students to do both.
And then bring together a richer
understanding of the topic.
What are some practical
things that educators
can do to prepare students
to use economic methodologies
to solve problems in the world?
I think the main, number
one, thing is just
to teach a healthy respect
for the scientific method.
That basically to teach
students that there
are objective truths.
And that there is a long
standing scientific method
for how we get at them.
The other thing,
however, is to recognize
that there are two sides
of almost every issue.
And that this is something
that a lot of students at MIT
sometimes have problems
with in my class, which
is it's not just an equation
with one right answer.
There's pros and cons to
a lot of these things.
So I think it's teaching a
search for the objective truth
that can help you come to the
conclusion that works for you.
That there's not only
one right answer.
You and I might
disagree about a topic,
but we should agree on an
objective set of facts.
And have a scientific method
for getting to our conclusion.
I think that's the key.
In today's world,
especially, that's the key.
It's just getting people to have
a healthy disagreement, rather
than an unhealthy disagreement.
In the final module
of the MOOC, you
make a point of providing
students with pathways
that they might use, or follow,
to use what they've learned
in the course in
their future careers
or in other aspects
of their lives.
Economists are in high demand
in the world of business, law,
and government.
Some of the most exciting
new jobs in the IT economy
are filled by economists.
For example, companies
like Amazon and Google
are seeking out
economists to help
them understand how to
better run their businesses
and achieve their goals.
Tell us about why this
was important to you
to explicitly call out
pathways for students
to use their economic knowledge.
I feel that economics
is enormously powerful.
I'm what you might call an
imperialistic economist.
I feel like
economics can explain
lots of things in the world,
and there's very few situations
where a good economic framework
can't help you at least go
forward in thinking about it.
And I don't want students
to just take the AP test
and forget about
it, quite frankly.
I want this to be something
they bring with them
and actually keep with them.
There's a famous old
Saturday Night Live
skit about what you remember
five years after college
and it's five minutes, and
three and a half minutes of it
is spring break.
I want them to try to have
a basic set of intuitions
that they can understand, can
apply to decisions they're
going to make about how
much to save in their 401K,
to how hard to work,
to what car to choose,
to how to buy a
house, et cetera.
A set of things, and quite
frankly, to me personally,
to how to vote and think
about public policy.
A set of tools
that they can bring
to bear on thinking about these
important problems in America
today.
What else would you like to add
about teaching microeconomics
that we haven't
touched on today.
I think the main
thing I'd like to add
is this imperialistic view,
that it affects everything.
Microeconomics is
basic economics.
Macroeconomic is
essentially applied micro.
It's about every
decision we make.
Every decision firms
make can all be
informed by economic framework.
And they can be formed in a
particularly healthy way today.
Because the economic framework
really is about trade offs,
and about thinking the
fact that nothing's easy.
Everything involves pros
and cons, and trade offs,
and there's shades of gray
to every decision we make.
And I think the main thing
an economics course can do,
in this day and age, is
get people to be a lot more
flexible, a little
more thoughtful
about decisions they
make, and seeing
both sides of the problem.
