Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post

giblfiz · 08-29-2003, 01:49 PM

Econ is where you can get the most really cool ideas. One good idea that occurs to me is set up a running economy in your class with fake bucks and fake commodity's. Allow them to fluctuate in value ect. In order to make it interesting give out nominal amounts of grade based on it ( like $100 fakebucks = 1% grade)
Thats all pretty much been done before though if you really want to push the boundary and teach the kids something you could go a little farther.
Call together a few key students after school, and convince them to form a trust. I think after a week or so of having to deal with that most of the students will have a much better concept of what the "oil trust" and the various barons were about. In my personal experience there is nothing like getting shafted to make you learn.

(if I were seting up the economy I would probably have something like the commodity's "rednotes, greennotes, yellownotes, whitenotes and bluenotes" each student may trade in one group of each type of note every day for $1. BUT only $1 a day per student. randomly divide the class into 4 groups then each day give all the students in group one 4 rednotes (it would probably be easier on you if you just gave them 20 a week) group two gets the same number of greennotes, group three yellow, and group four white. Give out blue notes for answering questions in class / doing well on tests/quizzes. make sure you give out enough blue notes to redeem with the rest. When the students seem to have it under control talk to the "red" group, get them to form up a trust and overcharge for trades of red notes. watch the learning fly.)

On a side note, I might be worried about kids beating each other up/ strong-arming each other. (something that goes on in the real world quite a bit as well) Anyway, Thats what I would do, but I think its pretty obvious that I'm more of a game theorist than a teacher of children, but they would have to be pretty dense not to learn something while playing this, particularly if you give hints about what's going on though your choice of lectures. I.e. introduce the trust right about when you get to teach "trustbusters"

08-29-2003, 01:49 PM	#9 (permalink)
giblfiz is a shoggoth Location: LA	Econ is where you can get the most really cool ideas. One good idea that occurs to me is set up a running economy in your class with fake bucks and fake commodity's. Allow them to fluctuate in value ect. In order to make it interesting give out nominal amounts of grade based on it ( like $100 fakebucks = 1% grade) Thats all pretty much been done before though if you really want to push the boundary and teach the kids something you could go a little farther. Call together a few key students after school, and convince them to form a trust. I think after a week or so of having to deal with that most of the students will have a much better concept of what the "oil trust" and the various barons were about. In my personal experience there is nothing like getting shafted to make you learn. (if I were seting up the economy I would probably have something like the commodity's "rednotes, greennotes, yellownotes, whitenotes and bluenotes" each student may trade in one group of each type of note every day for $1. BUT only $1 a day per student. randomly divide the class into 4 groups then each day give all the students in group one 4 rednotes (it would probably be easier on you if you just gave them 20 a week) group two gets the same number of greennotes, group three yellow, and group four white. Give out blue notes for answering questions in class / doing well on tests/quizzes. make sure you give out enough blue notes to redeem with the rest. When the students seem to have it under control talk to the "red" group, get them to form up a trust and overcharge for trades of red notes. watch the learning fly.) On a side note, I might be worried about kids beating each other up/ strong-arming each other. (something that goes on in the real world quite a bit as well) Anyway, Thats what I would do, but I think its pretty obvious that I'm more of a game theorist than a teacher of children, but they would have to be pretty dense not to learn something while playing this, particularly if you give hints about what's going on though your choice of lectures. I.e. introduce the trust right about when you get to teach "trustbusters" __________________ Use the star one and you'll be fighting off the old ones with your bare hands -A Shoggoth on the Roof