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Improving Student Motivation and Learning through Classroom Experiments and Games

Improving Student Motivation and Learning through Classroom Experiments and Games. John Sloman. Tell me and I will forget Show me and I will remember Involve me and I will understand Step back and I will act (Chinese proverb). Games, experiments and role playing in PBL. Strengths

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Improving Student Motivation and Learning through Classroom Experiments and Games

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  1. Improving Student Motivation and Learning through Classroom Experiments and Games John Sloman

  2. Tell me and I will forgetShow me and I will rememberInvolve me and I will understandStep back and I will act (Chinese proverb)

  3. Games, experimentsand role playing in PBL • Strengths • motivation, involvement, empathy, fun! • encourages active and deep learning • illustration and contextualisation • Potential weaknesses • over-simplification • not taken seriously

  4. Games, experimentsand role playing in PBL • Overcoming the drawbacks • clear guidelines • feedback and reflection • drawing on concepts in later classes • linked to seminar activities

  5. Game 1: A trading game • Students divided into buyers and sellers • Students given cards • Black for sellers of the item • Number on card gives cost of item in £s • Want to sell above value of card • Red for buyers of the item • Number on card gives value of item in £s • Want to buy below value of card • Trading takes place • Individual buyers and sellers agree prices • Mark their gain on their sheet • No deal gives no gain or loss

  6. Game 1: Reflections • (Link to paper)(Link to handout) • Students get considerable insight into the working of pit markets • Equilibrium prices rapidly emerge • Can vary the cards to see the effects on equilibrium • Easy to demonstrate producer and consumer surplus • Can discuss information issues • Can introduce a tax of £x on suppliers

  7. Game 2:Expected value game • TV show: Deal or No Deal? • Channel 4, six days per week (45 mins) • US version playable online (link) • 26 people each with a suitcase of money, the amount not known to them • Sums of money vary from 1¢ to $1,000,000 • One contestant us selected to play • … who eliminates suitcases in batches, whose contents are then revealed • After each batch, the contestant is offered a ‘Deal’ by the ‘Banker’, based on the values yet to be eliminated • The contestant chooses ‘Deal’ or ‘No Deal’

  8. Game 2: Reflections • Virtually all students will be familiar with the game • Easy to set up: • It can be played online • Or with envelopes and the sums of money on the whiteboard • Illustrates decision-making under risk • Expected value; risk premia; probability; risk attitudes and what affects them

  9. Game 3:Production function game • Activity • Production runs (2) in a factory, involving moving balls from one place to another • Extra workers are added one at a time • Equipment: • About 30 balls (e.g. tennis balls) • 4 buckets (or baskets or cardboard boxes) • Students divided into two teams • Object to get as many balls from one end to the other in 30 seconds

  10. Game 3: Reflections • (Link to paper)(Link to handout) • Easy to set up and fun to play • Can bring alive a potentially dry subject area • Flexible: can be played with 1, 2 or more teams • Can demonstrate • Diminishing returns • TP, AP and MP • Can derive TC, AC, MC, TR, AR, MR and Profit • Shifts and movements along product and cost curves from technological change • Effects of changing fixed and variable costs

  11. Game 4:Public goods game • Aim • Aim is to make as much money as possible, irrespective of what others make • Activity • Each person (or pair) is given four cards of the same value (e.g. four threes or four queens) • Each person plays two cards each round • Scoring • Black cards have no value • Red cards are worth £1 for everyone if played and £4 just to the individual if not played.

  12. Game 4: Reflections • (Link to paper)(Link to handout) • Very easy to set up and fun to play • Can easily be played in a seminar • Flexible: can be played with up to 13 individuals or pairs • Can demonstrate • Public goods and external benefits • Prisoners’ dilemma and Nash equilibrium • Collusion versus competition • Motivation and altruism

  13. Game 5:Auctioning a pound coin • Activity • This is a simple auction of a pound coin • The only difference is that both the winner and the next highest bidder have to pay • At the end • The money earned can be returned to students (but don’t tell them this at the start). • A discussion can then take place about the issues raised

  14. Game 5: Reflections • (Link to paper)(Link to handout) • Simple and flexible • Simple equipment: a pile of pound coins and a sheet for recording results • Can be played in a seminar group • Can demonstrate • Sunk costs and marginal costs • Risk attitudes • Collusive bidding • Concepts of equity

  15. Game 6: A ‘Keynesian Beauty Contest’ • A game about investor expectations • predicting share prices based on what you think other people will do • Simple to play • No equipment required other than: • a calculator for the tutor • a whiteboard/flipchart for recording results • The game (each round) • Students have to select a number from 0 to 100 • A prize is given in each round to the student who selects a number closest to 2/3 of the mean

  16. Game 6: Reflections • Link1Link 2 • At the end • Students can be asked to explain their decisions • Can demonstrate: • Expectations formation • Iterative thinking / progression • Movement to Nash equilibrium

  17. Game 7: TradablePermits Game • Six teams • Each represents a polluting firm • Each team is given a worksheet and a marginal abatement cost (MAC) curve • Each team is given an emissions allocation • The same for all firms (1480 units) • Round 1 • Establishes cost of abatement with no trading • Round 2 • Teams can now trade allocations • Price is adjusted by tutor until demand equals supply • Establishes the cost with trading at market clearing price

  18. Game 7: Reflections • (Link to handouts and worksheets) • Uses MC = MR analysis in a different context • Demonstrates how emissions trading can achieve any given pollution reduction at minimum cost • Flexible: no. of permits can be varied to demonstrate • Effect on equilibrium price • Abatement costs • Seminar can analyses worksheets of all teams after the game

  19. References • Classroom Expernomics • http://www.marietta.edu/%7Edelemeeg/games • Charlie Holt’s Games papers • http://www.people.virginia.edu/~cah2k/papers.html • Charlie Holt’s Veconlab • http://veconlab.econ.virginia.edu/admin.htm • Charles A. Holt, Markets, Games and Strategic Behaviour, Pearson/Addison Wesley, 2006 • Bringing Economic Experiments into the Classroom (FDTL5 project: Univ. of Exeter) • http://www.economicsnetwork.ac.uk/projects/fdtl5/experiments.htm

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