Interactive Tools for Principles of Microeconomics

What are the interactive tools?

These are new assessment tools where students can work to demonstrate their mastery of the concepts and component skills in the course. The practice versions help them develop mastery, in preparation for the quiz versions which serve as summative assessments.

The tools are highly randomized so that each student gets a different (but comparable) experience on each iteration. It discourages cheating because each student gets a different variation on each attempt - it's not possible to simply take a screenshot and share the answers with classmates.

Why did we do this?

The Andrew Young School of Policy Studies (AYS) at Georgia State University (GSU) is committed to lowering the costs of education for students. The University System of Georgia (USG) is also committed to this goal, and provides grants through Affordable Learning Georgia to encourage "USG faculty, libraries, and institutions to transform their use of textbooks and other learning materials into lower cost options". The GSU Department of Economics Undergraduate Program had prioritized for a while the conversion of Principles of Economics courses to Open Educational Resources (OER) courses because of the high enrollments and potential cost-savings to students, but the technical barriers of creating the interactive learning tools and integrating them into GSU's learning management system were significant.

With the advent of the COVID-19 Pandemic, in-person learning abruptly came to a halt and schools transitioned to a remote learning paradigm. The U.S. Department of Education provided the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF) in response to the pandemic. Given the increased need for remote learning, a team was formed to seek HEERF funds to develop an OER course for Principles of Microeconomics. We received both HEERF and USG ALG funds in 2021 and created our OER Principles of Microeconomics course.

The team

This project is a collaboration of units within Georgia State University's Andrew Young School of Policy Studies: Department of Economics, Experimental Economics Center (ExCEN), and Instructional Design.

Department of Economics

• Shelby Frost, Clinical Associate Professor
• Amy Ehinomen Eremionkhale, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Reginald Hebert, Graduate Research Assistant
• Eye Eoun Jung, Graduate Research Assistant

Experimental Economics Center

• J. Todd Swarthout, Senior Academic Professional
• James C. Cox, Director
• Ga Hye (Rosalyn) Jeon, Graduate Research Assistant

Dean's Office

• Mya Eveland, Lead Instructional Designer & Project Manager

We would be happy to hear from you

Please send questions or comments to Shelby Frost at sfrost@gsu.edu