Anand Murugesan
School of Public Policy
Economic Experiments in the Classroom
Public policy students often demand more interactive, empirical and policy applied material to supplement the theoretical and technical content in economics courses, particularly the lectures. Economic experiments in the classroom are increasingly popular as an active learning activity. Students are allowed to make decisions under different scenarios in these experiments and efficacy studies continue to find that the learning-by-doing in such experiments is beneficial to long term student learning. In our pilot experiments, we found that students (and instructors) find experiments an engaging and enjoyable learning activity. In this project, we propose to systematically use incentivized economic experiments in the classroom as an active tool to engage students in the classroom and impart economic principles.
We will use both pre-designed lab experiments and also design our own experiments for teaching concepts such as externalities, public goods, social preferences, fairness, redistribution, game theory, uncertainty and behavioral macroeconomics. We will use the CEU computer lab, personal mobile phones or computers as required for conducting these experiments. Incentivizing participants to elicit preferences (for e.g., fairness) or measure attributes (for e.g., trust) is one of the cornerstones of the economic experimental methodology. Since respondents can lie in surveys, particularly for sensitive questions such as “would you cheat another participant for a higher monetary payment?" or “would you be willing to accept a bribe to perform your duties?" experimentalists use incentivized economic experiments to elicit true preferences. Broadly experimentalists use incentives (typically cash) due to their influence on: (1) cognitive exertion; (2) motivational focus; (3) emotional triggers. We propose to use Edenred coupons as incentives (instead of cash/euros) for student responses which is the primary reason to request funding support besides hiring a doctoral student to assist us in developing, designing, conducting and analyzing the data from the experiments for relaying it to the students (See appendix for the rationale of incentivizing in economic experiments).
We will measure student engagement via participation (abstention rates, response in classroom), retention of concepts (quizzes) and also directly collect feedback about perceived method effectiveness in a student survey.
Kata Orosz
School of Public Policy
De-colonizing the curriculum of higher education policy studies
In previous years, the core course offered in the HEP specialization was titled “Higher education and public policy”, a four-credit course. Based on student feedback in previous years, my colleagues in the HEP specialization and I proposed to introduce a re-imagined version of this core HEP curriculum in the 2019-2020 academic year: one two-credit course to be offered in the fall term, and another two-credit course in the winter term. The fall-term component of this re-imagined core curriculum is tentatively titled “Higher education policy design and implementation”, while the second component is tentatively titled “Higher education policy at work: Case-studies from the world’s regions”. Our proposal for re-introducing the original, four-credit core course as two two-credit courses was approved by the Head of the School of Public Policy.
Several students who took HEP courses expressed the view that the theoretical and empirical content covered in HEP courses was overly Anglocentric and Eurocentric, and overrepresented issues that were salient in “Western” higher education contexts. These students called for the incorporation of more cases and theories in the HEP curriculum that would allow them to engage with higher education issues, theories and concepts salient in non-Western, non-Anglo-Saxon, non-European contexts. De-colonizing the study of higher education policy, and centering higher education issues in non-Western, non-Anglo-Saxon, and non-European contexts will be the sole focus of the second (winter-term) component of the re-imagined core course of the HEP specialization.
My first goal for the teaching development project is to improve the curriculum of the re-imagined HEP core course through a process in which students play an active and substantial role in de-colonizing the curriculum.
To achieve this goal, I will introduce the following teaching innovations: 1) empowering students to collectively define the learning outcomes for the winter-term course; 2) assisting them in selecting higher education cases to be studied in the framework of the course; 3) assisting them in aligning the methods of study for each case with the collectively agreed-upon learning outcomes; 3) helping them produce learning materials that will enable us to study the cases they selected; 4) helping them co-teach classes on the cases they selected, using the learning materials they developed; and 5) helping them compare and contrast their analyses with the theories and perspectives covered in the first (fall-term) component of the HEP core course, and reflect critically on how the cases studied in the second (winter-term) component help re-theorize higher education policy making in non-Western, non-Anglo-Saxon, and/or non-European contexts.
In order to accommodate these teaching innovations, I envision the winter-term component of the HEP core course to feature work in student groups; consultations for student groups with the course instructor; and active use of the CEU e-learning site, smart classroom equipment, and other resources available to CEU students for the production and dissemination of learning materials.
The study of higher education issues in non-Western, non-Anglo-Saxon, and non-European contexts will not be limited to the inclusion of a more geopolitically diverse set of cases (e.g., discussing policies implemented in Africa, Latin-America, South-East Asia, etc.), but it will also involve a focus on policies which are implemented in or advocated for in Western contexts, but which are aimed to benefit marginalized groups (e.g., racial / ethnic / linguistic minorities, refugees, etc.) in Western higher education contexts.
My second goal is to develop research-based insights into effective approaches to de-colonizing course curriculum in the HEP specialization and beyond.
I believe that co-creating the re-imagined curriculum of the HEP core course with students will provide a fertile ground for developing research-based insights into effective approaches to de-colonizing the curriculum. Therefore, I would like to combine the re-introduction of the winter-term component of the HEP core course with an action research project, which is aimed at identifying the challenges involved in de-colonizing course curriculum in a setting in which students and the instructor co-create the curriculum, and exploring how these challenges can be addressed.
I envision carrying out the action research with the help of a project assistant, and with contributions from students enrolled in the winter-term course. The project assistant – ideally, a PhD student with prior experience in action research – will contribute to the design and implementation of the action research project. All students enrolled in the winter-term component of the core course will be offered the opportunity to contribute to the analysis and write-up of findings from the action research, but directly contributing to these stages of the action research will not be required for course completion.
Erzsébet Strausz
Department of International Relations
'Mindful Writing' as an alternative model of learning and teaching
The goal of this project is to address issues and challenges related to post-graduate writing experiences in the social sciences – such as writer’s block, procrastination, insecurity in expression or feelings of alienation when it comes to disciplinary requirements of academic writing - both as an academic skill and a vehicle of knowledge production. A set of exercises will be designed and tested in the International Relations course “Knowing, Narrating, (Re)Writing International Relations” in the Autumn term on the basis of initial pedagogical experimentations undertaken in two courses at CEU in the current academic year as well as already existing mindfulness research and practice in education. The key innovation of this project is the development of ‘mindful writing’ as an alternative model of learning and teaching that works at three registers: 1) basic study skills (such as writing) and student experience, 2) critical reflection and 3) teaching philosophy and practice.