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addresses time constraints for both the instructor (outside of class meetings with 6 or 7 groups
instead of 20 individual student meetings) and for class time during presentations.
9
The project introduces a breadth of topics in Intermediate Micro while maintaining
sufficient depth of understanding. Though the opportunity cost of student 25-minute oral
presentations on new material is class time that I could spend teaching that very material in 25-
minute mini-lectures, there is a clear positive tradeoff. Each student still gets to hear lectures on
(roughly) the same material they would had I given them.
10
Moreover, each student has focused
their presentation on one topic, requiring a deeper level of understanding than if I had wanted to
prepare 6 sets of background readings for each of my 25-minute mini-lectures on the Explore
material. This is all achieved with an approach that is more pedagogically effective, with students
playing an active and independent role in the discovery and communication of the material.
Admittedly, if there is a time tradeoff, it may come at the expense of outside of class time
for the instructor. I meet with each group individually, typically several times over the course of
the semester, to discuss my expectations for the project, establish the scaffolding for the group’s
particular topic, and answer questions of comprehension they may encounter.
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Even when
scheduled to overlap with office hours as much as possible, these sessions take time. Nevertheless,
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
9
With class periods of 80 minutes, student groups each get 25 minutes to present. This limits the amount of time
needed for class presentations to two full class periods.
10
I permit and even encourage students to bring original project ideas to me as well. This has been especially effective
when students have suggested topics which align with their interdisciplinary interests. One group of students taking a
concurrent course in artificial intelligence used the Explore project to discuss learning algorithms and machine
learning in strategic AI programs, then taught the class how they work in practice by building a program in Python to
play Connect 4. Another group shared interests in biology, and jumped at the chance to work on evolutionary game
theory. They were introduced to an intersection of biology and economics they had never seen before, and were able
to merge the literatures (using a Lotka-Volterra population model and a fitness-generating function) better than I ever
could. So, it is possible that through student-led lectures, the class is exposed to a more interesting and relevant (to
them) set of topics!
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This point is delicate. The ZPD approach is most effective when instructors provide only necessary and limited
guidance on questions of comprehension. Rather than give answers away, or jump to major conclusions for them, I
point students to additional resources or return their questions with questions to send them along the right path.
Limiting my involvement in question answering - except when necessary - is both pedagogically sound and supports
a more reasonable time commitment outside of class.