the economics homework help online

the economics homework help online

The Impact of Online Platforms on Economics Education

1. Introduction to Online Economics Education

There are a number of distinct benefits that will be associated with the usage of digital platforms with which to deliver economics courses. The first distinct advantage that is associated with the delivery of economics teaching over a digital platform is that significant savings are possible when educating large numbers of students. Large class sizes are typical at all but the most exclusive of universities. When combined with the requirement for extensive face-to-face interaction between students and teachers, economics departments require large buildings to accommodate the teaching of students.

There are many advantages associated with the ability to deliver education to students using internet-enabled platforms. Buildings are not required to be constructed and maintained, and residential costs paid. Asynchronous learning allows students to learn at the time of the day that is best suited to them, allowing them to work or care for others at other times of the day. In a digital environment, educational quality control is also enhanced. Digital resources are subject to an element of permanent scrutiny from their user base, providing almost infinite data on the usage and perceived quality of individual elements.

2. Advantages and Challenges of Online Learning in Economics

Online platforms facilitate learning. Apart from enquiring how to file a tax, reducing carbon emissions, the role of central banks, or purchasing equity shares, they can discourage students from asking questions or making comments in a classroom situation to avoid public exposure. In contrast, they smooth out the asymmetrical learning cost between students. And, as a result, they encourage students to be interactive, ask questions, and make comments. Hence, a side benefit of the digital shift may be to eliminate a hypertexture of the classroom and encourage the use of Socratic teaching by students. Therefore, the experience of the classes is enriched and they work more as an academic experience than as a formal lecture.

There are several reasons why the use of these tools has revolutionized economics education in particular. Economics is a discipline conducive to the use of platforms such as Zoom and Slack. Indeed, it is a precision science. Unlike some facts about the economy and society, facts about economics can be verified. Furthermore, these are general models, plays abstract rules, and has graphic representation. As a result, it can be precisely exposed to how it is learned in class. Also, at the more advanced levels, the income and complementarity of different economics research are exposed during a lecture. The exposure of research that underlines the degree of precision and modifying critical knowledge is stimulating to those who are or who might become research students.

3. Innovative Teaching Methods and Technologies in Online Economics Education

Another approach to engage students actively is to use experiment games, most of which are played online nowadays. Verhulst mentions a range of them here. These games can be used with a larger range of sizes than their traditional or paper-based treatment could be, in particular in online education. Where using them face-to-face could be logistically difficult, sharing a link and making sure students register at the right time and place to play on such games is not. Such games edit the playing by paired groups of students of roles as producer-consumer, principal-agent, seller-buyer, contractor-worker, and so on. They can be supplemented by structured questions.

Besides the active learning techniques that we have discussed already, there are exciting technologies and methods that can help to engage students with the work they have to do in order to understand economics. Farmle and Ballard describe the use of web technologies such as data visualization tools in the classroom. They discuss the use of programming and programming language in introductory macroeconomics course to, among other things, teach the Solow model of growth, computing tools for country comparisons, and business-cycle accounting. Steinpirer provides an exhaustive list of econometrics software that currently exists, from which professor can choose so that students can practice.

4. The Future of Economics Education: Trends and Opportunities in Online Learning

While it is impossible to know exactly how technology will fundamentally change education in the long term, there are already some signs of trends that are likely to continue in the near future. These trends present key areas of opportunity for the economics education sector to help move professors and students beyond the passive recorded lecture. The most obvious of these trends is the enormous increase in the availability of both hard data about student performance as well as a wealth of data on the resources used by the professors and by the students. The logs of online education platforms now contain information on virtually every click made by every student while doing every type of assignment (lecture video, homework, readings) that make up the student’s graded total, presenting a level of detail achievable only in a handful of the most cutting-edge digital tools. The designers and operators of these leading MOOC platforms have the technology to track much of the time and work of a student taking the course.

In this final section, we address the opportunities and constraints that currently lie ahead in economics education today, discussing how these will continue to unfold in the future. In what ways is the opportunity for innovation in economics magnified relative to other fields? How will educators and education exploit the online platform to best achieve student learning goals in the years ahead? What new technologies, innovations, and exogenous factors have the potential to drastically reshape economics education in the years ahead? While these considerations are inherently difficult to predict, we highlight and discuss four key areas of future evolution and growth in the field: (a) greater digitization of both textbook and homework content; (b) new class designs and pedagogical practices that are enabled and strengthened by the use of technology; (c) broader access via the online platform to supplemental tools, resources, and interactive experiences; (d) price reduction, both in terms of course materials and tuition, as well as increased access to a wide curriculum of economics learning experiences.