Sloman Feb07
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Transcript of Sloman Feb07
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John Sloman
Improving Student Motivation and Learning through Classroom
Experiments and Games
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Tell me and I will forgetShow me and I will rememberInvolve me and I will understandStep back and I will act
(Chinese proverb)
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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
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Games, experimentsand role playing in PBL
• Overcoming the drawbacks
– clear guidelines
– feedback and reflection
– drawing on concepts in later classes
– linked to seminar activities
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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
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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
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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’
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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
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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
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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
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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Game 6: Reflections
• Link1 Link 2
• At the end– Students can be asked to explain their decisions
• Can demonstrate:– Expectations formation
– Iterative thinking / progression
– Movement to Nash equilibrium
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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
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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
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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