ECON 201 Introduction to Microeconomics

About the Textbook

Principles of Microeconomics

Description:  

Principles of Microeconomics from OpenStax covers the scope and sequence for a one-semester economics course. The pedagogical choices, chapter arrangements, and learning objective fulfillment were developed and vetted with feedback from educators dedicated to the project. The outcome is a balanced approach to economics and to the theory and application of economics concepts. Current events are treated in a politically-balanced way and current data presented come from FRED (Federal Reserve Economic Data). 

Practice problems are available at the end of the chapter with answers in the back of the book.  For the professor, there are PowerPoint slides and a test bank in pdf and Word format.

Senior Contributing Author:

• Timothy Taylor, Macalester College

Senior Content Expert:

• Steven A. Greenlaw, University of Mary Washington

Senior Contributors:

• Eric Dodge - Hanover College
• Cynthia Gamez - University of Texas at El Paso
• Andres Jauregui - Columbus State University
• Diane Keenan - Cerritos College
• Dan MacDonald - California State University San Bernardino
• Amyaz Moledina - The College of Wooster
• Craig Richardson - Winston-Salem State University,
• David Shapiro - Pennsylvania State University
• Ralph Sonenshine - American University

Formats:  

The textbook is available for free online and as a PDF. One can also buy the book as a printed copy for $33.50.

Supplemental resources: 

The book has supplemental resources for faculty and students, including a Getting Started Guide, a Sample Syllabus, a Test Bank and PowerPoint Slides.

An online homework system is available for a cost through Sapling Learning.

Peer reviews: 

The book has been reviewed by two faculty members from the CSU (CSU1, CSU2) and one faculty from CCC within the California higher education systems.

Cost savings:  

The current version of Gregory Mankiw's Principle's of Microeconomics retails for $247 on Amazon. I tell students to buy the oldest version of the book they can find, which typically costs $2-$5 plus $4 shipping for a total of $6-$9.  I typically have 216 students a year in this class, so the total cost savings for students is $51,840.

Accessibility and diversity statement: 

The book provides no information about accessibility or diversity.  However, it can be downloaded from Bookshare.

License: 

Principles of Microeconomics is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. This license lets others distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as they credit the author for the original creation.  This is the most accommodating of licenses offered.  Recommended for maximum dissemination and use of licensed materials.

About the Course

EC 201: Introduction to Microeconomics

Description:  

Introduction to microeconomics. How an economic system works to solve the problems of choice among alternative allocations, utilizations, and distributions of resources. Applications of economic principles to domestic and international economic problems.  

Prerequisites: Eligible for college level math

GE credit: 4 units, Course fulfills GE Sub-area D2.

Learning outcomes:

• learn to think like economists
• understand how economists use simple mathematical models to answer economic questions  
• understand how consumers, firms, and governments interact in markets. 
• be able to model competitive and monopoly markets 

Curricular changes:

No curriculum changes were made other than the adoption of the text.

Teaching and learning impacts:

Collaborate more with other faculty: No       
Use wider range of teaching materials: No
Student learning improved: Unsure
Student retention improved: Unsure
Any unexpected results: No

I have not yet surveyed the students to see how they felt about the book.  Grades do not look significantly different from previous quarters. Most students go mostly off my notes and only use text as a reference so the impact may be minimal.

Sample assignment and syllabus:

Assignments were provided via SaplingLearning.com and I do not have permission to share the intellectual property.

Syllabus
This is the syllabus I used in EC-201, Fall 2015

Textbook Adoption

OER Adoption Process

The main motivation for adoption was to undermine the textbook industry's ability to charge over $200 for "updated" books that are no different in theoretical content than they were in their first edition. A secondary consideration was the e-book format with hyperlinks to additional information.  Many students prefer to have e-books and the pdf format allows this to be possible. Alternatively, students can print the book or order one at a price ($33.50) that is about 16% of the amount a student would have to pay for a popular new textbook. 

I use Sapling Learning online homework and did not make changes to these due to time constraints and the three years I've spent editing this particular class.  I would consider bringing in questions from the text over time to better match the way the material is presented there. I also conducted in class experiments using the Instructor's Manual for Experiments with Economic Principles.

Student access:  

Students can access the text on any device that can read a pdf, online, or in print by printing the pdf themselves or odering a print version of the book.

Student feedback or participation:

The most succinct way to summarize the students' overall response is to view the pie chart (attached below) that shows students overwhelmingly recommending the text for future use. Students were also asked about individual aspects of the text. The table below displays the percent of students who responded "Strongly Agree, "Slightly Agree", "Neutral", "Slightly Disagree", or "Strongly Disagree" to questions about the particular aspects of the book listed in the header row. 

The questions were worded to ask whether the aspect of the text (organized, readable, etc.) helped the student learn the material.  For each aspect, more than half the students who read and responded to the question responded that they either "Strongly Agreed" or "Slightly Agreed" that the aspect of the text helped them learn the material.  Between 20% and 30% were neutral for all questions and negative responses of "Slightly Disagree" or "Strongly Disagree" were only between 3.33% and 8.33% of all answers (also attached below).

According to the survey, there were a few recommendations on how the text may be improved.  The most common was that students did not like that they could not easily access pages that were far from the one they were currently reading.  A good suggestion was to include a link on all pages that would take the student to the table of contents so they could easily navigate to the sections they want. To me, this highlights either a need to update the online reader and/or a lack of knowledge on the students' part of the e-readers and software available that has this functionality.  There were also many calls for the book to be "more interactive" but not a lot of detail was given on exactly what was meant by this. 

There were a small amount of students who printed the text.  100% of these students have never used an e-book before and presumably were unwilling to try.  I must admit, I would be one of these students as my eyes need a break from computer screens and I strongly prefer print. However, the book was available at a reasonable price and the option to print at home or school is also available.

Students Would Recommend Text

Table of Survey Responses

Craig Kerr, Ph.D.

I am an economics professor at the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona. I teach Principles of Microeconomics, Intermediate and Graduate Microeconomic Theory, Labor Economics, Industrial Organization, and Graduate Level Research Methods.

There are different types of students, each of whom have different entry points of learning. I use what I call the "holy trinity" of teaching Economics. I teach my students that to fully understand any economic concept, one must be able to express and explain it in three ways: intuitively, graphically, and mathematically.  I describe these three mediums as if they were separate but related languages that all communicate the same idea.  My approach is to find the one that is the most natural for the student and eventually lead the student to realize that all the mediums can be used to communicate and understand the same ideas.