How Understanding Brain Science Can Help You Teach Economics

Wendy Stock, a professor of economics at Montana State University, doesn’t begin the first day of the semester reviewing a syllabus with her students. Rather, she asks them what topics in the world are the most important to them. Stock then uses their answers to frame lessons about how economics can help them better understand what they feel most affects their lives.   In this episode, Stock talks with St. Louis Fed Economic Education Officer Scott Wolla about how her own curiosity led her to economics and how she hopes harnessing her students’ curiosity will help them better grasp complicated topics. 

Let’s say you’re writing a syllabus for the only economics class a student might ever take. What would you teach? That’s the question on the mind of Avi Cohen, a professor of economics at York University in Toronto, Canada. For Cohen, the answer lies in the literacy-targeted approach to teaching, which argues that it is more valuable for students to be able to apply core economic concepts well than to be exposed to a wide range of concepts they may soon forget.  In this episode, Cohen explains to St. Louis Fed Economic Education Officer Scott Wolla how this approach can help all students, even those who go on to pursue a career in economics.

In the latest episode of our Teach Economics podcast,  Annamaria Lusardi, faculty director of the Initiative for Financial Decision-Making at Stanford University, talks about her career journey and passion for teaching personal finance education. “When the tooth fairy comes is the time to talk about money,” she says. “Give a piggy bank to a child and you will instantly turn (the child) into a clever banker. I enjoy empowering people with the knowledge and skills that are so important today. I really do think I am empowering the student to be able to navigate the world around them.”

When introducing economics to students, Harvard University economics professor Greg Mankiw says it helps to keep it simple. “Maybe they will only take one course in economics,” Mankiw says. “So the question is, for that student, what can you leave them with?” With that in mind, Mankiw wrote the hugely influential Principles of Economics more like a magazine than a traditional textbook. In this episode, Mankiw discusses his journey to the field and how down-to-earth language can unlock students’ understanding of complex economic concepts.

Would bringing brain science into your classroom help you teach economics? In this episode, Scott Wolla, economic education officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, explores that question. He’s joined by Bill Goffe, an economics teaching professor at Penn State University, and Andrew Butler, an associate professor of psychology and brain sciences at Washington University in St. Louis. Both educators say that applying even a little brain science to economics lessons can help unlock students’ learning potential.

In this episode of Teach Economics, Justin Wolfers, professor of public policy and economics at the University of Michigan, talks to Scott Wolla, economic education officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, about how he found economics, why he loves teaching economics, and why it’s important to help students “think like an economist.”

In this third episode, Mary Suiter, former assistant vice president of economic education at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, and Mike Raymer, executive director of the Georgia Council for Economic Education, share their journeys and advice on writing lessons that bring economics to life for students in the classroom. They discuss how having a great community of fellow educators can help generate good ideas and make teaching and learning economics more enjoyable.

In the second episode of Sneak-a-nomics, Bonnie Meszaros, associate director of the Center of Economic Education and Entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware,  discusses what goes into writing engaging economics and personal finance lessons using children’s literature. Also hear from Erin Boettcher, a fifth grade teacher at Newark Charter School in Newark, Del., who shares how she makes economics and personal finance feel natural for her and her students.

In the first episode of Sneak-a-nomics, Erin Boettcher, a fifth grade teacher at Newark Charter School in Newark, Del., and Bonnie Meszaros, associate director of the Center of Economic Education and Entrepreneurship at the University of Delaware, discuss the value of teaching economics and personal finance in the elementary school classroom as well as how you can “sneak” concepts such as saving, decision making, goods and services, productivity, and opportunity costs into the subjects you’re already teaching.