Tuesday, January 5, 2016
One More Reminder - Discussion Group
There are a couple of takers, so this is now on. If you'd like to join the group, please let me know.
Friday, December 18, 2015
Reminder - Discussion Group
There is definitely no obligation for you to do this, but if you are interested in participating in the discussion group please lease me know. Thanks.
Final Exam and Course Grades Uploaded into Moodle
Note that the Course Grade is in the Feedback area of the grade report. I will upload the grades into Banner in a few minutes.
I believe the grading was generous. I hope you feel likewise.
Happy Holidays.
I believe the grading was generous. I hope you feel likewise.
Happy Holidays.
Bah, Humbug. Scrooge was an economist!
Taking a little break from the grading. I thought you might be amused by this paper, which is based on the following premise. If you exchange real gifts with a distant cousin over the holidays, and the gifts have the same cash value, and each cousin doesn't really know what the other wants, wouldn't each of you be better off were there no gift exchange whatsoever?
Thursday, December 17, 2015
The class doesn't end even after it is over.
You may be unaware that I have some monitoring turned on at Box.com, where the course files (PowerPoints, PDFs, and Excel Spreadsheets) are posted. Every time somebody downloads a file from the class site, I get an email update. I do this not for any strategic reason. That was the default when I set up the account and I've simply left it turned on.
Today somebody downloaded the Excel Homework on the Shapiro-Stiglitz model during our final. Now it is possible that the monitoring is in error, meaning the person downloaded it earlier and I only get the message after a substantial lag. I am testing that now to see how long it takes after I've downloaded the file to get the email message. (It took 5 minutes to get the email.)
My reaction to this may be other than how you'd react if you were in my shoes. First, I don't know who it is. Second, I doubt it impacted the performance on the exam much if at all. But, third, and this is really the most important one, it seems to me that many of you are very stressed out during exam week. There is supposed to be both good stress and bad stress. Even the best actors get stage fright. That's good stress. But if there is too much of it then it is bad, and overwhelms you, and you act other than you typically would. There was a comedian, Flip Wilson, who was popular when I was your age. His tag line was - the devil made me do it.
If you get into a position where you manage others, know that monitoring can cause stress. Part of your job will be to keep the devil at bay in the people who work for you. I wish there was some magic formula for that, but I don't know of any. All I can say is that sometimes it is better to forgive and forget.
On that note, I will start in on the grading.
Today somebody downloaded the Excel Homework on the Shapiro-Stiglitz model during our final. Now it is possible that the monitoring is in error, meaning the person downloaded it earlier and I only get the message after a substantial lag. I am testing that now to see how long it takes after I've downloaded the file to get the email message. (It took 5 minutes to get the email.)
My reaction to this may be other than how you'd react if you were in my shoes. First, I don't know who it is. Second, I doubt it impacted the performance on the exam much if at all. But, third, and this is really the most important one, it seems to me that many of you are very stressed out during exam week. There is supposed to be both good stress and bad stress. Even the best actors get stage fright. That's good stress. But if there is too much of it then it is bad, and overwhelms you, and you act other than you typically would. There was a comedian, Flip Wilson, who was popular when I was your age. His tag line was - the devil made me do it.
If you get into a position where you manage others, know that monitoring can cause stress. Part of your job will be to keep the devil at bay in the people who work for you. I wish there was some magic formula for that, but I don't know of any. All I can say is that sometimes it is better to forgive and forget.
On that note, I will start in on the grading.
Monday, December 14, 2015
A little humor and....
.... if you've never seen it before an essential part of anyone's education about American culture.
Project Grades Uploaded
I did have to do this manually, but I've now done that and checked my work. Each member of the team got the same grade and received the same comments. The comments were about the presentation only, since that was new. I gave extensive comments on the paper already.
I've uploaded all the PowerPoints to a folder. If you are interested in seeing what your classmates have produced, you can take a look there.
All grades but the final exam have now been uploaded. So you should know where you stand going into the final and can prepare accordingly.
Good luck on your other exams.
I've uploaded all the PowerPoints to a folder. If you are interested in seeing what your classmates have produced, you can take a look there.
All grades but the final exam have now been uploaded. So you should know where you stand going into the final and can prepare accordingly.
Good luck on your other exams.
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