Economics Day

Today was a change of scenery and faces. We met in the Lloyd-Ricks Building for our sessions today. We began the morning with Dr. Becky Smith. She introduced us to Economics and its place in our various classrooms. We talked about The Stock Market Game and the Economic Summit. I was familiar with the Economic Summit because of the Marketing teacher I work with at school. I had the privilege of driving her and her students (one of who was my daughter) to the Economic Summit competition a few years ago. It was awesome to watch. The students were very engaged and appeared to very knowledgeable about the countries that they had chosen to represent. Sandy's teams from our school always win. She is awesome with the students and the competition. She has encouraged me to use the Economic Summit in my classroom, too. I am seriously considering it for this year. Dr. Smith also introduced us to Service-Learning. This was interesting to talk about. It is a different aspect of community service. It makes the community service an opportunity for learning. The next speaker was Dr. Cade Smith. He is the husband of Dr. Becky Smith. Dr. Cade Smith provided us with examples of how Service-Learning works and how it is done at the university. Dr. Heiselt further introduced us to Service-Learning and encouraged us to incorporate it into our classrooms. She encouraged us to contact her for ideas and brainstorming for ways to do Service-Learning with our students. Dr. Shaffett provided examples for us to use the Budget Game and other opportunities in our classrooms. I plan to share this information with the Economics teachers at school, along with the Marketing teacher. I want to incorporate more economics in my classroom this coming year. We can research more about the economics of Spanish speaking countries and compare that to the United States. It was a great day in a beautiful building.