Exeter Pedagogy, Economics, Research, and Teaching seminars (ExPERTS)
The ExPERTS seminars are hybrid or online talks co-organised by Arpita Ghosh and Szabolcs Deak at the University of Exeter. These seminars host national and international speakers who deliver talks on key issues and research in Economics Education and important policies/advances.
Forthcoming events
12 March 2025 (hybrid): Fabio Aricò (University of East Anglia) "Designing Out Generative AI by Introducing and Developing Familiarity with Viva Voce Assessment" Sign up at this link
Ready availability of Generative AI poses threats to academic integrity in assessment. Two pathways are available to tackle this challenge: designing in or designing out. In this presentation I explore the potential of viva voce assessment as one of the viable designing out solutions. First, I will frame oral assessment within the current HE landscape and discuss the challenges and merits it poses. Second, I will discuss practical ways to introduce and scaffold viva voce tasks for students. In the final part of the talk, I will present the result of a viva voce assessment evaluation project conducted at the University of East Anglia and outline avenues for further investigation.
19 March 2025 (hybrid): Maria Psyllou (Imperial College London) "Beyond Chalk and Talk": Bringing Economics to Life in the Classroom Sign up at this link
Traditional lectures alone often fall short in fully engaging students in economics. This seminar explores interactive and student-centered teaching strategies, including gamification, group work activities, and student-led case studies and debates that promote applied learning. Drawing on practical examples from my own teaching, I will discuss how these approaches have improved student motivation, deepened understanding of economic concepts, and created an active learning environment. The session will offer practical insights for educators looking to integrate innovative methods into their teaching and develop a more engaging and dynamic classroom experience.
7 May 2025 (hybrid): Christian Spielman (University of Bristol): details TBC
Past events
11 December 2024 (hybrid): Jana Sadeh (Southampton) "A Cooperative Virtual Exchange within the Economics Curriculum: A pilot study on developing global competency"
The increasing interconnectivity of the global economy has fueled higher education (HE) efforts to promote international exchange projects; however, these are not an option for many students. Virtual Exchange (VE) projects have emerged as an innovative and promising approach to enhance students' global competency at a low cost to educators and students. When combined with cooperative learning methods they also present an opportunity for economics students to develop deeper learning of the subjects they are studying while increasing their global competency. This paper presents a novel pilot VE cooperative learning program between students at a university in the US and a university in the UK. Students jointly undertake a cooperative learning exercise to produce output for a summative assessment. We measure their global competency pre and post the VE and find preliminary indications that this experience positively impacted students, particularly in the dimension of interaction engagement and confidence and particularly for female students and students who are multilingual. The paper contributes to the literature by presenting the novel combination of cooperative learning within a VE, outlining a timeline of practical steps for implementation to support other educators who may want to replicate this project and providing preliminary evidence of the potential impact of such projects on students’ global competency.
27 November 2024 (online): Wayne Geerling (UT Austin) – "Using Squid Game to Teach Game Theory"
Economic educators have been teaching with pop culture for decades, but the idea of using foreign-language teaching resources to create a more inclusive and diverse classroom has only recently been taken up. In this presentation, I use Netflix’s dystopian Korean-language drama series Squid Game (2021) to illustrate an active-learning technique to support the teaching of game theory in undergraduate courses. The series is chosen because it demonstrates different games with which the characters have to engage as part of the narrative. Geerling, Mateer and Addler (2020) show that using popular films in class is an effective way to introduce and motivate the deeper learning of core game theory concepts. I build on this work by providing instructors with a menu of quick teaching scenes and extended teaching guides, from which they can freely select and adapt to their particular needs.
13 November 2024 (hybrid): Cloda Jenkins (Imperial) – “SoTL on a Shoestring”
In this presentation, Cloda Jenkins discussed her experience undertaking research in economics education over the last 10+ years, sharing tips on how to have impact with little or no funding and how to find those little bits of funding that are out there.
6 November 2024 (online): David McCausland (Aberdeen) – “Publishing in Economics Pedagogy Journals”
