Class Review

There were many things about the class that I thought were done well. I liked the concept behind the course, teaching econ from the perspective of educating future teachers, not teaching standard economic course material that would quickly be regurgitated on a test and even more quickly forgotten. I found to be the most beneficial the lesson plans, which shed some light onto the process and preparation of teaching. I seem to recollect eating more candy in the course than any others in recent memory, which is always a plus.
I do find some criticisms in some of the work of the course, however. As evidenced by the number of posts on this blog, I found the concept of blogging to be extremely counter-intuitive to my usual academic conduct, as I am rarely encouraged to express my thoughts or criticisms of coursework. I found myself uncomfortable writing them, and I find myself uncomfortable writing this.
My greatest criticism was towards the Junior Achievement program. Although I was only able to conduct one successful session, and prepare for another, I found the whole process to be above and beyond the normal time and effort required of an upper division course. While I applaud the idea of having a teaching experience, I think having students almost exclusively interested in teaching history (and often uninterested or even hostile towards economics) was not particularly beneficial. More criticisms and critiques of the Junior Achievement program as a whole can be found in the previous blogs.
I did, as a whole, find this course to be very beneficial, and I appreciate the effort to implement new and creative methods in the course.