Instructor: Kristyn Brown
Office Hours: Tuesdays 4:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. 1029 Pinnacle
Messages: Voice mail: 223-1795 box 22645#
E-mail: kbrown@austincc.edu
Even though my office hours are limited, I will
answer e-mail and voice mail daily.
Please include something identifying yourself or what class you're in in the
subject line (Econ 2301, Macro). ACC email has a hideous spam problem and my
filters are set pretty tight. If I don't reply within a day or two, send
another email, just in case.
Please feel free to contact me as often as needed.
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Blackboard
is an on-line classroom management tool. It includes a gradebook, an
announcements page, all the information you need for the course, and a facility
for administering on-line tests and quizzes. ACC's Blackboard URL is http://acconline.austincc.edu. Do not go to
blackboard.com, the company's own site.
Please change your password while you are logged on for the first time. To
change your password, click the "User Tools" button. When that page
opens up, click on the line that says "Personal Information." When
that page opens up, click on the line that says "Change Password."
The rest should be self-explanatory. If you have used Blackboard in the past,
your most recent password should still be the one to use.
It is important to change your password so that you can be secure in the knowledge that no one besides you and your instructor can see your grade information. If you are using Blackboard for other courses, each instructor will only be able to see the grades in the course that they are teaching.
The first day students can access Blackboard is typically the day after registration ends.
Please enter your email address into the Blackboard system. You will find it under Personal Information in User Tools - the same place you can change your password. This will be the only way I will have to contact the entire class with information you may need. Your address will NOT be available to other students.
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Course Description: The purpose of this course is to familiarize the student with the generally accepted principles of macroeconomics. Though ultimately based on the actions of individual households and business firms, macroeconomics deals with aggregates--i.e., consumers as a whole, producers as a whole, exporters and importers as a whole, the effects of government spending and taxation, and the monetary policy of the central bank. Macroeconomics is concerned with such things as unemployment, inflation, and the business cycle.
Departmental Course Description, Rationale, Common Course Objectives/Student Outcomes
1. Course Description-
Principles of Macroeconomics deals with consumers as a whole, producers as a
whole, the effects of government spending and taxation policies and the effects
of the monetary policy carried out by the Federal Reserve Bank. Macroeconomics
is concerned with unemployment, inflation, and the business cycle.
2. Course Rationale- This
course is meant to give students insight into the dynamics of our national
economy. The knowledge gained in the course will make students better informed
citizens and allow them to follow the debates over national economic policy
reported in the news media. This course is also a foundation course that will
prepare students to be successful in upper division finance, marketing,
business administration, economics, government, and social work courses.
3.
Common
Course Objectives/Student Outcomes. Students who complete this course will be
able to understand:
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Instructional Resources:
1.
Macroeconomics:
Explore & Apply, Enhanced Edition 2.0, by Ronald M. Ayers and Robert A.
Collinge (Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2003.
2.
Aplia,
by Paul Romer (Aplia, Inc., 2003).
Macroeconomics: Explore & Apply: Enhanced Edition 2.0, our textbook, was designed specifically to be used with the internet. Everything in the print version of the text is mirrored in the online Course Compass web site for the text. However the online version is enhanced with a variety of multimedia and interactive examples that the print version does not contain. The activebook version of the printed text is cheaper than the standard version because it does not contain as many study helps, including the index and glossary. These are all on the web site. If you don't mind doing all your reading on the computer, you may buy just the online access from the publisher. This is less convenient, but also less expensive.
If the ACC bookstore at the campus nearest you does not have this book, you may purchase it at the Rio Grande campus bookstore, online through the ACC bookstore, or at the publisher's website: http://vig.prenhall.com/catalog/academic/product/0,1144,0131637495,00.html
Throughout the online Course Compass, you will encounter rectangular boxes labeled "objectives," "gearing up," "active concept check," "active exercise," "active example," "active poll," "active graphs," or "smart graphs." When you click on one of these boxes, a pop-up window will appear on your screen giving you an opportunity to further explore the ideas you are reading about in the text. For easy reference, each of these boxes is numbered consecutively throughout the chapter.
The online Course Compass also has a chapter summary, a list of key term and their definitions, a practice quiz, and a practice test. The printed text does not.
Important Note: You will need the free QuickTime video player and the free Flash player to view the video and the graph animations in the online Course Compass. To see if you have these free programs installed, click on the Browser Tuneup link on the Course Compass homepage after you have logged into the site for the first time.
Course Compass is at http://www.coursecompass.com/ccindex.html Our course code is brown 08000. You will also need a code from the front of your book. WARNING: If you buy a used book, this code will be expired. I have included as much from Course Compass as I can on our Blackboard site, so many students do fine even without Course Compass.
APLIA is a website developed by Professor Paul Romer of Stanford University. The instructor of this course will be assigning homework from this site as well as conducting on-line experiments.
The homework will consist of multiple choice and true-false questions, but, in addition, there will be homework questions where you will be asked to shift curves on graphs and to write in answers in boxes provided. Usually there will be one or two practice assignments available to prepare you to take the graded assignments.
There are also several "experiments" that you will be asked to participate in with the rest of the class from your internet connected computer either at home or in the library. These "experiments" are like interactive computer games in which each participant is assigned a role, say as a buyer or a seller in the market for used textbooks.
Instructions on how to sign up for Aplia will be given in this course's ACC Blackboard site. Aplia has the ability to manage the whole course on its site, but your course will be managed at ACC's Blackboard site. This course will only be using the homework assignments and experiments the instructor has selected from Aplia. Course Announcements will be posted to Blackboard; midterm exams will be administered through Blackboard; and your course grades can be accessed through Blackboard.
The number of points available on each assignment varies. Aplia will grade each assignment that you complete and record it in Aplia's gradebook. The instructor will periodically record the total grade recorded in Aplia's gradebook to the gradebook available on the course's ACC Blackboard site. Your Aplia total will be doubled when it is recorded in Blakckboard.
Aplia assignments will be listed on the announcements section of the Aplia site, as well as on Blackboard.
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Learning Objectives: The examinations in this course are based on learning objectives composed by the instructors that you can find on Blackboard. Read these objectives carefully before you read the corresponding chapter in the textbook and do the activities on the textbook's Course Compass web site and on Aplia. The learning objectives are correlated exactly with the questions on the exams and are more detailed than the ones that can be found under "objectives" in the textbook's web site. In general, after studying each chapter, you should be able to:
1.
List
what topics the questions on the exams will cover and what pages in the
textbook those topics are covered on.
2.
Define
all the key terms introduced in the chapter and listed in the
"end-of-chapter resources" on the textbook's on-line Course Compass
web page.
3.
Answer
questions drawn from the "Explore & Apply" section in the
textbook.
4.
Successfully
complete all the "active exercises" and "active graphs" on
the textbook's on-line Course Compass web page.
5.
Take
the "Practice Quiz" and "Test Yourself" quizzes at the end
of each chapter on the on-line Course Compass.
6.
The learning objectives are there to help you focus your mind on the important concepts and theories discussed in the unit. The exams will test your knowledge of and ability to apply these learning objectives. Knowing this will help you efficiently allocate your mental energies.
Recommended Study Method:
1.
Spend
as much time studying for this non-traditional course as you would have spent
if you had registered for this course in its traditional lecture format - going
to lectures and doing homework. This translates into about 10 hours a week.
2.
Not
procrastinate, and you should not cram for exams. Set up a regular study
schedule for this course and stick to it!
3.
Read
the learning objectives supplied by the instructor. The learning objectives
listed in activebook at the beginning of each online chapter are more general
than those composed by the instructor. The instructor's learning objectives
will be correlated to the examination questions.
4.
Study
the assigned textbook material. This includes the "Explore & Apply
" sections found at the end of most chapters.
5.
Work
through the questions in the Practice Quiz and the Test Yourself found in the
"end-of-chapter resources" in your activebook.
6.
Go
through all the "active" examples, exercises, concept checks, and
graphs. Go through the "smart graph" exercises also.
7.
Go
through all of the applicable Aplia practice and graded homework problem sets
for a given chapter/unit in the text.
8.
Take
the four midterm exams and the final by their assigned deadlines. See
Blackboard for these dates.
Reading the textbook thoroughly is the key to doing well in this Distance Learning course. Distance Learning courses have no lectures to help you understand the material being covered. You must rely almost completely on the textbook to help you understand the material. This is why reading, and re-reading the text is so essential. I recommend that you take these steps in reading each chapter.
Step One: Skim the chapter. Spend three to five seconds looking over each page of the chapter.
Step Two: Quickly read over the chapter again reading only the title of the chapter, the learning objectives, all the headings and sub-headings in the chapter, all the words in bold print, and all the words in the left column of each page in the chapter.
Step Three: Read the introduction of the chapter, the first paragraph of each section or subsection in the chapter and the first sentence of all of the other paragraphs in the section or subsection. Finally read the summary of the chapter.
Step Four: Without referring back to the chapter make a list of all the important concepts, terms, ideas, theories, and laws that you can remember.
Step Five: Read the introduction, the learning objectives, and the summary of the chapter in the "end-of-chapter" section of activebook.
Step Six: Revise and improve your list and then use it to make the outline/map of the chapter.
Step Seven: Read the chapter in the text/activebook completely and thoroughly.
Step Eight: Revise and improve your outline/map once again. This time add the key terms to the appropriate places in your outline/map if they had been included before this time.
Step Nine: Answer the Practice Quiz, Test Yourself, and Questions and Problems sections in the "end-of-chapter" section of activebook.
Step Ten: Revise your outline/map one more time.
Step Eleven: Review your outline/map every four or five days until the exam and then use it to prepare for the exam.
If you read your textbook in this structured and disciplined way, you will learn much more than if you approach your reading task in an unorganized manner, and you will do much better on the exams than you would otherwise do.
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Mandatory Student Progress Assessment Meetings: To receive credit for this course, students must contact me TWICE during the semester, preferably by e-mail. Or you may make your contact either in person or by telephone during my office hours at PIN. You must contact me after you have taken the first exam and after you have taken the third exam. The purpose of these consultations is to determine how the course is going for you and to find out if there are any problems with the course that I can help you with.
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There will be ten learning objectives listed for each chapter. Each learning objective will have 10 or more questions connected to it by the testing program used in this course. That program will randomly choose one question from each group of ten for the exam. For example, if an exam is 40 questions long like the exams for this course, then there will be 10 ways to select the first question, ten ways to select the second question, and so on to the fortieth question. The number of different exams this program can generate for one midterm/unit exam is 1040. One billion is 1 followed by 9 zeros. 1040 is 1 followed by 40 zeros.
The online midterm/unit exams will also be timed. You will have 60 minutes to answer 40 questions. In addition, the exams will be given on the Blackboard internet course platform used by ACC, so students will need to sign on to Blackboard in order to take the exams.
Students will have three tries at each online exam. Students do not have to take it three times though. If a student is satisfied with his score after the first try, he can stop there. If a second or third try is made, the last attempt will completely overwrite (erase) previous efforts.
So be careful, you can do worse on these re-tests. If you re-test, you will receive the grade you made on your last attempt.
This means there is some risk in re-taking an exam, since you could do worse. This risk is intentional. I put it there hoping that it would give you some incentive to re-study the material if you decide to re-take an exam. You do not need the consent of the instructor to re-test an exam, but you do need to request that the instructor re-set the exam so that you can re-test on it. Blackboard does not automatically re-set exams, so do not be bashful about making these requests if you want to re-test.
YOU SHOULD TAKE THE EXAMS NO LATER THAN THE DATE LISTED ON BLACKBOARD. However, all exams will be available on Blackboard through the end of the semester. Contact the instructor if you are unable to take any of the exams by the listed date so that we can put together a plan to catch up.
Please note: Because these exams are internet based, it is possible that technical difficulties can result in the loss of a student's exam. This does not happen often, but when it does, there is no way to retrieve lost results. The student will have to take the exam over again. It is advisable to get a print out of your exam when you are finished.
Final Exam: The Final Exam must be taken in a Testing Center. You MUST show your student photo ID in order to take an exam at a Testing Center. You can get your ID at the Admissions and Records office at any campus the day after you register. The Final Exam can be taken at any Testing Center. The Final Exam will be graded by the Testing Center personnel while students wait for the results. At the San Marcos, Round Rock, and Fredericksburg testing centers, at least 10 days are needed for the instructor to receive exams. There is no retesting on the final exam.
The final exam will be comprehensive. Two or three questions will be drawn from each chapter covered during the semester. The questions will be arranged in the order the chapters were assigned. Questions over Chapter 1 will be the first ones encountered and questions over Chapter 17 will be the last ones encountered. You will find no questions over chapter 4, since Chapter 4 was skipped in this course.
Students will be allowed to bring with them one 8.5x11 inch piece of paper with notes written on it on both sides. This crib sheet must be hand written -- not typed, and it must not be a photocopy. This crib sheet must also be turned in with your answer sheet. You must use a crib sheet even if it has nothing on it except a note saying you didn't prepare a crib sheet with your signature.
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Aplia Homework: Aplia contains highly interactive problem sets, tutorials, news analyses, readings, and experiments.The number of points available from these problem sets, tutorials, news analyses, readings, and experiments varies. As you can see by reading the grading policy below, 1000 points from this source will constitute a required part of the course. However, I will be assigning many more than 1000 points worth of problem sets, tutorials, news analyses, and readings.
IMPORTANT: I will periodically double the total number of points you have accumulated from the Aplia assignments and record them into the "official" gradebook for the course on Blackboard until you reach 1000 points. Every point you earn on Aplia after you have reached 1000 in the Blackboard gradebook for this part of the course will be counted as an extra credit point on a one-for-one basis. For example, if a student earns 904 points on Aplia, the first 500 will be doubled and recorded as 1000 points in Blackboard's gradebook for Aplia homework. The next 404 points will be recorded as extra credit points in the Blackboard gradebook. The number you see for Aplia in Blackboard's gradebook will already be doubled.
The homework assignments do have deadlines. If an assignment is not completed by a deadline, there is absolutely no way that you can go back after the deadline to make it up. All the assignments correlated with a particular chapter in the Ayers and Collinge text will have the same deadline. There are so many of them with the same deadline that it would be impossible to finish them if you started doing them only two hours before the deadline expired. That being so, it is best not to procrastinate on getting started with assignments.
It also means that you should not delay signing up for Aplia.
I have assigned a substantial number of "practice sets" to prepare you for the "graded" sets. You may go directly to the "graded" sets if you feel confident in your mastery of the material without doing the "practice sets" -- i.e., the "practice sets" are not required. The "practice sets" will give you immediate feedback to help you learn the material; the "graded sets" will only give you feedback to help you learn the material after the deadline has passed. You can go back and change answers as often as you want on the graded assignments right up to the deadline.
Go directly to the Aplia web site to view the assignments and their deadlines. (Access the sign in pare at http://econ.aplia.com, or if that does not work try going to http://www.aplia.com and clicking the "sign in" button.) The coming week's assignments are always given on the your Aplia home page, and the assignments for the whole semester can be viewed by clicking on the "Assignments" tab toward the upper right of Aplia's home page for the course. More details on which Aplia assignments correspond to which textbook chapters will be given in Blackboard.
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Exam 1 = (40) X (10) = 400
Exam 2 = (40) X (10) = 400
Exam 3 = (40) X (10) = 400
Exam 4 = (40) X (10)= 400
Aplia Homework = 1000
Experiments = (3) X (50) = 150
Final Exam = (50) X (25) = 1250
Total Possible Points = 4000
Number of Points needed for Final Letter Grade
4000 - 3600 (100 - 90%) = A
3599 - 3200 (89.9 - 80%) = B
3199 - 2600 (79.9 - 65%) = C
2599 - 2200 (64.9 - 55%) = D
2199 - 0 (54.9 - 0%) = F
Extra Credit Points: There are three ways to for students to improve their grades by earning extra credit points. The total number of extra credit points possible is almost 25% of the 4000 points available on exams and required Aplia homework alone. Warning: all sources of extra credit require you to stay on schedule. There will be no opportunity to accumulate a lot of extra credit points at the end of the semester.
Extra Credit Type 1: Take the tests on time: You can earn extra credit points by taking your exams on or before the initial testing deadline, as listed in Blackboard. You will earn 20 points for each Unit exam taken on or before its deadline. You will not lose these extra credit points if you take the re-test for that unit. If you take the Final on or before its deadline, you will earn 60 extra credit points. The total number of extra credit points you can earn by taking the exams on time is 140. This is equivalent to 3.50% of the total points available (4000) from the tests and required homework.
Extra Credit Type 2: Completing more than the required number of homework assignments on Aplia: Aplia homework assignments constitute 25% of the required total grade for the course. That is 1000 out of a total of 4000 points. See the list of assignments and their due dates on Blackboard and Aplia. The extra credit comes from the fact that if you actually did all of the assignments from Aplia you could earn many more points than 1000. Every point beyond 1000 that you earn on this part of the course will be added to your extra credit points. There are about 1200 points available on Aplia. If a student were to get credit for all of them (i.e., make a 100% on all of the Aplia assignments available), then the first 500 of those points would be doubled and recorded as 1000 points in the course's Blackboard gradebook. The remaining 700 points would be recorded in the Blackboard gradebook as extra credit points.
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Scholastic dishonesty: Acts prohibited
by the college for which discipline may be administered include scholastic
dishonesty, including but not limited to cheating on an exam or quiz,
plagiarizing, and unauthorized collaboration with another in preparing outside
work. Academic work submitted by students shall be the result of their thought,
research or self-expression. Academic work is defined as, but not limited to
tests, quizzes, whether taken electronically or on paper; projects, either
individual or group; classroom presentations, and homework.
Students with disabilities:
Each ACC campus offers support services for students with documented physical
or psychological disabilities. Students with disabilities must request
reasonable accommodations through the Office for Students with Disabilities on
the campus where they expect to take the majority of their classes. Students
are encouraged to do this three weeks before the start of the semester.
Academic Freedom: Each student is strongly encouraged to participate in class discussions. In any classroom situation that includes discussion and critical thinking, particularly about economic and political ideas, there are bound to be many differing viewpoints. Students may not only disagree with each other at times, but the students and instructor may also find that they have opposing views on sensitive and volatile topics. It is my hope that these differences will enhance class discussion and create an atmosphere where students and instructor alike will be encouraged to think and learn. Therefore, be assured that your grades will not be adversely affected by any beliefs or ideas expressed in class or in assignments. Rather, we will all respect the views of others when expressed in classroom discussions.