Office Hours:	How:	January 17 - May 14
	In Person:	Tuesday 7:00 a.m. - 10:20 a.m. & 1:30 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.
	In Person:	Thursday 7:00 a.m. - 10:20 a.m. & 1:30 p.m. - 2:30 p.m.
	Internet Meeting by appointment	Arrange appointment to Meet on Blackboard Collaborate or Zoom
	asynchronous:	Email at any time, I will respond within 24 hours: jason@austincc.edu
	by phone:	Call my office number M, T, W, or Th, leave a message, and I will return your call within 24 hours.

Office:

Rio Grande Campus(RGC)/3000 Building at 1218 West Ave. 78701

Rm. 3252

RGC Phone: 512-223-3390

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this course is to familiarize the student with the generally accepted principles of macroeconomics. Macroeconomics is concerned with such things as, economic growth, unemployment, inflation, and the business cycle. Though ultimately based on the actions of individual households and business firms (microeconomics), macroeconomics deals with aggregates--i.e., consumers as a whole, producers as a whole, exporters and importers as a whole, fiscal policy --the effects of government spending and taxation, and the monetary policy of the central bank.

The course is subdivided into several major areas as follows: (1) microeconomic foundation; (2) national income accounting; (3) growth; (4) inflation; (5) unemployment; (6) money and banking; (7) international trade and the exchange rate; (8) the business cycle; (9) national income determination with the effects of fiscal and monetary policy included; (10) an explanation of our current situation.

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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:
• critically evaluate GDP, unemployment, and inflation data;
• explain the business cycle and its phases;
• manipulate the basic Aggregate Supply, Aggregate Demand model of the macro economy;
• and to manipulate the basic Aggregate Supply, Aggregate Demand model of the macro economy;
• explain fiscal policy tools and defend and criticize the usage fiscal policy;
• describe how a fractional reserve banking system works;
• explain monetary policy tools and defend and criticize the usage monetary policy.

4.  Discipline Program Student Learning Outcomes.

• PSLO 1: Socially Optimal Market Outcomes- Model and explain under what circumstances are capable of creating socially optimal outcomes.
• PSLO 2: Socially Suboptimal Market Outcomes- Model and explain under what circumstances markets are capable of creating outcomes that are not socially optimal.
• PSLO 3: Economic Policy -Defend and criticize the role of economic policy in a mixed market economy.
• PSLO 4: Economic Data -Critically evaluate economic data.

5.  General Education Competencies.

• Civic and Cultural Awareness - Analyzing and critiquing competing perspectives in a democratic society; comparing, contrasting, and interpreting differences and commonalities among peoples, ideas, aesthetic traditions, and cultural practices.
• Critical Thinking - Gathering, analyzing, synthesizing, evaluating and applying information.
• Quantitative and Empirical Reasoning - Applying mathematical, logical and scientific principles and methods.
• Written, Oral and Visual Communication - Communicating effectively, adapting to purpose, structure, audience, and medium.

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The lecture topics/questions upon which the exams will be based will function as broad learning objectives for this course.

All of the multiple-choice questions found on the on-line exams will center about the same list of topical questions. The instructor will make available the list of questions at the beginning of each unit of the course. Each unit will cover 14 to 18 of these questions. The instructor has composed a pool of 10 to 40 questions over each topic/ learning objective/question. The on-line exams will randomly draw from 1 to 3 questions from each of these pools. Because of this, these topics will constitute learning objectives of this course.

These lecture topics/learning objectives can be found by clicking here.

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Regular attendance is expected. Frequent exposure to an instructor's explanations is an important factor in a student's ability to master the material covered. (Here is a scatter graph of the correlation between attendance and grades: http://www.austincc.edu/sondg/images/graphs/attendance.PNG.) I will try to take attendance evey class period. I know that Blackboard Collaborate automatically takes attendance and keeps tabs on when students joined a session and when they log off, but I will also be calling roll for the first half to two-thirds of the course. I will reward students who attend frequently by awarding them extra credit points. These extra credit points will equal up to 5% of the course grade. If a student misses more than 5 classes, these extra credit points will disappear. See the section on Extra Credit Points below.

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Blackboard:

Blackboard is an on-line classroom management tool. It includes a grade book, a discussion board, ways to communicate between students and between students and professor, and a testing facility.

Instructions on how to log into this course's Blackboard site can be found at http://itdl.austincc.edu/blackboard/stlogin.htm.

DON’T HAVE A USERNAME AND PASSWORD YET?

If you have not created your new ACC Username or Password through ACCeID Manager, then please go to this link: https://acceid.austincc.edu/idm/user/login.jsp.

Do not fill in your Username and Password on this page, since you do not have either yet. DO CLICK on “First-Time Login.”

Your ACCeID will be the first letter of your legal, given, first name and your seven digit ACC ID number. For example, fictional student Adam Smith might have this Username a0067701.

Once you submit this Username, just follow the instructions.

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Blackboard Collaborate-Virtual Office Hours:

Blackboard is the Learning Management System (LMS) ACC uses for all its courses. You will learn more about Blackboard below.

Virtual office hour meetings with the instructor will be by appointment only. These appointments will be arranged and agreed to via email requests to the instructors email account: jason@austincc.edu--please include ECON 2301.55334.039 in the subject line.

I might prefer meeting you on Zoom. If so, I will send the the day and time to you in an email response to your request to meet.

In a normal semester, I would administer three essays exams in class and three multiple-choic exams on Blackboard. Because this class has been scheduled as a synchronous Distance Learning section, I am only going to require multiple-choice exams. These exams will be supplemented with ten written homework assignments all of which will be submitted digitally through Blackboard.

Three Midterm Multiple-Choice Exams:There will be three cumulative, midterm, multiple choice exams, and also three cumulative essay exams. There will be no comprehensive final exam. This is because the cumulative nature of the objective mid-term exams will go some way toward meeting the objective of a comprehensive final exam.

The three midterm multiple-choice exams will consist of between 30 and 50 questions. These exams will be administered on-line through the course's Blackboard site.  They will not be administered during class. Students may take them at home if they like. These exams will be timed. The multiple choice questions on these exams will be directly correlated to the  lecture topics/learning objectives made available on Blackboard and on the Internet.

The first on-line midterm objective/multiple-choice exam will consist of 30 questions worth 6 points apiece for a total of 180 possible points. The time limit on this exam will be 45 minutes.

The second on-line midterm objective/multiple-choice exam will consist of 40 questions. The first 10 questions will cover the material from the first unit of the course and be worth 6 points apiece; the remaining 30 will cover the material we have gone over in class, and in the recorded lectures over those topics, since the first exam, and they will be worth 7 points apiece. In total there the second exam will be worth 270 points. The time limit on this exam will be 60 minutes. 

The third on-line midterm objective/multiple-choice exam will consist of 50 questions. The first 10 questions will again cover material from the first unit and be worth 5 points apiece. The next 10 questions will cover material from the second unit of the course and be worth 6 points apiece. The remaining 30 questions will cover the material we have gone over in class, and the recorded lectures over those topics, since the second exam, and they will be worth 8 points apiece. In total the third exam will be worth 350 points. The time limit on this exam will be 75 minutes. 

In total, these three objective, multiple-choice exams will be worth 800 points or 80% of the course grade.

Students must take them by the deadlines set in the "Tentative Lecturing/Testing Schedule.

Resopondus Lock Down Browser and Respondus Monitor

The three multiple-choic exams mentioned immediately above will require that a proctoring software be used to take them.

This software is entitled Respondus LockDown Browser and Respondus Monitor, it is provided free of charge to students by Austin Community College.

Instructions on how to download this software to your computer and how to use it can be found on this course's ACC Blackboard site. A link in the left navigation bar entitled "Respondus" will open a folder on Blackboard which contains all the needed links to download the software and videos on how to use it.

This software can be used at your home or anywhere in the world that has an Internet connection.

SCHECULED DATES & Deadlines for On-Line Multiple Choice Exams:

	On-line Multiple Choice Exams
Exam 1	To be taken sometime between Thursday evening, February 23, and Tuesday, February 28, by NOON..
Exam 2	To be taken sometime between Thursday evening, April 6, and Tuesday, April 11, by NOON..
Exam 3	To be taken sometime between Thursday evening, May 11, and Sunday, May 14, by midnight.

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1. Written Homework:

   There will be ten traditional homework assignments (with perhaps an 11th added at the end of the semester for extra credit) composed by the instructor. Altogether they will be worth 200 points (plus perhaps 30 points extra credit) or 18.2% of the course grade. These assignemnts will cover material gone over in lectures and are meant to reinforce the topics covered in those lectures. I will make them available on Blackboard. Students will submit them on Blackboard by a due date. These assignments will vary in value between 10 points (0.9% of course grade) to 50 points (4.5% of course grade).

   1. 10 points--Opportunity Cost and Making Decisions on the Margin
   2. 20 points--Shifts in Demand or in Supply and the resulting change in equilibrium prices and quantities
   3. 10 points--Short essay over video "I, Pencil, the Movie"
   4. 20 points--Calculating inflation and deflation rates, and deflating prices of one year to the prices prevalent in another year
   5. 20 points--Calculating National Income levels
   6. 50 points--Downloading graphs of macroeconomic data from the Federal Reserve's data website and interpreting them
   7. 20 points--Shifts in A.D. and S.R.A.S. curves and showing the resulting change in Price Level and Real GDP
   8. 10 points--Solving some Keynesian Multiplier problems
   9. 30 points--Essay on Keynesian analysis of Great Depression and the policy advocated to solve it
   10. 30 points--Essay on Classical and Monetarist analysis of Great Depression and the policy they advocated to solve and prevent it.
   11. 10 points--Explain how the Federal Reserve would increase or decrease the money supply
       Total = 230 points
   (200 as part of the required 1100 points with 30 extra credit points)
   
   

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There are 1100 points available all together. The three objective/multiple-choice midterm exams will be worth a total of 800 points. The traditional written homework assignments will be worth 200 points.

Final letter grades will be distributed according to the following scale:

Letter Grade	Points	Percent
A	1100-990	[100-90%]
B	989-880	(90-80%]
C	879-715	(80-65%]
D	714-605	(65-55%]
F	604-0	(55-0%]

EXTRA CREDIT: The assignments in the ftwo week of class orienting students to the course can be worth up to 30 points: the information sheet is worth 10 points, and the Syllabus Quiz is worth up to 20 extra credit points if they are completed before midnight of the fourth class day of the semester. If needed, the exams will be curved to make the class average equal to 75%. If the class average is at or above 75%, then there will be no curve.

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Incompletes are discouraged. They will be given only when extraordinary events intervene so as to make completion of the course impossible. If you want an incomplete, these events must be documented. To receive an incomplete the student must have completed the first two exams with a C or better. The student must also come by my office to fill out an incomplete form. If the form is not filled out, an incomplete grade will not be given.

Incompletes will not be given to students who are behind schedule when the semester nears its end. Nor will incompletes be given to students who need just a few more points to make the next higher letter grade. Plenty of opportunity exists during the semester to accomplish your goals.

Please click on this link to read ACC's policy on Incomplete grades.

If you find yourself way behind or many points short toward the end of the semester you may withdraw without a grade penalty up to four weeks before the end of the semester. Please read the following note about withdrawals.