Principles of Macroeconomics

ECON 2301 PCM--Open Campus Syllabus

PCM = Internet Based

 16 Week Session

 January 10 - May 6

SPRING 2005

Synonym 21416

Instructor:

JAMES SONDGEROTH

Office Hours:	MW	1:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.	PIN
	Tuesday	10:00 a.m. - 6:00 p.m.	PIN

Office:

PINNACLE CAMPUS (PIN)

Rm. 1029

PIN Phone: 223-8135

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Messages: Please feel free to leave messages on Mr. Sondgeroth's voice mail at 223-8135. He will return the calls as soon as he is in the office again.

E-mail: james_sondgeroth@yahoo.com (Please note the underscore, "_", between my first name and my last name.)

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Blackboard:  

Blackboard is an on-line classroom management tool. It includes a gradebook, an announcements page, and a facility for administering on-line tests and quizzes. 

Blackboard's URL is http://acconline.austincc.edu. This is the URL for ACC's Blackboard site. Do not go to blackboard.com, the company's own site.

To access Blackboard, you will need your ACC Online Services User ID. If you do not know what your ACC Online Services ID is, then CLICK HERE to find out. Typically (but not always) your user name is the first letter of your first name joined to the your last name. If your name was John M. Keynes, then your user name would be jkeynes. Your user ID can not be changed.

Your password is your birthdate in MMDDYY format. For instance, if you were born on February 4, 1975, your password is 020475.

After you have entered your User ID and Password, click the Login button one time to access Blackboard.

Once you have logged into Blackboard, you will need to provide an e-mail address. A module containing instructions on how to change your e-mail address is provided on the "My ACC" page, which is displayed once you have logged into Blackboard.

Please also 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. 

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. That is May 20 this Summer semester.

Class Listserv: All students with e-mail addresses will be put on a class listserv . This will facilitate communication between students and serve as a way the instructor can send out warnings about upcoming deadlines

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, and Departmental Quiz 

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:

   • the meaning of unemployment and inflation data and how that data is collected and computed;

   • the meaning and components of the National Income Accounts, especially GDP;

   • the meaning of the business cycle and its phases;

   • and to manipulate the basic Aggregate Supply, Aggregate Demand model of the macro economy;

   • how fiscal policy operates, its tools, and its advantages and drawbacks;

   • how a fractional reserve banking system works;

   • how monetary policy operates, its tools, and its advantages and drawbacks.

Instructional Resources:

Required:

1. Macroeconomics: Explore & Apply, Activebook Version 2.0, by Ronald M. Ayers and Robert A. Collinge (Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2003;  ISBN: 0130147256). See additional discussion about how to use this book below by clicking HERE. Newer editions of this book are fine also. The Activebook is cheaper than the regular textbook by the same authors. The on-line version apparently costs $66. I thought it would be cheaper than this. If you buy it there is no re-sale value, but that is the case with the shrink wrapped hard copy also. I believe you can go to https://register.pearsoncmg.com/reg/buy/buy1.jsp?productID=22998 to purchase the on-line version. If you buy the hard copy from the bookstore, you will have access to this on-line version too. The bookstore will not buy the used copy of the hard copy back because you will have already used the access key to gain access to the on-line material.

Optional:

1. Introductory Macroeconomics Online Text and Study Guide, by Tim Yeager. (OnlineTexts.com, 2001). This is a great on-line supplement that can also be used to help improve your grade. It covers much of the same material as Macroeconomics: Explore & Apply does but from a slightly different perspective. Using this will help you better understand the material covered in the assigned text. This on-line text offers clear and concise explanations, self-grading quizzes, and monthly updates of relevant economic data with links to related federal government reports. The extra credit homework assignments will be drawn from its practice questions. See Extra Credit Points #2. You can subscribe to it on-line at econweb.com for $9.95.

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Learning Objectives:

The examinations in this course are based on learning objectives composed by the instructor that you can find by clicking HERE. Read these objectives carefully before you read the corresponding chapter in the textbook and do the activities on the textbook's activebook web site. 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. (See Learning Objectives)

2. Define all the key terms introduced in the chapter and listed in the "end-of-chapter resources" on the textbook's on-line activebook 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 activebook web page.

5. Take the "Practice Quiz" and "Test Yourself" quizzes at the end of each chapter on the on-line activebook.

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:

As a student you should:

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. As a supplement, you would benefit from reading through the econweb.com chapters that are correlated to the chapter from the required textbook.

8. Submit the extra credit homework related to the chapters from the econweb.com site.

9. Take the four midterm exams and the final by their assigned deadline dates.

Reading

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.

Mandatory Student Progress Assessment Meetings

To receive credit for this course, students must contact the instructor TWICE during the semester either in person or by telephone during the instructor's office hours at PIN. Or, if you prefer, you may e-mail me to make your contact. 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 the instructor can help you with. 

Important Note: If you take these tests on time you will receive extra credit points that will improve your grade. See "Extra Credit Points" under "Grading" for details. The total value of these extra credit points is equal to 5% of the course grade. You can earn additional extra credit points by doing the on-line homework connected with the econweb.com chapter assignments. Details about all the extra credit points available can be found under "Extra Credit Points" below.

Exams are based on the learning objectives students are expected to master. For more information on learning objectives, please see the section on "Learning Objectives"  in this syllabus. Furthermore the exam questions will be drawn exclusively from the textbook, Macroeconomics: Explore & Apply: Active Book Version 2.0 , not  econweb.com. (The econweb.com online text is supplementary and can be used for extra credit quizzes as is explained below at Extra Credit Points Type 2.)

The exams over each Unit assigned will include ten questions over each chapter assigned for each Unit -- forty questions in all. The questions will appear on the exams in the order in which the chapters were assigned for the Unit. For example, on the first exam the first ten questions will cover Chapter 1, the next ten will cover Chapter 2, the third ten will cover Chapter 3, and the last ten will cover Chapter 5. Indeed the questions will be numbered in exactly the same way as the learning objectives  the questions are associated with are numbered. 

The midterm/unit exams will be administered over the internet through the course's Blackboard site. You will find them in a folder under the tab for "Assignments" in Blackboard.

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 50 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.

The results of the last re-test will be used in determining your grade. 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. Of course, you could do much better on the re-test. If you do I will use that result to calculate your end of the semester grade.

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 INITIAL EXAM FOR EACH UNIT NO LATER THAN THE LISTED DEADLINE.

However, since all exams will be available on Blackboard until May 3, re-tests may be taken after the deadlines.

However, all midterm exams will be available on Blackboard for re-testing purposes through May 3. All re-tests of midterm exams must be taken before May 4. There will be absolutely no testing or re-testing over midterm exams after May 3. There is no re-testing over the final exam.

The Final Exam can be taken at the Testing Centers on the Northridge, Rio Grande, Riverside, Pinnacle, Eastview, Round Rock, Fredericksburg, San Marcos, or Cypress Creek Campuses. The Final Exam will be graded by the Testing Center personnel while students wait for the results.

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. 

Please make a photocopy of your crib sheet if you want to save it. The original will be taken up with the final exam in the Testing Center and will not be returned to you.

Grading is based on the total number of possible points available on the exams. There are four required Unit exams and a required final exam. Each midterm exam will consist of 40 questions. Each question on the Unit exams (midterms) is worth 5 points. The final exam will consist of 50 questions. Each question on the final exam is worth 16 points.