Office Hours:	How:	January 18 - May 15
	In Person:	Tuesday and Thursday Noon - 2:30 p.m.
	Internet Meeting by appointment	See instructions in link to Blackboard Collaborate in Table of Contents above
	asynchronous:	Email at any time, I will respond within 24 hours.
	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. 3342

RGC Phone: 512-223-3390

INTRODUCTION

The purpose of this course is to familiarize the student with the generally accepted principles of microeconomics.  Microeconomics is concerned with how societies allocate scarce resources. Microeconomics deals with the interactions between and among households and business firms; it focuses on the behavior of people and deals with the process by which we make our living under conditions of free market capitalism.

The course is divided into several major areas as follows:

• The economic problem--scarcity
• Opportunity cost
• Comparative advantage and trade
• Capitalism and socialism
• Efficient allocation of scarce resources
• Demand and utility analysis
• Supply and cost analysis
• Factor markets
• Income distribution
• Market failure
• Market structure
• Government intervention failures

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1.  Common Course Objectives/Student Outcomes.

Students who complete this course will be able to:
• apply the basic concepts of scarcity and opportunity cost;
• manipulate the basic demand and supply model to determine an equilibrium price and quantity, changes to equilibrium price and quantity, and their impact on resource allocation;
• critically evaluate the usage of policy in microeconomic markets;
• explain the theory of consumer behavior;
• explain the theory of the firm;
• model and explain the theoretical market structures of perfect competition and imperfect competition.

2.  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.

3.  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 when we return to the classroom. 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 Lecture and Office Hours:

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

Blackboard Collaborate is a tool within Blackboard that will be used to meet with the class on Mondays and Wednesdays during class hours and to hold virtual office hours. It is similar to Google Hangouts and Zoom. You will find a link to Blackboard Collaborate in the left navigation bar of Blackboard along with instructions on how to use it.Note: If Blackboard Collaborate turns out to be balky, then I will move class meetings to Zoom.

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 2302.36243.037 in the subject line.

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 24, and Monday, February 28.
Exam 2	To be taken sometime between Thursday evening, April 7, and Monday, April 11.
Exam 3	To be taken sometime between Thursday evening, May 12, and Sunday, May 15.

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1. Traditional Written Homework:

   There will be ten traditional homework assignments composed by the instructor. Altogether they will be worth 200 points or 20% 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 (1% of course grade) to 50 points (5% of course grade).

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There are 1000 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	1000-900	[100-90%]
B	899-800	(90-80%]
C	799-650	(80-65%]
D	649-550	(65-55%]
F	549-0	(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.