Course description for Economics done non-traditionally

[lewelma]

DS has decided to study macro-economics by reading Capital: in the twenty-first Century, by the French economist Thomas Piketty. This book is hard core and 700 pages.  It focuses on the study of inequality (quantitative study with implications and insightful analysis) and has won 100s of awards. He will also be reading the economic articles in the Economist, and I plan to have him watch the Khan academy videos on Macroeconomics (about 30 hours) as an overview. This will be a half class, but given the Capital book, I'm thinking it will be an honors class.  I plan to assess through discussion rather than tests.  

 

Should this be labeled 'Macroeconomics?' or should I use a more nuanced course title.  How should I write it up?

 

Ruth in NZ

[regentrude]

Economics (0.5 cr)

An honors course focusing on macroeconomics. 

Video lectures: Khan Academy (30 hours)

Textbook: Capital (Picketty)

Additional resources: The Economist

Evaluation based on discussion.

Edited September 17, 2017 by regentrude

[lewelma]

Your course descriptions are way shorter than mine!  I'm going to have to pad this up a bit or it is going to stick out!  Here is an example from the Social Science category in my course descriptions:

 

History of western thought: This course examined the development of the western intellectual tradition from the Greeks through to 20th century thinkers.  Topics included metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy.  In addition to studying the great thinkers of each era, philosophical novels by classic authors were read and discussed including Voltaire, Faust, Dostoyevsky, Borges, Camu, Hemingway, and Vonnegut.

[lewelma]

Like your new signature.  :hurray:

[regentrude]

Your course descriptions are way shorter than mine!  I'm going to have to pad this up a bit or it is going to stick out!  Here is an example from the Social Science category in my course descriptions:

 

History of western thought: This course examined the development of the western intellectual tradition from the Greeks through to 20th century thinkers.  Topics included metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, and political philosophy.  In addition to studying the great thinkers of each era, philosophical novels by classic authors were read and discussed including Voltaire, Faust, Dostoyevsky, Borges, Camu, Hemingway, and Vonnegut.

 

Mine are longer, too, for courses where the title does not indicate a clear canon. So, if I had a course "History of Western thought", I would definitely have included details like you did. I did that for my integrated hist/lit courses, and for "weird" courses like culinary science or history of martial arts

 

But for courses where the title clearly suggests a canon, I left it brief, since nobody would be interested in looking at details of what was done in "algebra" or "US history" or "chemistry". 

 

You can easily flesh it out with "main topics studied:..." list. I didn't attempt to make one, since you did not include the info in your post. If teh Khan Academy course has a course description or list of topics, I would take it from there.