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That's one way that I'm hamstrung by the College Board. All of my students know or are taking a calculus course (and those that are, are past the limit definit
by mlyle 4y ago
That's one way that I'm hamstrung by the College Board. All of my students know or are taking a calculus course (and those that are, are past the limit definition of the derivative by this point).
I would rather be teaching this material with calculus and not just handwaving and saying "the marginal revenue curve is twice as steep as the demand curve!"
But they're going to pass an examination where it's all done algebraically and visually.
[I DO THINK there's some value in taking these algebraic and visual approaches, but there comes a point in the class where they get rather awkward].
- WalterBright 4y agoMaybe I wasn't quite clear. The econ book did derive, teach and use calculus, it just obfuscated it using different terminology and symbols, to hide the fact that it was calculus.
- mlyle 4y agoI think we're in agreement in that --- the algebra-based microecon class I'm teaching is effectively using and re-creating calculus, too. I've already told students many times we're going to find the area of shapes on this graph, where I'd actually just subtract the curves and take a definite integral. And the graphs are a really, really nice visual for the subject matter. Being able to point to consumer surplus, producer surplus, tax revenue, and deadweight loss as regions on the graph means you know how all these curves relate. But then we end up doing all this awkward not-quite-calculus stuff.
- ghaff 4y agoI tutored a group of students in business school who were, shall we say, not mathematically prepared perhaps especially in microeconomics. Maxima and minima were certainly one issue because that required calculus, however simple a form thereof. I'm not sure even the simplest formulaic version ever got through. But we're taking about totally not getting solving simultaneous algebraic equations and one student told me I needed to explain "graphs" so it was all mostly a hopeless project.
- mlyle 4y ago> Maxima and minima were certainly one issue Yup-- College Board's preferred approach here is memorization. You get -this- maxima when MC=MR. You get this -other- maxima when MU=0. You get this -other- one when Ed = -1. Don't even get me started on "this number is always negative, so we'll just pretend it's positive sometimes-- though when you do a related calculation, make sure you preserve the sign!" (elasticity of demand vs. other elasticities).
- ghaff 4y agoI actually think less technical takes on things like micro and statistics can do a better job of illuminating principles than getting all wrapped up in the math does. (I think I understood stats better when I took it in business school vs. my very math-heavy engineering version--though it was still rather frequentist-oriented.) But, ideally, you still know enough basic calculus to do the actual calculations. MBA programs have changed a lot since I did one. But math was definitely the real killer for a lot of first-years. STEM undergrads had it a lot easier.
- mlyle 4y ago> I actually think less technical takes on things like micro and statistics can do a better job of illuminating principles than getting all wrapped up in the math does. I agree, but if they go to my room learning a bunch of rules-of-thumb for maximizing economic functions... and then go down the hall to math class and are learning how to optimize by finding places where the derivative is 0... it's kinda silly.
- ghaff 4y agoYeah, but in this case they weren't going to those math classes. Though you could equally well argue, they also weren't going to be solving those microeconomics problems the instant after they passed (or didn't) that particular course.