I like to work some in-class exercises into my courses for two reasons: they help students think of material in a new way while breaking up the monotony of a lecture course.
There are several of these online and in a journal called The Journal of Economics Education. I’m always looking for something new and interesting. Some don’t really seem to help students learn, but with others, you can just stand at the front of the room and watch the lightbulbs go off.
My all-time favorite is an exercise called Being Warren Buffett, which shows how diversification works in a way that is far better than writing statistics all over the blackboard. It uses three colors of dice, which are easily available at a teacher supply store. Students who have a religious objection to handling dice can observe the actions and still learn a lot.
I just found one that will be fabulous to run in spring semester (which, of course, runs from January to May, which is a full Chicago winter): The NCAA tournament as an IPO market. How fun is that?
My secret for running experiments in large classes? I don’t put them on the syllabus. Then, I wait until the middle of the semester when half the class stops showing up.
