Leeds Economics: Advances in Pedagogy (LEAP)

Work in this area spans from overarching principles of pluralist economics curriculum design to concrete examples of how economics can be broadened using specific classroom activities and resources.  

• Dr Tad Gwiazdowski discusses how he has integrated climate change into an intermediate macroeconomics module 

• Dr Andrew Mearman has argued extensively for pluralism in economics curriculum design. Recent work co-authored with Danielle Guizzo (Bristol) and Sebastian Berger (UWE Bristol) has offered constructive critiques of curriculum governance frameworks in the UK and Brazil and of the CORE approach to teaching economics.  

• Dr Stefan Kesting and co-editor Wilfred Dolfsma (Open University, NL) published a book on the many contributions of Kenneth E. Boulding, including on economics teaching.  

• In a recent paper, Andrew Mearman, Danielle Guizzo and Sebastian Berger contrast mainstream and heterodox approaches to economics and promotes the latter as key to helping students to address contemporary issues. 

• Dr. Antonio Rodriguez-Gil, Dr. Ali Raza and Yi Pang have created an excel based simulation of the labour market, which allows students to learn about the consequences of shocks and to experiment with different policies to learn about their effectiveness. A preliminary assessment of the activity can be found here. 

• Andrew Mearman, Lory Barile (Warwick) and Anthony Plumridge (UWE, Bristol) published a revised chapter of the Economics Network’s Handbook for Economics Lecturers, on embedding sustainability in the economics curriculum, with new material from ecological and behavioural economic perspectives. 

• Dr Karsten Kohler, combining his research on macroeconomics with teaching he has done on several modules, has created a DIY Macro Model Simulation tool that teachers and students can use in their engagement with a range of theoretical perspectives on macroeconomic modelling. 

• Andrew Mearman discusses how a classroom exercise on minimum wages can create useful doubt in students. 

• Stefan Kesting has also recently reviewed several resources for teaching economics in a pluralist manner.