The Best Professors Teach Humility
How MIT professor David Autor exemplifies what economics can and should be about
I used to despise economics.
ECO101, the introductory economics course I took at the University of Toronto, had convinced me that the field only offered dangerous half-truths. “Minimum wage laws increase unemployment,” I was taught. “Rent control laws are economically harmful; fairness can and should instead be achieved through other means.” I had started the course as a fourth year undergraduate Engineering student hoping to understand how and why our world works. I finished knowing only that economics lacked answers.
Or so I thought. Imagine my surprise when a mandatory economics course at MIT became one of my favorite courses ever. Here’s how Prof. David Autor’s teaching, in 14.003 Microeconomics & Public Policy, redeemed the field of economics for me.
Magic tricks for active learning
‘Active learning’ is a divisive concept among professors. I know this because I interviewed professors about their views on education as part of my undergraduate thesis. While one instructor argued that “students learn close to nothing from traditional lecturing,” others claimed that, “the inverted classroom doesn’t work,” or “active learning activities take away from class time.”
Eventually, I reached the cynical conclusion that there are no magic tricks to making students learn. Learning is hard, and—active learning or not—a student’s success is primarily determined by their motivation.
I was wrong. There are magic tricks to make students learn, and here are three that I learned from Prof. Autor—perfect for classes of up to 50 students.
- Disallow the use of phones and laptops in class. (Tablets lying flat against the desk are fine for note-taking.) If you set this rule on day 1, students will accept it as a class norm. Only rarely will you have to kindly remind students who ‘forgot.’ You could also mention the peer-reviewed randomized control study that found that this rule improves student learning. Turns out, students who make the trek to class want to learn; all they need are some class norms to rescue them from their devices’ distractions.
- Call on students via lottery. It is well known that nothing keeps students engaged like the fear of being asked a question in class. But, have you tried using an app (or drawing from a hat!) to randomly generate your choice of victim? Students might feel uneasy at first, but this will pass if you’re kind. Reassure them that they can always answer “I’m not sure” and you’ll promptly draw someone else’s name. Students will soon appreciate this method. They will be relieved to learn that others, too, can’t answer your convoluted questions. You, however, freed from your subconscious tendency to only call on the best students, might be surprised to find that the class understands a lot less than you think.
- Learn your students’ names. In your first lecture, give them cardboard to make name tags and, if appropriate, search the web for their headshots to create your name-to-face study sheet. Of course, you’ll make mistakes, but you might be surprised what difference knowing even a majority of names can make. After all, the only thing worse for a student than being called on while distracted is being called on by a professor who knows their name.
I call these techniques ‘magic tricks’ because their effects are indeed miraculous. Students are suddenly attentive. Professors don’t need to adopt a radically different teaching style like the inverted classroom. They don’t need to take time away from teaching for an unfamiliar ‘active learning activity.’ Professors just need to ban distractions, call on students via lottery, and learn their names. Now that they’ve captured their students’ attention, they can focus on converting it into genuine interest.
From tricks to skills
Some teaching skills, like making class fun (Prof. Autor used Plicker cards to make class fun!) or students curious, are universally beneficial. Often, however, the most important teaching skills vary by the field. Mathematics involves drawing mental pictures of and across otherwise abstract concepts. Engineering requires translating science and its uncertainty into decision-making contexts with appreciable tradeoffs. When it comes to economics, or any science that is intertwined with societal issues, I believe Prof. Autor exemplifies two crucial teaching skills.
- Don’t just mention assumptions, teach them. Remember when 200+ ECO101 students and I learned that minimum wages reduce employment and welfare? To the professor’s credit, he did briefly mention that this claim only holds under a ‘perfect market’ assumption and even shared a link to the 1993 paper that led economists to doubt the theory. Unfortunately, mentioning assumptions is not the same as teaching them. Prof. Autor would dedicate exam questions to testing our understanding of the scenarios in which assumptions could safely be applied. Prof. Aimy Bazylak at the University of Toronto would dock points if students hadn’t listed their assumptions on their thermodynamics problem sets. These are just two examples of how professors can ensure students don’t graduate overconfident with shaky beliefs.
- Engage in thorny topics. My favorite Prof. Autor lecture was one spent discussing a paper with a counterintuitive result: More harm than good might come from “ban-the-box” anti-discrimination initiatives that prevent employers from asking about criminal history on job application forms. Lecturing about topics like racism, stereotyping, and statistical discrimination can be uncomfortable, especially in an era of increased politicization. Yet, if anything, this politicization is the very reason professors ought to share with students what their discipline can teach.
Unlike earlier, these two points are skills, not magic tricks. Success is not instant and mastery requires practice. Yet, the work is well worth it. You might even earn an entire blog post of praise.
Can anyone be a skilled teacher?
If there could be one trait underlying these magic tricks and skills, might I suggest it be humility?
Randomly calling on students means facing the disconcerting fact that sometimes, as teachers, we struggle to explain ourselves and students cannot answer our questions. Learning student names and building rapport invariably means that students will feel comfortable pointing out our occasional mistakes.
Emphasizing assumptions and engaging with complex, thorny topics necessarily means recognizing the limits of our discipline’s knowledge. Prof. Autor’s recognition that basic economic theory cannot answer questions of fairness allowed me to learn and love economics without becoming (overly) bothered by the field’s inherent limitations.
Perhaps, by finding our humility, we too can perform magic and have students love our discipline.
Editor’s note: Prof David Autor has also been recognized as Committed to Caring.
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