How does one learn how to think like an economist without understanding what economists do? Using outside readings can be an effective and straightforward pedagogical tool to teach economic concepts and to expose students to the wide range of topics and methods economists use in their research. Improving students' understanding of what economists…

The author of this article discusses the extensive use and analysis of real-world situations as the core construct on which to build a course in principles of microeconomics. Building on the literature that focuses on current event readings, the goal here is to train students to be able to "do economics." The author details course…

The author of this article describes individual pre-class and group in-class assignments based on current news articles. Guided student pre-class readings of periodical articles can form the basis for engaging in-class group assignments. Many economics instructors seek to develop student skills at applying the concepts under study to analyze…