submit your completed and compiled learning portfolio here
Submit Your Completed and Compiled Learning Portfolio Here
Please read these directions and submit your work by the due date:
Here is an example of great work:
The Macroeconomics Learning Portfolio
This learning portfolio consists of a series of short writing assignments. You will be required to complete and revise these assignments throughout the semester, and to compile and submit your completed portfolio by the due date.
General Directions:
- BE HONEST! It is strictly forbidden to copy things from the internet or work with other students, for any reason. If I provide an example, do not use it as a template. If you represent someone else’s ideas or work as your own, you will get a 0 on this assignment. Do not search the internet and try to “rephrase” things to disguise plagiarism… I have very powerful technology that searches the entire internet for anything in your portfolio, so I will catch any of this behavior. Because of this, the policy regarding internet searches is extremely clear: do not use the internet for anything in this learning portfolio unless specifically directed to, and do not visit any sites other than the one(s) specifically mentioned. If you violate this policy, you will get a 0 on this learning portfolio assignment, which is worth 18% of the final grade for the course. This learning portfolio is based on your experiences and understanding, so there is no reason to search the internet beyond the sites I specifically mention, or to work with other students. If you have questions, you can ask me, and if you don’t understand something you can review the provided course materials until you do, or you can use the tutoring services provided by the college. In general, the internet is NOT a permitted resource for this assignment.
- Please complete ALL of the individual assignments listed below, and compile them into one document to submit by the due date. Note that some chapters do not have a corresponding assignment (e.g. chapter 1).
- Do NOT include the assignment questions in your learning portfolio. I already know what the questions are.
- Please submit your compiled and revised learning portfolio using one of the following programs/formats: Microsoft Word/.doc, Open Office/.odt, or Adobe Acrobat/.pdf. Other formats are not acceptable since I cannot read them. If the formatting gets messed up when submitting the document, don’t worry about it -I am used to it.
- Follow the directions for each individual assignment closely. This sounds simple, but most of the points people lose are due to failure to follow the directions. To help with this, many assignments are broken down by components, for example A, B, C, D, etc. Please respond to these assignments by specifically addressing each component with its own paragraph. After you complete an assignment, re-read the directions and analyze whether you did what was asked. Do not simply do what you are “comfortable” with, do what is asked. If you are not comfortable with what was asked, then go back and try to relearn the material or feel free to ask me questions.
- Use your best writing skills. This assignment should reflect college-level writing ability and will be graded significantly lower if it does not. High school-level work uses proper grammar, punctuation, spelling, sentence structure, and reasonable paragraph lengths, so these components are absolutely mandatory in the learning portfolio. I suggest reading each sentence and treating as its own entity… ask yourself these questions: Does this sentence sound like something an educated person would say? Does it support the point of the paragraph, and does the paragraph support the point of your response to the prompt?
- There are no length requirements for the individual assignments, so please do not try to lengthen your submission by including fluff, by being redundant, or using formatting tricks. But at the same time, do not provide superficial responses. Take your time to respond to the assignments in a complete, meaningful way, and whatever length it ends up being is the “right” length.
Individual Assignment Directions:
Chapter 2:
Chapter 2 shows and discusses the gains from trade that can result when individuals, firms, or countries specialize in producing goods for which they have the comparative advantage, and trade those goods with others.
Gains from specialization and exchange can be seen in many situations. For example, most people that we pay to do things for us (e.g. grow our food, cut our hair, tutor us, etc.) perform the task for a lower opportunity cost than we would bear if we were to do it ourselves. This is where the gain from trade that benefits both parties comes from, and is why it is rational for you to pay for the service.
To show that you understand how comparative advantage works in the modern economy, please discuss a good or service you recently purchased and address the following prompts:
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- What is the item or service, and how much did you pay for it?
- What is a reasonable estimate of how long it would take you to make the item or perform the service at the same quality level of the one your purchased, if you had been unable to buy it? You need to come up with a number of hours or days or years, or whatever time measurement you want, for how long it would take you. Don’t try to avoid this. If you can’t figure it out, pick another good or service.
- Who worked to get the money to pay for the item, and how long did they have to work to get the money? If your money came from the government, see the how the government gets money page.
- Based on your answers to 2 and 3 above, was it rational to buy the good? Explain. Make sure you compare the time it would take you to make the good or perform the service (mentioned in part 2) and the amount of time that had to be worked to get the money (mentioned in part 3). It is only rational to buy something if you give up less resources working to earn money to pay, than you would have if you made the good or perform the service yourself. If it turned out to be irrational, why did you buy it?
If you want to see an example, check out the “great work” linked above. But do not copy the example or even the wording. There are many ways to express these ideas if you understand the material. Please find your own words or face the consequences of academic dishonesty.
Chapter 3:
In chapter 3 we learn that the supply and demand for a good or service can shift in response to changes in certain variables, and about how supply and demand interact to determine the market equilibrium price.
- Please identify a price change you have observed in the last few years. Do not choose gasoline or smart/cell phones, please pick something else.
- Use the supply and demand model to explain the price change you identified in A) above. You should be talking about what happened with supply and demand curves, so please be sure you talk about both of these. You don’t need to search the internet for information about this, because I don’t care if you are correct. I just want to see if you can use the model to explain price changes, so if your explanation would create the change you observed, that is all I’m looking for.
- Summarize your explanation with one sentence that mentions what you think has happened to both supply and demand, and how this interaction has resulted in the price change you observed. If both curves are moving, you will need to comment on the relative size of each shift to justify the price change you observed.
Please do not try to explain price changes in gasoline or cell phones. Please pick something else.
Helpful tip: be sure you discuss both supply AND demand, as they both play a role in determining the price.
Chapter 4a:
In our everyday lives as consumers we purchase many goods and services, and we derive consumers’ surplus for most of them. With that in mind, please:
Identify 3 goods or services you have purchased in the last year, and estimate the amount of consumer surplus you enjoy from those purchases. For each good, please state specifically:
- The highest amount you would have been willing to pay.
- The price you actually paid.
- The amount of consumers’ surplus you received from each item.
You should have 3 short paragraphs, one for each good. Do not use a chart, please use words.
Helpful tips: Be sure to state exactly the highest price you would have been willing to pay, the price you actually paid, and what your consumer’s surplus is. There are many different phrases you can use to communicate the highest price you were willing to pay, but note that the following are incorrect:
- The price you were willing to pay. Just because you were willing to pay $20 for a good, doesn’t mean this is the highest you were willing to pay.
- The price you expected to pay. Again, this is not necessarily the highest price you were willing to pay.
Chapter 4b:
We are about one third of the way through the course. How is it going for you? Are your grades where you want them to be? If not, what can you do to remedy the situation? If you want a different result, it is imperative that you change your strategy.
Chapter 8, 9, and 10:
We have begun our exploration of the macroeconomic statistics that describe total output (and the business cycle), unemployment, and inflation in our economy. In recent times we have seen significant variation in output and employment due to the “great recession” of 2008/9 and the recovery that has followed. In this assignment we will use interactive maps on the internet to visualize these variations, and see if we can identify any relationships between changes in output and changes in employment.
- We are going to start by looking at growth rates of GDP. This link goes to the International Monetary Fund’s data mapping website (Links to an external site.).
There is a bar at the top of the page that says “Datasets”. Click on Datasets, then select “World Economic Outlook” on the upper left part of the screen. On the…
