Last Thursday, October 17, 2024, the Department of Economics held its regular semester GA Training Workshop, aimed at preparing new Graduate Assistants for their teaching responsibilities. Three faculty members—Professors Talia Bar, Professor Kai Zhao, and Professor Tianxu Chen—shared valuable advice drawn from their teaching experience.
Professor Bar emphasized the importance of adapting to students’ varying levels of mathematical proficiency, using active learning strategies to keep students engaged, and proactively addressing potential classroom challenges.
Professor Zhao reflected on his early teaching experiences, offering advice on understanding student backgrounds, using relatable examples, and ensuring clear communication to avoid confusion.
Professor Chen concluded the session by focusing on classroom management, encouraging a positive learning environment, and balancing teaching duties with academic responsibilities. Her practical tips provided GAs with useful strategies for success.
This workshop remains a cornerstone of the department’s efforts to support GAs, offering them essential tools and insights to excel in both teaching and their academic progress each semester.
Huari’s research interests are in asset pricing, financial econometrics, macro finance, and machine learning. At Sewanee, she teaches the courses, Investment Finance, Derivatives and Fixed Income Securities, Financial Modeling, and Financial Engineering.
Current UConn PhD students, do reach out to Huari and Tao for advice on building a successful academic career at a liberal arts college.
Anastassiya Karaban presented her paper, “The role of gender comparisons in determining reference wage and labor supply.” She finds that when people make different wages, we choose to compare our wage to others of the same gender. Women work harder when making more than other women (but not when making more than other men). Men work less hard if they are making less than another man (but not if they are making less than a woman).
Victor Volkman presented his paper, “Race and experimental design: How respondents may read context into a neutrally framed scenario.” Traditionally, economics experiments have participants engage in “context free” simulated economic transactions. Victor examines whether such absence of context can affect individuals differently based on their racial backgrounds. He finds evidence that different racial groups interpret context-free scenarios differently, and thus their actions are not directly comparable.
