Early College Experience

ECE Economics Workshop 2025

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Ralph Russo, ECE Economics instructor at Guilford High School, explains the Vertical Wall activity at the ECE workshop on October 22, 2025, at the Stamford campus
Ralph Russo, ECE Economics instructor at Guilford High School, explains the Vertical Wall activity at the ECE workshop on October 22, 2025, at the Stamford campus

The Early College Experience (ECE) Economics program is one of the largest at UConn. This academic year, we have 36 schools participating, with 50 teachers running 72 sections of introductory Economics courses. Through the ECE, we offer ECON 1000- Essentials of Economics, ECON 1202 – Principles of Microeconomics, and ECON 1202 – Principles of Macroeconomics.

Instructors are certified to teach those courses through a rigorous process of professional development events. The 2025 annual professional development workshop was held on October 22, 2025, at the Stamford campus. We had 31 teachers in attendance.

The speakers included national-level economic educators from Federal Reserve Banks of New York and St. Louis, Marginal Revolution University (MRU), a non-profit provider of economic education materials, and MoneyLing, financial literacy non-profit provider.

The agenda was packed with presentations of innovative pedagogies in the engaging environment:

  • At the Local Level: Classroom Activities for Microeconomics
  • The Big Picture: Basics for Teaching Macroeconomics
  • Global Trade: Who Wins, Who Loses, and Why It Matters
  • The One Where No One Has a Job: Teaching Unemployment and Labor Force Participation Rates
  • Teaching and Learning Economics with FRED Data in the High School Classroom
  • Moneyling – Financial Literacy Program for Schools

Participants explored various techniques that would get their students interested in the economic way of thinking, economic analysis, and contemporary economic issues. Instructors came away with the materials that could be immediately used in their classrooms.

Teachers working on the Vertical Wall assignment
Teachers working on the Vertical Wall assignment

A new feature this year was the sharing of “working well in the classroom” technique by the Guilford High School teacher, Ralph Russo, who demonstrated the “Vertical Wall” activity from the “Building Thinking Classrooms” methodology. The photos show how enthusiastic workshop participants were to engage in this activity. Learning from their colleague and trying out how it feels to be a student in this classroom were the highlights of this demonstration.

Overall, the workshop participants shared their satisfaction with the content of the training. The new location in Stamford was advantageous to the instructors located in Fairfield County.

The Economics Department would like to thank the Stamford Events team for helping with the logistics of this workshop.

Teachers working on the Vertical Wall assignment
Teachers working on the Vertical Wall assignment

Professor Smirnova Receives Thomas E. Recchio Faculty Coordinator Award for Academic Leadership

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Logo of the UConn Early College Experience Program

Professor Smirnova was selected to receive 2024 Thomas E. Recchio Faculty Coordinator Award for Academic Leadership for her work with the Early College Experience Program.

This award recognizes a University of Connecticut faculty member serving as the UConn Early College Experience Faculty Coordinator for their discipline in an exemplary or unique fashion.

With over 50 UConn ECE Faculty Coordinators, there is a very competitive nomination pool every year, and the review committee is challenged to identify the top candidates.

In addition to day to day work of innovation, inspiring and empowering ECE Economics instructors at our partner schools throughout the state, and promoting University of Connecticut resources that enhance UConn Early College Experience, Dr. Smirnova received a very strong nomination from the ECE Economics instructor, Colleen Peling from William Hall High School in West Hartford, making it clear that Natalia was a top candidate.

Economics is the biggest UConn ECE cohort with 58 ECE certified Economics instructors representing 42 different partner high schools across the state.

The ECE Office and all ECE Economics instructors from UConn partner schools congratulate Dr. Smirnova on this respected professional achievement and commend her for the steadfast dedication to UConn, all ECE students and Instructors, and the UConn Early College Experience Program.

Early College Experience Economics Students from Greenwich High School Win the High School Fed Challenge

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Greenwich High School team featured in the Journal of Future Economists, 2023, FRBNY: page 78.

During 2022-2023 academic year, Greenwich High School students enrolled in the Early College Experience (ECE) Economics courses taught by Mr. Ian Tiedemann participated in the High School Fed Challenge, which is an academic competition where teams of students act as future economists. The competition is administered by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and offers the opportunity for students to develop skills in teamwork, research, data literacy, and analytical writing. Student teams author economics research and pursue recognition in the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s Journal of Future Economists.

In June, the announcement of the winners of the essay content came out, and we learned that Greenwich HS team is one of the winners! Their essay “It’s a (s)Mall World: Globalization, E-Commerce, and Shopping Malls” is included in the Journal of Future Economists, 2023: pp. 78-91.

We congratulate the team of students: Ambika Grover, Ryan Kaufman, Cindy Li, Max Lu, Amrutha Nandakumar, Charles Andrew Miranda, Nicole Orlofsky, and Elliott Gordon.

We congratulate their teacher, certified ECE Economics instructor, Mr. Ian Tiedemann.

Through the Office of Early College Programs, the Economics Department works closely with 58 UConn ECE certified Economics instructors representing 42 different partner high schools across the state. In 2022-2023 academic year, 785 students were enrolled in 64 UConn Economics courses (ECON 1000, 1201, 1202). Since some students take more than one course, there were 1225 total enrollments.

The impact on students who take Early College Experience (ECE) Economics courses is manyfold. They get acquainted with the academic rigor of CLAS, gain familiarity with the University as a whole, and publicize the prominence of UConn across the nation and around the world when gaining acceptance to institutions of higher education.

ECE students’ success reflects positively on the University of Connecticut, as these students continue to prosper throughout the country at the various universities and colleges they attend. Their continued success is indicative of their college readiness in part due to their enrollment in the UConn ECE program.

Early College Experience – Economics: Workshop 2021

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On Wednesday, October 27, 2021, Dr. Smirnova conducted annual professional development workshop for teachers participating in UCONN Early College Experience (ECE) Economics program. Dr. Smirnova, who is the Economics Department coordinator of this program, welcomed 34 teachers and presented the summary of NACEP (National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships) accreditation requirements. Dr. Smirnova emphasized the importance of course comparability such as student learning outcomes, syllabus, assessment, and grading standards. Dr. Smirnova proudly mentioned that University of Connecticut was the first institution in the nation that received NACEP accreditation in 1999.

Next on the agenda was an important topic of Highlighting Diversity and Inclusion with FRED® Data. This segment was presented by Dr. Diego Mendez-Carbajo, Senior Economic Education Specialist at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Participants learned how to leverage FRED Blogs in their classes by accessing FRED Blog posts through EconLowDown and using multiple-choice questions addressing data literacy, numeracy, and econ analysis. Several examples highlighting the topics of diversity and inclusion were discussed, such as labor force participation of workers with disability and women’s employment losses due to COVID-19, among others. Dr. Mendez-Carbajo suggested possible uses of FRED Blogs such as pre-lecture independent exploration, in-class application exercises, assessment, and out-of-class assignments.

Contemporary monetary policy changes were addressed by Dr. Scott A. Wolla, Economic Education Coordinator at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. His presentation called “Monetary Policy Has Changed. Has Your Instruction?” highlighted new information about changes of primary monetary policy tools, flexible inflation targeting, and nuanced changes in the wording of the Fed’s dual mandate. Dr. Wolla carefully explained the contemporary implementation of monetary policy and shared classroom resources, which address these changes ahead of changes inside economics textbooks.

UCONN Library is a great resource for getting access to databases, reading materials, videos, and teaching our students about legitimate sources, citation styles, and research skills in general. In her presentation “UConn Library Resources for You and Your ECE Students”, Shelia A. Lafferty, Information Literacy & Social Sciences Librarian, showed various research tools as well as familiarized participants with the notion that there are “not only books” that are available at UCONN Library. She guided teachers to video recordings, data sources, academic journals, popular journals, and many other things that are part of the library collection. Ms. Lafferty created a special ECE Library Guide, which summarizes her presentation and can be accessed any time.

In conclusion, Dr. Smirnova encouraged teachers to continue perfecting their craft of teaching economics in an engaging way. To aid with that endeavor, every workshop participant will receive a complimentary electronic copy of the book “Make it Stick: The Science of Successful Learning” by Brown, Roediger III, and McDaniel (2014).

Thank you, Early College Experience Office, for making this professional development workshop a success!

Early College Experience Economics Workshop

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The Early College Experience Economics program (https://ece.uconn.edu/) held its annual workshop this fall for 30 Connecticut high school economics teachers who are teaching UConn’s Principles of Microeconomics (ECON 1201), Principles of Macroeconomics (ECON 1202) and/or Essentials of Economics (ECON 1000).

Early College Experience Workshop Presentation with Shor

Leading off the workshop was Professor Mike Shor, presenting “Patent Holdup” in which he explained the limits monopoly power conveyed by patents. The complementary relationships among patents and the price determination of purchasing or licensing of patents. He went on to explain the idea of the patent hold up.  He also provided the workshop participants with a classroom exercise in which students discover how patents are priced.

Early College Experience Workshop Presentation with Smirnova

There followed a presentation by Professor Natalia Smirnova, “Using Data in the Classroom: FRED database.” Professor Smirnova demonstrated several empirical uses of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank’s FRED database including both Macro and Micro economic examples.

Professor William Alpert presented a lunch time talk about the “Perils and Pitfalls of Prediction” highlighting the famine predictions of Paul Ehrlich for the 1980 (100’s of millions die) and the failed predictions of The Club of Rome from 1973. Professor Alpert also “predicted” the rise to more than 600 million in the number of horses in the United States if 18th Century trends had continued, assuming no alternative means of transportation.

Early College Experience Workshop Presentation with Alpert

Professor Steven Lanza then followed up with a presentation entitled “Rediscovering Lost Arts: Economic Index Numbers” in which he stressed the importance of index numbers and the biases in those numbers.  He also demonstrated how to calculate them using data that is easy to access and readily available.

Professor Nishith Prakash rendered the concluding presentation concerning a natural experiment concerning the harassment.  In India 79% of women living in cities have experienced harassment in public spaces.  Professor Prakash and his coauthors set out to determine the effect of street patrolling that targets harassment, on the type and frequency of incidents and women’s proactive responses.  They also are trying to determine the impacts of targeting perpetrators of harassment and what drives these changes — visibility, and/or quantity of a focused taskforce?

All of the presentations were well received and the workshop was among the most successful offered by the ECE Economics program.

Professors Alpert, Lanza, Furtado, and Shor Present to Early College Experience Instructors

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In a recent workshop for nineteen University of Connecticut Early College Experience Instructors, Professors Mike Shor, Steve Lanza, Delia Furtado and Bill Alpert presented the principles instructors with current economic thinking concerning game theory, the law and economics, effects of immigration on the domestic labor market, and monetary/macroeconomics for principles level students.

The Early College Experience (ECE) program is a concurrent enrollment program that allows motivated high school students to take UConn courses at their high schools for both high school and college credit. Every course taken through UConn ECE is equivalent to the same course at the University of Connecticut. Students benefit by taking college courses in a setting that is both familiar and conducive to learning. High school instructors who have been certified through the University of Connecticut serve as adjunct faculty members and teach UConn ECE courses.

furtado-ece
Professor Furtado offers a well-received presentation concerning her own research on female immigrants and immigration issues generally in the United States today

Established in 1955, UConn Early College Experience is the nation’s longest running concurrent enrollment program and is accredited by The National Alliance of Concurrent Enrollment Partnerships. In the last decade, the Economics Program has grown from two instructors in two Connecticut high schools to almost 40 instructors in 30 Connecticut high schools offering the Principles of Economics classes and Economics 1000.

For more information see:  http://ece.uconn.edu/

Professors Alpert and Shor Present an Early College Experience Workshop

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On October 30 Professors WiECE Workshop presented by Professors William Alpert and Mikhael Shor lliam Alpert and Mikhael Shor presented a workshop to 20 members of the Early College Experience faculty.

Early College Experience (ECE) is an opportunity for students to take UConn courses while still in high school. Every UConn ECE course is equivalent to the same course at the University of Connecticut. There are approximately fifty courses in over twenty disciplines made available to partner high schools. Courses are taught on the high school campus by high school instructors who have been certified as adjunct faculty members by the University of Connecticut.

The Economics Department now offers Connecticut High School students three introductory economics classes at almost 30 high schools throughout the state. The workshop highlighted Professor Shor introducing the teachers to current thinking about behavioral economics and included discussions of best practices of integrating the political landscape into economic study, the economics of migration and immigration, the distributions of income and wealth, and current thinking about macroeconomics and money.

During the last decade ECE has grown to over 11,000 FTE students and from 2 economics instructors to 25. Professor Alpert is the ECE Economics Department Coordinator.