Economics 102 – Principles of Macroeconomics

Course Syllabus, Spring 2006

Section 4, MWF 11:00-11:50, 0001 Carver Hall

Instructor: Christopher Burkart

Office: 280B Heady Hall

E-mail: cburkart@iastate.edu (include “Econ 102-4” and your topic in the subject line or it may

go straight to the trash)

Office hours: MW 12 p.m.-1 p.m. or by appointment

Teaching Assistants:

Teaching assistants will hold office hours in the Econ Help Room, located in 178 Heady Hall.  Outside of TA office hours, assistance with course material is available from all Econ Help Room staff.  The Help Room is open Monday-Thursday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. and Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.  Questions regarding grading of exams and other basic administrative issues should be taken up with one of your TAs.

Class Homepage: http://www.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ102/burkart/

The class home page will contain a copy of this syllabus, class announcements, grades for your exams, list of topics, and other useful information. 

Required Textbook

Macroeconomics: Principles and Applications, Robert E. Hall and Marc Lieberman, 2006, ISBN 0324260393

Lectures will be based (sometimes loosely) on topics from the text, but you will need to demonstrate understanding of material presented both in class and in the text.

Special Accommodations

If you have a documented disability that requires special academic accommodations, you will need to go to the Disability Resources Office to coordinate specific accommodations.  Please obtain a SAAR form verifying your disability and specifying the accommodations you will need.  Bring it to my office at the beginning of the semester.  Discussing your SAAR before or after class in the lecture hall is not appropriate.

Exams

Beginning the second week of class there will be a small exam, roughly two pages front and back, every other week during the class period (from 11:00-11:50).  My plan is for these exams to take place on Wednesdays only, but due to my travel schedule this semester it is possible that we might have a Monday or Friday exam.  You will be notified in advance of any changes during lectures and via the class website.  There will be a semi-comprehensive exam during finals week.  In total there will be 7 semester exams.  There will be no homework assignments, but you will need to stay on top of the material and attend class regularly if you want to earn a good grade. 

Exams will cover material from the previous two weeks’ lectures, and I will let you know what will be covered the class period before the exam.  Exams are all closed book, closed-notes.  Simple calculators are allowed, but you will not be allowed to use cell phone calculators or graphing calculators.  Plan accordingly.  Questions may be short answer, multiple choice, or a combination of the two.  If you have more than two final exams scheduled on the same day as the final for this course, and this course is has the smallest enrollment of the three or more courses involved, you may take the final at an alternate time.  However, you must make this request to me in person before the end of the Friday before dead week.  For more information you can reference the Registrar’s Final Exam Policies and Procedures page at http://www.iastate.edu/~registrar/exams/regulations.shtml

Below is the tentative exam schedule for this semester:

NOTE: One very important policy for this course is that there are no “make-up” exams for any reason, and no exceptions to this policy.  I encourage you to read the previous sentence again to make sure that you understand it.  If, after reading this sentence twice, later in the semester you ask to have a “make-up” exam I will refer you to this syllabus and probably make a mental note regarding your reading comprehension.  And just in case you missed the first sentence, there are no “make-up” exams for any reason, and no exceptions to this policy.  If you miss an exam, your score on the final exam will simply be a proportionally larger percentage of your grade.  Your reason for missing an exam does not need to be discussed with me or the TAs.  You can tell me if you want, but I’ll probably just ask you to read the first sentence of this paragraph yet another time.  If you believe that your case should be considered an exception and want to tell me about it, please, read the first sentence of this paragraph one more time.

Grading

Your grade in this class will be based solely on your exam performance.  The lowest non-zero score on a biweekly exam will be dropped in calculating your final grade, but remember that a missed exam will result in your final exam score representing a larger portion of your grade.  If you don’t miss any exams during the semester, the final exam will have the weight of 2 biweekly exams.  Your highest six non-zero biweekly exams will each be worth 12.5% of your final grade.  If this all sounds a bit confusing, have a look at the table below to see how this works:

Letter grades will be assigned according to the average percentage score of all exams.  The score cutoffs for final grades will be based on a traditional straight percentage scale:

Notes on Classroom Etiquette

With 195 students scheduled to be in class all at the same time, we must all work together to make sure the in-class environment is an enjoyable experience for all and is conducive to learning.  As a general principle, be considerate of those around you.  In particular, here are a few “Do’s” and “Don’ts”:

1.    Do turn off your cell phone during class.  After class, you are welcome to turn it back on and even use it to call your instructor to tell him how much you enjoyed his class today.

2.    Do not read newspapers during class.  This is inconsiderate to both the students around you and your instructor.  Besides, reading the letters to the editor in the Iowa State Daily may raise your blood pressure, reduce your IQ, or both.

3.    Do not start gathering up your materials, stand up, etc. before the lecture is completely over.  You may think you can do this very quietly, but several individuals doing this collectively results in a lot of distracting noise that may delay the end of a lecture.  However, if you feel like standing up to applaud your instructor for a job well done, that would be acceptable.

4.    Do not talk with fellow students during lecture.  Again, if many students do this, the collective result is a lot of distracting noise.  Lectures by your instructor will be the only distracting noise allowed in class.

5.    Do sit near the door if you must leave class early and Do let your instructor know this before the start of class.  However, if a lecture is making you so nauseous that you feel you are going to toss your cookies, feel free to leave early regardless of where you are sitting.

6.    Do bring, within reason, any food or caffeine-laced beverages to help keep you awake during class.  Feel free to share anything particularly good with your instructor.

7.    Do feel free to ask questions during class, unless it appears the instructor doesn’t even know what he’s talking about.