“Current Issues in Monetary Policy / Inflation & Inflation Forecasts” seminar for undergraduate students: Dr. Gunda-Alexandra Detmers (#GD1)

Brief Description

This undergraduate seminar links current issues in monetary policy with academic work. The focus was on a current and relevant topic, which the students investigated in groups and individually using a variety of methodological approaches. The individual learning activities mapped out the scientific working process.

Keywords

• Virtual collaboration
• Flipped classroom
• Group discussion and peer feedback

What makes this gem special?

Students are expected to undertake academic work in seminars and when writing final theses. However, there is often little opportunity to practice this in the curriculum. For this reason, I integrated various digital methods into my course to provide a guide and promote long-term knowledge acquisition. Mutual support in the form of group discussions and peer feedback also played a key role, allowing students to become aware of their own skills and the skills of their peers. The course featured the following methods and aspects in particular:

• Students learned by discussing current topics, preparing short presentations and undertaking continual writing tasks, thus covering the various steps of academic work.
• Worksheets guided the students step-by-step in writing their seminar paper. In this way, they were able to experience and become familiar with the academic working process over the course of the semester. Since the tasks were not based on a specific topic, students can draw on their workbook for future projects.
• The digital format enabled the effective and efficient use of tools for collaborative work.
• The flipped classroom principle allowed for a high degree of interaction with a focus on discussion in virtual classes.
• Students gave each other feedback online throughout the course, providing a glimpse into the reader’s perspective on their findings.

Participants remained highly engaged with the course right until the end. The students’ engagement and enthusiasm also enabled the group to progress. The students’ final seminar papers in particular show an in-depth analysis of the topics in combination with a substantiated approach and high-quality text.

Contact

Dr. Gunda-Alexandra Detmers

Organizational unit

Faculty of Business and Economics, Chair of Economics, esp. International Monetary Economics

Course size

Up to 30 students

Voting ID

#GD1