Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover

While a typical e-book often contains links to outside digital platforms where students can find multimedia resources or do homework assignments, Economics Interactive offers all of this in one place so students don’t have to toggle back and forth. Each chapter is bookended with brief videos of Sarbaum sharing stories that explain challenging economic concepts in clear, relatable terms. Short chunks of text are punctuated with multiple choice questions, “apply it” videos, and even interactive graphing exercises in which students can change inputs to practice difficult concepts such as supply and demand curves.

“We tried to eliminate as much of the text-heavy content as possible and to use embedded multiple-choice questions as an active learning tool,” Sarbaum says. “This helps keep students’ brains focused.” Some of the videos are stopped at specific points to ask students questions and confirm their understanding – the publisher calls these “learning speed bumps.” Students can review concepts, earn credit, and find motivation along the way.

By the time the student has completed an online chapter, the homework for the next day’s class has been completed as well. “Our marketing tagline is: The textbook is the homework, and the homework is the textbook,” Sarbaum says. This allows the professor to use classroom time to cover more material and branch out to group-based learning activities to reinforce concepts.

The methodology is rooted in learning science as well as Sarbaum’s own observations after teaching more than 20,000 students in two decades. One of his co-authors, Michael Parkin, a renowned economist who has published more than 40 textbooks, said Sarbaum’s classroom experience was vital to the project.

“We tried to put ourselves in the position of 18- to 22-year-olds and consider what they would find an attractive way of learning,” Parkin says. “Jeff has an incredible attention to detail regarding what students are doing today and how to keep them engaged.”