The Learning Environment
The economics major is designed to enhance a student's critical thinking, oral and written communication, problem solving, teamwork, and ethical reasoning skills. To that end, classes in economics utilize a variety of teaching and learning techniques. Examples of such techniques include: case studies, debates, presentations, class discussion, problem sets, news analysis reports, film critiques, videos, articles, books, cartoon analysis, quizzes, exams, research papers, critical analysis papers, simulations, and lyric writing. Success in economics requires a good theoretical base which can then be applied to various societal problems in the search for workable approaches to those problems.
Faculty members work closely with students and get to know them very well, both in and out of the classroom. In addition, faculty members provide thorough feedback to students to help them develop and strengthen their individual skills. Students are encouraged to present their research work at Doane's MindExpo every spring. Class sizes average 20 - 30 at the principles level and 5 - 15 in upper-division courses.