Directions: Here's where you can anonymously share your thoughts and suggestion about your AP Economics course. If you don't want me to know who you are, log out and post your comments anonymously. Here are some questions to get you started.

• What did you particularly like about your AP Economics course?
• What suggestions or recommendations for change can you offer?

• One thing I liked in particular about the course was the general mood, specifically the relaxed atmosphere of the classroom. Mr. Welker's enthusiasm about the subject and generally high spirits greatly contributed to my absorption of the material. I was also really impressed by how much effort he put into the course, especially in the later parts of the year. All in all, I think Mr. Welker adequately prepared me for the AP exam. I wish he would just cut back on the emails :P

• I liked using the wiki and participating in class dicussions. One suggestion is that we should watch more videos like the corporation.

• I thought AP Econ was a very informative class and I feel prepared for the exam. I wouldn't change anything for next year.

• personally I thought this class was extremely hard, so my opinion about this class isn't very optimistic. But I felt that Mr. Welker put a lot of effort into this class, such as the creation of the wiki. So the wiki was a highlight because I found myself relying on the wiki for tests. I recommend clearer explanations of topics and more extra credit opportunties. The lack of fairness between the two teachers was very frustrating.

• I really liked that there were so many different econ resources at our disposal, especially since everyone learns best in different ways. And because Mr. Welker put so much effort into putting together the wiki, it really shows that econ is something that he's interested in and passionate about. I'm really glad that I took economics because I'm seeing more and more how econ applies in our lives and in the news. I actually understand a lot of business and economic news now.
  

• I felt that I was pretty well prepared for all the subjects in AP Econ, as Mr. Welker's lectures in class covered the subject matter quite comprehensively. I really liked the idea of the econ wiki, as it was an invaluable resource for studying and review. If I would change anything about the class, it would probably be to allow more time for practicing economic concepts in class.

• Being that AP Economics is by far one of the hardest courses I am taking this year I felt it was very challenging. Although it was challenging I can truly say that I was interested in the topics we covered and "particularly liked" quite a few things about that class. First of all I liked how Mr. Welker was not one of those ''I'm going to stand up and lecture...I hope you hear me" type of teachers. The constant notes and graphs on the board really helped, especially when the book was confusing. Secondly, I liked how the Wiki was incorporated into our grade and the wiki really helped me review for our tests. It would have been a good review guide if we had it form the start. Although this is repetitive the only thing I would change is the degree of fairness between th two AP Econ classes (ours being the harder) because of extra credit and curves that we didn't get. In the end we will benefit the most so it all evens out!

• I liked how the concepts were applicable for everyday life throughout the course. I would recommend less emphasis on wiki work because I have trouble learning off of computer screens.
  

• I think in addition to reading, going over in class and contributing to the wiki, welker can find some ap econ MCs from previous ap exams and let us practice with them. perhaps enforce the rainbow book more since not many had the "incentive" to complete them as they require a lot of sentence writing. whats better, plan classes where students act as demanders or suppliers. This can allow students to visually (easier) go through processes such as the crowding out effect instead of trying to make sense out of the (confusing) textbook

• AP Econ this year was a blast, hands down, without question. I thought that Econ only extended to the curves of supply and demand but after 9 hard months, I've certainly been enlightened. Mr. Welker was a great motivator and certainly one of the teachers who's I class I enjoy sitting for, especially for a teacher who's never taught the subject before. As for suggestions, I'll reupdate this page in 3 months if I don't receive the grade I hope to be seeing on my AP score report.

• It was definitely worth it taking this course this year. I felt that towards the end of the Macro semester, though, that things were a little more rushed and we had to rely more on self-studying, since we didn't cover all important topics in depth in class. What I really enjoyed was how Mr. Welker started to bring in articles so we could make these real-world connections. That puts things into perspective and enhances our understanding of concepts. Mr. Welker should definitely strive to do this more often. Anecdotes and stories - for example, about his own parents' experiences during the oil crisis of the 1970s - made his lessons more colorful. The one thing that I really disliked about the course were the journal analysis assignments we had to do first semester. It seemed like the expectations were never really made clear and the rubric-handout passed out on the first day of school did not help us understand how Mr. Welker graded these journal entries.

• Well I can truly say, since this is anonymous, that I have enjoyed this course very much, not only because the material was interesting, but because Mr. Welker is a very dedicated and responsible teacher. The lecture outlines he always have for every class really explains the topics very well, maybe even too well, because sometimes I feel like I don't have to read the book to understand. However, I only felt this class was working for me towards 2nd semester, because econ was new subject for me then, so maybe in the future, especially 1st semester, there could be more engaging group activities, where everyone can participate.

• This course was worthwhile to take as it applies concepts from the real world so it easier to learn. The note taking in class and the wiki were helpful. It teaches you many concepts that you can go further in studying in college. We should definitely continue the group projects and going outside to keep this class interesting! This year has been great

• I was not particularly fond of economics before I even started the course, but now that I’ve completed it, I’m beginning to recognize and understand the economics that we all hear about in the headlines of newspapers and on the news. So, overall I feel that learning economics this year was a very useful and worthy experience. Regarding the course itself, I relied on class time to make clear any questions I had after reading the textbook. However, I found that towards second semester I had a bit of trouble focusing during class, and my ironic suggestion would be to go off topic a bit more, even if it is about economics. This year, whenever we did stray away from the exact lecture to talk about something like baseball cards and investments in the real world, I could concentrate more easily because it was a different perspective of the facts that we read out of the textbook and in lectures. So, some more of applying economics in the real world during class discussions would be something to incorporate in the course next year. Also, I did not find the practice sets useful this year – some of them were just lessons on graphing data. Some more activities that test analysis and theory would be more practical for next year.

• I enjoyed the first semester much more than the second semester- I found micro much more interesting than macro, (but that isn't very constructive.) One way to make the class better I think would be to have more variety in lesson plans. Sometimes I felt like the note taking and lecturing was a bit tedious and would have preferred to have a change very now and then. I thought the wiki was an excellent tool for review and the pace of the class was just right.
  

• AP Econ was definitely an interesting course, in terms of its material and teaching method. As I had never before taken a class such as Econ in the past, I found the new subject material to be rather interesting in comparison to other older subjects. The enthusiasm of Mr. Welker also helped; the class notes and lectures, as well as the sense of humor helped to ease things when classes began to slow down a bit. The emphasis on the graphs and transmission mechanism especially is a point of contention; it has helped me understand unclear concepts by simplifying the process by which they could be illustrated. The first semester of the course was very well done, however, with the introduction into macro, I feel that things were a bit rushed and scattered from time to time. In the future, perhaps setting up courses so that new material is finished earlier would be better -- this is my last AP class to finish the course material. More effort should also be put into making connections between a change of an economic aspect (ie. changes in investment) and their determinants and other related things; I have encountered questions on tests before that have required me to make a connection that I have not previously made before, and it would be nice to make sure that all these connections are made clear before taking the final exam.

• I liked how we centered our learning on certain concepts with a great depth. Seeing how it applies in numerous examples, including those in current news, adds to the excitement this learning brings. I find macro much more interesting that micro. It just makes more sense to me, and the idea of wiki definitely deserves the credit for being such a sucessful tool. It was hard during micro to clarify some points on obscure details, and the only sources we had were occasional visits to Mr. Welker and the book. But, with the wiki open 24/7 for the nocturnal nature of most students at SAS, its definitely been a reliable source for information when we needed them. The only problem was that we often incurred problem with the uploading speed was just way too slow and our contributions not being saved successfully. It has been a great year :D

• I didn't really enjoy AP Econ but I do recognize it as a very important class to take. It was challenging, maybe a little bit too much so. The wiki was a good idea. I would have liked to watch more videos in the class. If I could change one thing I would want to recieve WAY less e-mails, like a maximum of 1 per week. That should be enough. Other than that I thought Mr. Welker was a fantastic teacher, very friendly and informative.

• I think the wiki helped us out a lot, but as far as the wiki goes and answers for the chapter questions they should be posted after we turn our hwk in so we can go check the answers instead of say copy them then turn in the hwk. All in all it was a good year, and i think the wiki should be kept up. and head up for kids that cheat!

• Love the colors. Colors help a lot. and interactive learning helped too. Doing the wiki helped, but sometimes it was hard to digest the entire wiki. In general, we never read through the wiki in its entirety, simply because it was so lengthy and half the time we didn't know whether it was 100% correct or not (kind of like wikipedia). One thing that was really good was, having us take real AP exams early on, exposing us to the formay and style of the AP exam.

• But on the whole, while I can't say I actively enjoyed every moment of learning Econ this year, I did enjoy and lot of it, and I am SO GLAD that I took the class. I feel so much smarter, I understand what I read and hear in the news (which is a huge part of my life), I think Econ is necessary knowledge for any 21st century citizen, and I feel like I learned it really well this year. There were a lot of highlights, but one that sticks out in particular is from way back towards the beginning of the year, during a marginal returns excercise, when we all had to manufacture paper chains in Mr. Welker's sweatshop. It was hilarious and it really made me get the concept.