Course Syllabus

Macroeconomics

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Course Description

This course examines national economic systems with emphasis on the United States. Topics include gross national product, business cycles, employment and prices, recession and inflation, fiscal and monetary policy, and rudiments of international trade. Basic algebra skills required.

Essential Objectives

1. Explain the fundamental principles and theories of macroeconomics, including aggregate economic performance, trends in production, consumption, prices, and employment.
2. Describe the development of macroeconomics as a social science, and provide examples of how macroeconomic concepts such as output, unemployment, and inflation can be used to explain human behavior and subsequent historical phenomena.
3. Examine the impact of human social, cognitive, and emotional behaviors on economic decisions of individuals and firms, and discuss the impact of this behavior on consumption, savings, and investment.
4. Identify the principal components of national production, including consumption, investment, government spending, imports/exports, and their interrelation.
5. Explain causes of economic fluctuation, the nature of business cycles and corollary trends in national price levels, and causes and impacts of interest rate levels.
6. Describe national fiscal and monetary policy; analyze their respective roles, historically and in the current economic environment; and explain how different policies impact the behavior of individuals and society.
7. Identify functions of money and activities of the United States banking system including the role of the Federal Reserve System.
8. Compare capitalism with other economic systems and analyze current world economic development in the context of comparative economic systems.
9. Examine current research and analytical methods in macroeconomics and explain how economists apply these methods to analyze and respond to real world events.
10. Explain how macroeconomic theory has contributed to and/or been used to create, maintain, or dismantle systemic social inequities.

Required Technology

More information on general computer and internet recommendations is available on the CCV IT Support page. https://support.ccv.edu/general/computer-recommendations/

Please see CCV's Digital Equity Statement (pg. 45) to learn more about CCV's commitment to supporting all students access the technology they need to successfully finish their courses.

Required Textbooks and Resources

This course uses one or more textbooks/books/simulations.

Summer 2023 textbook details will be available on 2022-11-28. On that date a link will be available below that will take you to eCampus, CCV's bookstore. The information provided there will be specific to this class. Please see this page for more information regarding the purchase of textbooks/books.

Link to Textbooks for this course in eCampus.

The last day to use a Financial Aid Advance to purchase textbooks/books is the 3rd Tuesday of the semester. See your financial aid counselor at your academic center if you have any questions.

Methods

Assignment Guidelines

I will open up each week's assignment by Tuesday morning at the latest. In most cases, I will not open the assignments any earlier, as it is important that everyone be working on the same material at the same time. It would also be a nightmare for me to keep track of everyone's work if some students are submitting material from different weeks. Exceptions to this general rule may be made in unusual circumstances.

Additional guidelines are found within the course structure, please be sure to read everything from the homepage.

a). Reading assignment: Every week, you will have several chapters, or portions thereof, to read from your textbooks.

b). Homework Questions: These are your individual "homework" questions. In most cases, you must answer these questions and submit your answers by Monday of each week, by 11:59 p.m., EDT. Of course, you must do your own work.

1). The questions will be the PROBLEMS at the end of each chapter.

Please note when the problem asks for a graph to be drawn you must submit one in your file. I suggest a Word document or Google Docs (I cannot read Pages documents). You can draw these freehand and take a pic and insert them into your Word file or you can also use the space in your text, write your answers there, and then take pictures and upload. There is a video in the course on how to do this.

2). Some questions will require more discussion than others. Use your best judgment. Do NOT, however, simply repeat portions of the text as your answer. I am expecting you to think and analyze the issues; the assignments are not challenges to find something hidden in the book. You may have to explain an answer in your own words or provide examples.

I encourage you to retain a copy of your answers, in case, for some reason, they do not post properly.

Proper Email addresses:

Carl.Hooker@ccv.edu

You may also receive emails from me at ccvmacroeconomics@gmail.com

Discussion Questions: Each week, you must contribute to your Group's discussion board. This is an important part of the course, in fact, the most important, and constitutes a large portion of your grade. In accordance with attendance policies, you must post your answers/comments over two separate days. Two separate posts are required for full credit for EACH discussion question. The week runs from Tuesday thru Monday.

The questions that will be discussed on the discussion board will be drawn from each week's materials.

Please respond to existing threads. This should make the logistics of reading and responding to comments more efficient. Thus, if there are four discussion board questions assigned in a given week, there should be four threads on the discussion board that week. Please keep your responses to approximately 150 words or the equivalent of three or four well-written paragraphs. Do not forget to cite sources where appropriate, a footnote is fine or a link in the body of your post will also do and is actually preferred. There is a video on how to do this within the class structure. Since this is an online class I expect you to do some research on your own as we do not have the same chances to dialog as we would in a traditional classroom.

I would hope that you format the posts to be readable containing good spelling, punctuation, grammar, and font size and selection. Also please use paragraphs in a proper fashion. If you are using a mobile device to submit you still need to proof and add paragraphing. This is an academic function within the discussion and should reflect college-level writing skills.

Again, every student must have at least two substantive and substantial comments for each question each week over TWO separate days to each discussion question for the week. When posting to the discussion boards, post your comments early in the week. This has two benefits. First, the discussion will be better if it progresses throughout the week. Therefore, you're more likely to learn something through the discussions. (You won't learn as much by making "drive-by" postings).

Second, if you wait until the last minute, you may find that someone else has raised the same point that you wanted to mention. You will thus find it more difficult to make substantive comments.

To earn full credit for your participation, your comments must be both substantive and substantial. A comment such as "I agree" or "good job" does not further a discussion and will not earn full points. Therefore, please do not clutter the discussion boards with these sorts of comments. Please make your postings count! Also, again, pay attention to grammar, spelling, punctuation, and formating.

Quiz: There is a quiz each week of class from the selected chapters for the week. The quiz will be due by Monday of the week by midnight.

If you have questions about concepts in a particular assignment, please discuss them in the discussion section with your fellow students. While you must do your own work, I do not object to (and I actually encourage) the use of your colleagues as a resource in this fashion. You may also find answers in your textbook or in other resources; I encourage you to share these, as well.

Please stay current with the material. This course will require a lot of work, and if you fall behind, it will be very difficult to catch up.

I will stay current with the grades at the end of each week. You can check your grades on Canvas. Please recognize that this is a large class and I have other sections also quite large, so try to be patient, but if you have questions about your grades, feel free to ask. I strive to have grades done by Thursday evening at the latest.

Although it is an unpleasant subject to bring up, I must remind everyone that I will not tolerate cheating in any form. It should go without saying that your academic honesty is expected (and anticipated). Any academic dishonesty will be dealt with in as severe a manner as possible. "Academic dishonesty" includes, but is not limited to, unauthorized collaboration on course work with other students (including past or former students), the passing off of other's work as one's own, or assisting other students in such activities.

Evaluation Criteria

Grades will be based on the following:

Written Homework 15%

Quizes 15%

Participation 40%

Midterm Exam 15%

Final Exam 15%

Grading Criteria

CCV Letter Grades as outlined in the Evaluation System Policy are assigned according to the following chart:

	High	Low
A+	100	98
A	Less than 98	93
A-	Less than 93	90
B+	Less than 90	88
B	Less than 88	83
B-	Less than 83	80
C+	Less than 80	78
C	Less than 78	73
C-	Less than 73	70
D+	Less than 70	68
D	Less than 68	63
D-	Less than 63	60
F	Less than 60
P	100	60
NP	Less than 60	0

Weekly Schedule

Attendance Policy

Regular attendance and participation in classes are essential for success in and are completion requirements for courses at CCV. A student's failure to meet attendance requirements as specified in course descriptions will normally result in a non-satisfactory grade.

• In general, missing more than 20% of a course due to absences, lateness or early departures may jeopardize a student's ability to earn a satisfactory final grade.
• Attending an on-ground or synchronous course means a student appeared in the live classroom for at least a meaningful portion of a given class meeting. Attending an online course means a student posted a discussion forum response, completed a quiz or attempted some other academically required activity. Simply viewing a course item or module does not count as attendance.
• Meeting the minimum attendance requirement for a course does not mean a student has satisfied the academic requirements for participation, which require students to go above and beyond simply attending a portion of the class. Faculty members will individually determine what constitutes participation in each course they teach and explain in their course descriptions how participation factors into a student's final grade.

Participation Expectations

Participation in this online class is comprised of two components:

Attendance is recorded for the class when a student submits at least one assignment for the week be it homework, quiz, or discussion post.

Discussion posting is recorded at the end of the week as part of the grading process and is based on 11 points per discussion topic, note a chapter may have more than one discussion topic.

2 points are awarded for a first post by the deadline of Friday evening.

2 points are awarded for a second post by the deadline of Monday and it was posted on a separate date from the first post. If a first post is not made by Friday you can still earn these two points by posting before the end of the week Monday night.

4 points are reserved for content. A post such as "Thanks for your post Student A, I agree" while I will allow for purposes of attendance will lose points here as this is not in accordance with the information I have posted elsewhere about discussion post content. Also, if you exceed the acceptable length of about 150 words I will also deduct it here.

3 points are this reserved for grammar and spelling, this includes paragraphing.

11pts = 100% A+

10pts = 91% A-

9 pts = 83% B-

8pts = 73% C

7pts = 64% D

Accessibility Services for Students with Disabilities:

1. Provide disability documentation to the Accessibility Coordinator at your academic center. https://ccv.edu/discover-resources/students-with-disabilities/
2. Request an appointment to meet with accessibility coordinator to discuss your request and create an accommodation plan.
3. Once created, students will share the accommodation plan with faculty. Please note, faculty cannot make disability accommodations outside of this process.

Academic Integrity