Principles of Microeconomics
ECON 1~ Prof. Kessler's edition · Fall 2026 · built with thecoursemaker.com
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Policies, schedule, and grading
Read the full course syllabus
Public sample for thecoursemaker.com. Silver Oak University and Prof. Kessler are fictional, for demonstration only. Generated with the founder's method; institutional boilerplate (disability, integrity, Title IX) appears as clearly-labeled [PLACEHOLDER] text an adopting instructor replaces with their school's official language.
Course: ECON 1 (a.k.a. ECON 2302) — Principles of Microeconomics · Scarcity, Markets & the Economics of Choice
Units: 3 · Modality: in-person · Meeting pattern: two 75-minute sessions/week · Term: Fall 2026 (Aug 31 – Dec 18, 16 weeks)
Department: Economics · Silver Oak University
1. Instructor & contact
Instructor: Prof. Kessler
Email: kessler@[silveroak.example] (placeholder) · replies within 1 business day
Office hours: Tue/Thu after class and by appointment (placeholder room / video link)
2. Course description
Microeconomics is the study of how people, firms, and societies make choices under scarcity — and how those choices meet in markets. Starting from opportunity cost and the gains from trade, we build the supply-and-demand model and use it to ask the questions you meet every day: Why do prices move? Who really pays a tax? Does a minimum wage help or hurt? When do markets work beautifully — and when do they fail? You will learn the economic way of thinking: reasoning at the margin, weighing trade-offs, following incentives, and reading a graph to predict what happens next. The course is quantitative and graphical — you will shift curves, find equilibria, and compute elasticities, surplus, costs, and a monopolist's output — and it is applied, asking you to separate what the model predicts (positive economics) from what we ought to choose (normative economics).
No textbook to buy: all readings and videos are links to free, authoritative external resources.
3. Course outcomes
Student Learning Outcomes (SLOs):
- SLO A — Economic modeling & quantitative analysis. Build, manipulate, and read economic models — shift curves and find new equilibria, and compute elasticities, surplus, cost, and optimal output — and interpret the results in words.
- SLO B — Applying economic reasoning to real-world questions. Use economic reasoning to analyze real policies and choices, distinguishing positive analysis from normative judgment and weighing competing arguments and evidence fairly.
Course objectives. By the end of the term you will be able to:
- Apply economic modeling and quantitative/graphical analysis — scarcity, opportunity cost, the PPF, and the gains from trade — and distinguish positive from normative economics.
- Analyze how demand, supply, and market equilibrium are determined, and predict how shifts change equilibrium price and quantity.
- Compute and interpret price, income, and cross-price elasticities, and relate elasticity to total revenue.
- Analyze consumer and producer surplus, efficiency, and the effects of government intervention (price controls, taxes, subsidies, deadweight loss).
- Derive and interpret short-run production and cost relationships.
- Analyze firm behavior under perfect competition and monopoly (P = MC, MR = MC, the shutdown rule, market power).
- Analyze monopolistic competition, oligopoly (incl. basic game theory), and factor/labor markets.
- Analyze market failure — externalities, public goods, and asymmetric information — and evaluate policy responses.
4. Required materials
No textbook purchase required. Each week's readings and videos are provided as links to external resources (e.g., Khan Academy Microeconomics, Marginal Revolution University, CrashCourse Economics, and the OpenStax Principles of Microeconomics text used as a free linked reference). Any real-world data is linked to an authoritative source (FRED, BLS, Census). You will also use a free graphing tool (Desmos) or a spreadsheet, a calculator, and one approved AI chatbot (see §7). You pay nothing for materials.
5. Grading
Letter-standard scheme. Assignment groups and weights:
| Group | Weight |
|---|---|
| Lecture tutorials (AI) | 5% |
| Quizzes | 10% |
| Practice exercises | 0% (ungraded, for mastery) |
| Model Workshops | 15% |
| Assignments | 15% |
| Discussions | 10% |
| Attendance | 0% (tracked, not weighted) |
| Midterm (Week 8) | 20% |
| Final (Week 16) | 25% |
| Total | 100% |
Per-item points: quizzes 10 · discussions 20 · assignments 100 · Model Workshops 50 · midterm & final 100 each.
Letter scale: A 90–100 · B 80–89 · C 70–79 · D 60–69 · F < 60.
Late policy: 10% per day late, up to 5 days, unless you arrange an extension in advance. Life happens — talk to me early.
6. Weekly rhythm & schedule
Most weeks follow the same shape, so you always know what's due:
- Read/watch the week's linked resources → Lecture Tutorial (with an approved chatbot) → Practice (ungraded reps) → Quiz (closed to AI) → Discussion → Assignment → Graph & Model Workshop.
- Typical due cadence: discussion initial post Fri, quiz/assignment/workshop and discussion replies Sun 11:59 p.m.
| Wk | Dates (Mon start) | Focus | Due |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Aug 31 | Scarcity, Opportunity Cost, the PPF & Models | Quiz 1 · Discussion 1 · Assignment 1 · Workshop 1 |
| 2 | Sep 7 | Comparative Advantage & the Gains from Trade | Quiz 2 · Discussion 2 · Assignment 2 · Workshop 2 |
| 3 | Sep 14 | Demand | Quiz 3 · Discussion 3 · Assignment 3 · Workshop 3 |
| 4 | Sep 21 | Supply & Market Equilibrium | Quiz 4 · Discussion 4 · Assignment 4 · Workshop 4 |
| 5 | Sep 28 | Elasticity | Quiz 5 · Discussion 5 · Assignment 5 · Workshop 5 |
| 6 | Oct 5 | Consumer & Producer Surplus & Efficiency | Quiz 6 · Discussion 6 · Assignment 6 · Workshop 6 |
| 7 | Oct 12 | Government Intervention: Price Controls, Taxes & Subsidies | Quiz 7 · Discussion 7 · Assignment 7 · Workshop 7 |
| 8 | Oct 19 | Midterm Review & Exam (Objectives 1–4) | Midterm · Discussion 8 (debrief) |
| 9 | Oct 26 | Production & Costs | Quiz 9 · Discussion 9 · Assignment 9 · Workshop 9 |
| 10 | Nov 2 | Perfect Competition | Quiz 10 · Discussion 10 · Assignment 10 · Workshop 10 |
| 11 | Nov 9 | Monopoly | Quiz 11 · Discussion 11 · Assignment 11 · Workshop 11 |
| 12 | Nov 16 | Monopolistic Competition & Oligopoly | Quiz 12 · Discussion 12 · Assignment 12 · Workshop 12 |
| 13 | Nov 23 | Factor / Labor Markets | Quiz 13 · Discussion 13 · Assignment 13 · Workshop 13 |
| 14 | Nov 30 | Externalities, Public Goods & Market Failure | Quiz 14 · Discussion 14 · Assignment 14 · Workshop 14 |
| 15 | Dec 7 | Asymmetric Information, Behavioral Econ & Inequality | Quiz 15 · Discussion 15 · Assignment 15 · Workshop 15 |
| 16 | Dec 14 | Final Review & Exam (cumulative) | Final |
Campus holidays (no class): Labor Day (Sep 7), Veterans Day (Nov 11), Thanksgiving (Nov 26–27). The midterm covers Weeks 1–7; the final is cumulative.
7. AI-use policy (load-bearing — read carefully)
This course uses AI deliberately and transparently. You will use one approved chatbot — Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT (free versions are fine) for several activities, and you will submit the conversation share link as evidence.
AI may be used (and is built into the activity):
- Lecture Tutorials — completed with an approved chatbot acting as your tutor. Submit the chat share link + the Completion Summary.
- Discussions (adaptive) — you hold a real-time dialogue with an approved chatbot about the week's question, then post the AI's summary report + the chat share link as your initial post (then reply to peers).
- Assignments (adaptive) — an approved chatbot coaches you through problems and grades each against an embedded rubric; you submit the self-scored report (first line
STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100) + the chat share link. - Graph & Model Workshops — AI is used for the AI-critique moment: you have the chatbot solve or interpret the problem, then catch its economics errors (a flipped elasticity, a wrong-curve/wrong-direction shift, a botched MR = MC, mislabeled surplus). The judgment is yours.
- Practice exercises and general studying.
AI may NOT be used:
- Quizzes, the Midterm, and the Final are closed to AI and must be entirely your own work.
This course is configured "adaptive learning." Both the adaptive and a traditional version of each discussion and assignment are included in this sample so you can see the difference; in an adaptive section, the AI dialogue is the activity, and the share link documents your work — no separate disclosure is needed. For any other graded work, add a one-line note of which tool you used and how. Integrity violations include fabricating or doctoring a submitted chat, submitting AI text as your own original writing where original writing is required, and using AI on the closed assessments. (Tie-in to the institution's academic-integrity standard: [PLACEHOLDER — insert official policy].)
8. Policies
- Attendance & participation. Attendance is tracked but not graded; consistent attendance strongly predicts success. More than [X] absences may affect [participation] per institutional policy. [PLACEHOLDER]
- Late work. 10%/day up to 5 days; arrange extensions in advance.
- Academic integrity. [PLACEHOLDER — institutional academic-integrity statement.] See §7 for the AI specifics.
- Disability & accommodations. [PLACEHOLDER — institutional disability-services statement.] Students with approved accommodations: contact me in the first two weeks.
- Title IX / nondiscrimination. [PLACEHOLDER — institutional Title IX statement.]
- Respectful discourse. Several topics (the minimum wage, rent control, taxes, inequality) are genuinely contested. We model the economic norm: separate positive analysis (what the model predicts) from normative judgment (what we value), and engage competing arguments and evidence in good faith.
This syllabus is finalized against the locked assessment schedule; weights total 100% and the schedule matches the Course Profile spine.
Assignment groups & weights
Configured in the export — the gradebook is set the moment the course is imported.
| Assignment group | Weight | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Lecture tutorials | 5% | |
| Quizzes | 10% | |
| Practice exercises | 0% | Not weighted |
| Model Workshops | 15% | |
| Assignments | 15% | |
| Discussions | 10% | |
| Attendance | 0% | Not weighted |
| Midterm | 20% | |
| Final | 25% | |
| Late policy | 10%/day | Per day late |
| Total | 100% | Letter Standard |
What students will be able to do
Apply the tools of economic modeling and quantitative/graphical analysis — scarcity, opportunity cost, the production possibilities frontier, and the gains from trade — and distinguish positive ('what is') from normative ('what ought to be') economics.
Analyze how demand, supply, and market equilibrium are determined, and predict how shifts in demand and supply change equilibrium price and quantity.
Compute and interpret the price, income, and cross-price elasticities of demand (using the midpoint formula), and relate elasticity to total revenue.
Analyze consumer and producer surplus, allocative efficiency, and the effects of government intervention — price ceilings and floors, taxes, and subsidies — including tax incidence and deadweight loss.
Derive and interpret short-run production and cost relationships — total, marginal, and average product; diminishing marginal returns; and the family of cost curves (TC, ATC, AVC, AFC, MC).
Analyze firm behavior and market outcomes under perfect competition and monopoly, applying the profit-maximizing rules (produce where P = MC, and MR = MC), the shutdown rule, and the welfare cost (deadweight loss) of market power.
Analyze monopolistic competition, oligopoly (including basic game theory — the prisoner's dilemma and Nash equilibrium), and factor/labor markets (derived demand and the value of the marginal product of labor).
Analyze the major sources of market failure — negative and positive externalities, public goods and common resources, and asymmetric information — and evaluate policy responses such as Pigouvian taxes and the Coase theorem.
Economic modeling & quantitative analysis. Build, manipulate, and read economic models — shift curves and find new equilibria; compute elasticities, surplus, cost, and optimal output — and interpret the results in words.
Applying economic reasoning to real-world questions. Use economic reasoning to analyze real policies and choices, distinguishing positive analysis from normative judgment and weighing competing arguments and evidence fairly.
About this sample — read this first
This sample deliberately includes every possible component, every week, so you can see the full range of what The Course Maker generates — lecture outline, AI-tutor tutorial, practice, slides, quiz, discussion, readings, assignment, a module overview, and a weekly Model Workshop, plus the midterm and final bundles. Most real courses are lighter than this. At setup you choose what to include, and you can spread discussions, quizzes, and assignments across alternating weeks to fit your course and your pace. (The syllabus above shows one such lighter, realistic cadence; the outline below shows the full kitchen sink.) You choose; you own it.
Discussions & assignments: traditional or adaptive
Every discussion and every assignment can be generated in one of two modes — your choice at setup. Same learning objectives and the same rubric either way; what changes is how the work happens.
The familiar way
The course posts a prompt or a problem set. The student does the work themselves and submits it, and the instructor grades it against the included rubric. No AI required.
Work it through with an approved chatbot
The student does the work in a guided conversation with their own approved chatbot — Gemini, Claude, or ChatGPT — using a copy-paste prompt the course provides. For a discussion, the AI is a Socratic partner that challenges their thinking and never writes the post; the student posts a short summary plus a link to the chat. For an assignment, the AI is a coach and grader: it gives problems one at a time, scores each against the embedded rubric, teaches through mistakes, and lets the student retry a fresh variant to raise their score — then outputs a self-scored report (first line STUDENT'S SCORE: X/100) submitted with the chat link.
This sample course is set to adaptive — the traditional version of any item is one setting away. Open any week's discussion or assignment to see both side by side.
Every week, every component
Each week is a heading; every component under it links to the full artifact. Exam weeks carry the midterm/final bundle instead of the weekly quiz, tutorial, practice, and assignment.