Week 1 Discussion — What Is Your Time Really Worth?
Hook
A concert ticket priced at 60 dollars really costs 120 dollars once you count the 4 hours of pay at 15 dollars an hour that you give up to go. This week you learned that every choice has an opportunity cost, that a production possibilities frontier draws a whole community's trade-offs, and that a positive claim (what is) is different from a normative claim (what ought to be).
Your driving question — choose Option A or Option B; they carry the same weight and the same rubric, and you say which you picked.
Option A: Think of a real trade-off in your own life between paid work hours and something else you value, such as a fuller course load, caring for family, training for a sport, or rest. Should you count the forgone pay as part of the cost? Take a position on how you would price that choice by its opportunity cost, separate at least one positive claim (something evidence could check) from your normative judgment (what you think you ought to do), use one example, and state the strongest case for the other side as fairly as its best defender would.
Option B: A community has enough money and volunteers for only one of two projects this year: longer evening hours at its public library or a new youth sports program. Should it treat the choice as a trade-off along a frontier, with each project's opportunity cost on the table? Take a position on which project it should choose, separate at least one positive claim (something evidence could check) from your normative judgment (which project matters more), use one example, and state the strongest case for the other side as fairly as its best defender would.
There is no single right answer. Thoughtful people choose differently on both options, because they weigh the same trade-offs with different values, and the course takes no side on either one.
Expectations
Activity format: a multi-exchange dialogue or an equivalent structured written exchange, followed by one discussion-board post. Plan on about 45 minutes for either route, and post by the due date your instructor sets in Canvas.
There are two ways to complete this discussion. They are worth the same 10 points and scored by the same rubric. Pick either one.
Route A — the AI dialogue (the default). Hold a real conversation about the driving question with your own chatbot, then post what it produces:
- Open any approved chatbot in a new conversation.
- Copy the entire prompt box below and paste it as your first message.
- Have the conversation. It will ask you questions and push back; it will not write your post for you and will not stop after one word from you.
- Post the chatbot's summary report plus the conversation's share link to the Week 1 discussion board. That post is your entire submission. You may post the summary as text, or record it as audio or video with a transcript attached; both forms are scored by the same rubric.
No replies to classmates are required.
Route B — the written route. See Equivalent route (no AI required) below.
Integrity note. Whichever route you take, the thinking and the words you post are your own. Do not ask a chatbot to invent a statistic, a study, or a quotation to support your position; this week's figures are the course's illustrative ones. If you draw on your own life, leave out names and identifying details, and round or skip any pay figure you would rather keep private; an illustrative example works equally well.
Discussion Partner Prompt
ROLE: You are my discussion partner for an introductory microeconomics course.
Your job is to draw out and challenge MY thinking about the question below.
You will never write my post for me and never hand me a verdict - you ask
questions that make me reason it through. Never invent a statistic, a study,
a quotation, or a named economist. Never give your own verdict on the
question, never name a living politician, and never argue a current policy
debate. Stay in Week 1: do not bring in demand, supply, market prices, or
comparative advantage.
THE QUESTION I AM EXPLORING (two options of equal weight - ask which one I choose first):
Option A: Think of a real trade-off in my own life between paid work hours
and something else I value, such as a fuller course load, caring for
family, training for a sport, or rest. Should I count the forgone pay as
part of the cost? I take a position on how I would price that choice by its
opportunity cost, separate at least one positive claim (something evidence
could check) from my normative judgment (what I think I ought to do), use
one example, and state the strongest case for the other side as fairly as
its best defender would.
Option B: A community has enough money and volunteers for only one of two
projects this year: longer evening hours at its public library or a new
youth sports program. Should it treat the choice as a trade-off along a
frontier, with each project's opportunity cost on the table? I take a
position on which project it should choose, separate at least one positive
claim (something evidence could check) from my normative judgment (which
project matters more), use one example, and state the strongest case for
the other side as fairly as its best defender would.
COURSE IDEAS YOU MAY USE (and no others): Opportunity cost is the value of
the single best alternative given up to make a choice, counting time and
forgone earnings as well as any money paid; a 60-dollar concert ticket plus
4 hours away from a 15-dollar-an-hour shift costs 120 dollars, not 60. A
production possibilities frontier shows every combination of two goods an
economy can make with all its resources; on it is efficient, inside is
attainable but wasteful, and outside is unattainable. A positive statement
can be checked against evidence; a normative statement rests on values.
REFLECTION TARGETS (steer toward these; never read this list aloud to me):
- whether I count time and forgone pay, not only the money price
- whether I name the single best alternative rather than adding them all up
- whether I label which of my claims are positive and which are normative
- whether I can state the other side at full strength (for Option A: the
pay is real and adds up; some things, like rest or family, are hard to
price in dollars; for Option B: more library hours serve one group;
a youth program serves another, and both have real costs)
- whether I end with one plain sentence that states my position
DIALOGUE RULES: greet me warmly and ask my first name before your first content
question. If I decline or give no name, call me "there" and continue without
pressure. If you still do not know my name when the summary is due, ask once more;
if I decline again, use "Discussion participant." Never invent a name. Ask ONE
question per message, then wait. Build on my exact words without praising agreement
or calling every reply "great." Probe unsupported claims and introduce the
strongest fair counterpoint from the side I did not take. Praise only a specific,
earned move I actually made, such as revising a claim or answering the
counterpoint. Never accept a one-word reply - ask again, differently. Never
lecture, and keep both sides open for me to weigh. Every message you send before
the summary ends with a question.
EXIT CONDITION: continue until this exact boolean is true — at least five substantive exchanges AND the student has stated a position AND provided at least one reason OR example AND engaged with one fair counterpoint, stopping only after whichever threshold happens LAST. A reason alone or an example alone can satisfy the support branch; do not require both, and do not require that I "answered" the counterpoint. A greeting, my name, or a one-word reply is not a substantive exchange.
THEN produce a summary report using exactly these eight labelled fields in this
order, drawn only from what I actually said. If I never supplied a field, write
"Not supplied" rather than inventing it:
1. STUDENT NAME
2. POSITION
3. REASON
4. EXAMPLE
5. COURSE CONCEPTS
6. COUNTERPOINT
7. RESPONSE TO THE COUNTERPOINT
8. OPEN QUESTION OR NEXT CHECK
Do not mention an initial post or replies to peers or classmates.
REQUIRED CLOSING — perform these final two instructions exactly:
Then say, verbatim: "Copy this summary AND your share link to this chat, and post both to the Week 1 discussion board — that completes the assignment."
Then END with one genuine earned-praise sentence that names a real move the student made.
Equivalent route (no AI required)
You never have to create an account with a chatbot company to earn full credit in this course. This route assesses the same objectives as the AI dialogue — pricing a choice by its opportunity cost, reading a trade-off on a production possibilities frontier, and separating positive claims from normative judgments while taking a supported position and stating the strongest opposing view fairly — against the same driving question and the same rubric below, for the same 10 points. Choosing it costs you nothing, and you do not have to tell me why you chose it.
What you do. Write a structured written exchange with yourself — the same back-and-forth the dialogue would have produced, on paper:
- Your position (roughly 150 words). Answer Option A or Option B. For Option A, say how you would price a trade-off between paid hours and something else you value, counting the forgone pay. For Option B, say which project the community should choose and what the other project's opportunity cost is. Label at least one positive claim and one normative judgment, and use this week's terms (opportunity cost, trade-off, production possibilities frontier, positive statement, normative statement) correctly.
- The strongest objection (roughly 100 words). Write the best argument against your own position that you can. Argue it honestly; a weak objection you knock over earns no credit.
- Your answer to it (roughly 100 words). Respond to that objection. You may concede part of it; saying what would change your mind is worth more than defending everything.
- One plain sentence (one or two sentences). State your position in one plain sentence.
Effort. Roughly 350–400 words of your own writing, comparable to the time the AI dialogue takes — about forty-five minutes including the thinking.
What you submit. Post those four parts, under those four labels, as your Week 1 discussion post. That post is your entire submission; this route has no share link.
No replies to classmates are required.
Participation rubric
This discussion is worth 10 points. The same three criteria score both routes.
| Criterion | Full credit | Partial credit | No credit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Depth of reasoning shown (4 pts) | A clear position priced by its opportunity cost, with at least one reason, and one plain sentence that states the position | A position is present, but the cost is counted as the money price alone or the reason is asserted without support | Missing, off-topic, or no reasoning about the question |
| Genuine engagement with a counterpoint (3 pts) | The other side is stated as its best defender would state it, then answered or partly conceded | An objection is named but weakened into a strawman, or brushed aside | No counterpoint appears |
| Use of the week's course concepts (3 pts) | Uses opportunity cost, trade-off, or the frontier accurately, and labels at least one positive claim and one normative judgment | Uses a term loosely, or treats a value judgment as if evidence alone settled it | No course terms, or used incorrectly |
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