Mostafa Ewees

Background

About Mostafa Ewees

Introducing and Teaching a New Concept : As I introduce and develop a new concept I prefer to have students play an active role rather than look on passively as I unfurl and explain a fully ‘finished’ example. One instance of this, in the International Trade class, is in the development of the notion of an autarky equilibrium. Instead of me taking on the entire task of locating the equilibrium and providing the rationale for it, I let the students accomplish it. While locating the equilibrium usually poses no problems, offering a rationale for it proves to be quite daunting. Here’s where I intervene and prod their thought processes by asking them to draw an analogy with the determination of the optimal consumption bundle from consumer theory. Eventually, they do taste success. An advantage of this approach is that it enables students to see the connection between seemingly disparate areas in economics and in doing so sharpens their overall understanding of the subject. Importantly, a notion or a concept that is developed through such student involvement is less likely to appear as something arcane or ‘other-worldly’ and more likely to be something a student can readily embrace and relate to. Further, this kind of involvement by baring the process by which a concept comes into being in a ‘personal’ sort of way not only makes for easy apprehension of it but also aids in its retention (based on the social-constructivist model of learning). Specialties:(An Analysis of Children’s Attitudes toward Older Adults)(Subjectivism and Objectivism in Contemporary Theories of the Self. Study in Divergence of two lines of thought represented by Harry Sullivan and George Herbert Mead)