In teaching introductory economics there has been a tendency to put a lot of emphasis on imparting abstract models and technical skills to students (Stilwell, 2005; Voss, Blais, Greens, & Ahwesh, 1986). This model building approach has the merit of preparing the grounding for students 10 pursue further studies in economics. However, in a business degree with only a small proportion of students majoring in economics, such an approach tend to alienate the majority of students transiting from high school in to university. Surveys in Europe and Australia found that students complained about the lack of relevance of economics courses to the real world and the over-reliance of abstract mathematical modelling (Kirman, 2001; Lewis and Norris, 1997; Siegfried & Round, 2000).ududBSB112 Economics 1 is one of the eight faculty core units in the Faculty of Business at QUT, with over 1000 students in each semester. In semester I 2008, a new approach to teaching this unit was designed aiming to achieve three inter-related objectives: (1) to provide business students with a first insight into economic thinking and language, (2) to integrate economic analysis with current Australian social, environmental and political issues, and (3) to cater for students with a wide range of academic needs. Strategies used to achieve these objectives included writing up a new text which departs from traditional economics textbooks in important ways, integrating students' cultures in teaching and learning activities, and devising a new assessment format to encourage development of research skills and applications rather than reproduction of factual knowledge. This paper will document the strategies used in this teaching innovation, present quantitative and qualitative evidence to evaluate this new approach and suggest ways of further improvement.ud
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机译：在介绍性经济学的教学中，有一种将重点放在向学生传授抽象模型和技术技能上的倾向（Stilwell，2005； Voss，Blais，Greens和Ahwesh，1986）。这种建立模型的方法的优点是为学生10从事经济学的深造做准备。但是，在只有一小部分经济学专业学生的商业学位中，这种方法倾向于疏远大多数从高中过渡到大学的学生。在欧洲和澳大利亚进行的调查发现，学生抱怨经济学课程与现实世界缺乏相关性，以及对抽象数学建模的过度依赖（Kirman，2001； Lewis和Norris，1997； Siegfried＆Round，2000）。 udBSB112经济学1是昆士兰科技大学商学院的八个教学核心单元之一，每个学期有1000多名学生。在2008年第一学期，我们设计了一种新的教学方法，旨在实现三个相互关联的目标：（1）为商科学生提供对经济思维和语言的初步了解，（2）将经济分析与当前的澳大利亚人结合起来社会，环境和政治问题，以及（3）迎合具有广泛学术需求的学生。用于实现这些目标的策略包括：以重要的方式撰写与传统经济学教科书不同的新教科书，将学生的文化融入教与学活动中，并设计一种新的评估形式以鼓励研究技能和应用的发展而不是复制事实知识。本文将记录该教学创新中使用的策略，提供定量和定性的证据来评估这种新方法，并提出进一步改进的方法。 ud
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