Niagara College is making a deposit in the future of economics education.
School of Business and Management Professor Krishna SenGupta will travel to New Orleans to share her innovative teaching methods at the 21st annual Economics Teaching Conference, Nov. 5-7. She was hand-picked by Cengage Canada as one of only five Canadian instructors to be a sponsored attendee at the event.
A bull market for best practices, the conference will draw academics from across the continent to share tools and ideas for teaching Economics principles. It will cover current trends in pedagogy, with interactive sessions and a keynote presentation from Harvard Professor of Economics and best-selling author Greg Mankiw.
“Professor SenGupta is one of five Canadian instructors invited to the conference from Canada and will have the opportunity to share her innovative way of teaching Economics at the College with an experiential focus, through a research project incorporated into her classes with other conference attendees,” said Mary Costello, Senior Account Executive at Cengage Canada.
SenGupta was thrilled by the invitation, viewing it as a chance to highlight NC’s commitment to hands-on learning.
“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to attend this conference and bring forward the innovative teaching methods that we have at Niagara College for this course,” she said. “People from other universities and colleges will see how we promote our students’ original and critical thinking through this research project – which has become even more important in this age of AI – and how I’ve been developing strategies to ensure students develop original work.”
When SenGupta began teaching at NC in 2017, she explored ways to make a fundamentally theoretical subject like economics relevant to her students, since NC is known for its applied, hands-on approach to education.
“At Niagara College, we’re focused on experiential learning, unlike in university, so I faced a huge challenge: how can I make this theoretical subject as relevant as possible, so students could relate to what they’re learning in class,” she said. “I taught the same kind of course in university, but in none of the universities I’m aware of would offer this kind of opportunity to students, let alone colleges.”
Her solution was the development of a comprehensive research project that has been a cornerstone of her Principles of Economics classes for the past two-and-a-half years. This project is a mechanism for students to apply what they learn in class to real-world scenarios and expose themselves to critical research work – a competitive advantage for NC students pursuing careers in Business and Management.
While class time is spent on concepts and case studies, the group project requires students to take a broad, assigned topic and drill down to a specific, researchable question. They must link what they’re learning in class to real-world applications and demonstrate their mastery of research principles, summarization and citation, all while proving their work is original in an age of AI.
“I’ve been teaching economics for such a long time, and the disconnect that I always used to struggle with is that they’re unable to relate to what they’re learning in class – like not knowing what the Bank of Canada is,” she said. “Through the research project, now they can. They’re learning economics in a different way.”
Real-world value
The project has been yielding high-quality results and highly engaged students.
Second-year Business – Accounting student Emmanuel Sam is exploring “opportunity costs” for his research project and his group decided to focus on Niagara.
“We’re focusing on how consumers in the Niagara region make choices. For example, it was an ‘opportunity cost’ for me to attend NC, rather than another university or college – I had to make a choice,” said Sam. “I think the research project is really helping us understand the topic because it’s a direct application of real life and real experiences. My group members are so enthused about the whole thing.”
Krista Kalmus, from the second-year Business Administration – Accounting program, is focusing her group’s research on unemployment through the lens of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Everybody talks about unemployment but it’s not the same as what you see in the media, statistics … now I understand more,” she said, highlighting the project’s ability to move beyond surface-level knowledge.
To encourage healthy competition and acknowledge exceptional effort, SenGupta invites students with the top projects to present their findings to the School of Business and Management faculty, with the best project receiving a certificate. She ensures a relative grading scale to reward those who truly put in the work, preventing “free riders” in the group and ensuring fair distribution of the returns.
Administrators see SenGupta’s selection as a testament to the quality of NC’s business programs.
“Professor Krishna SenGupta’s selection as a sponsored attendee for the Cengage Academic Conference underscores her dedication to academic excellence and student success. As an innovative economics professor, Krishna has distinguished herself by incorporating a research project into her Principles of Economics course – an uncommon practice in this type of course that caught the attention of Cengage,” said April Tyrrell, Associate Dean, School of Business and Management. “Krishna’s engagement with leading economics experts at this conference will bring fresh insights into the classroom, enriching the learning experience for our students.”
