with President Gutmann and Interim Provost Peter Conn


During my teaching experience at Penn, I have realized that our
undergraduate students are very intelligent, but often, if they are not
motivated all that intelligence is used to find the ways to get a good
grade and minimize the effort. My goal as a teacher is to channel all
that intelligence and energy towards true learning. At the center of my
teaching philosophy is to motivate my students and help them rediscover
the fun of learning. By doing this, I get around the grade-oriented
attitude of many students, and make them understand that the ultimate
goal is not to do well in a two-hour exam, but to learn skills that will
help them to do well in life. They soon realize the good grades will follow.

The first ingredient to obtain a positive attitude towards learning is
to have a positive attitude towards teaching. I personally enjoy
awakening my students’ curiosity and seeing how their question “what do
I /need/ to know to do well in the exam” gradually changes to deeper
questions that go beyond than what is required. Some people may think
motivated teachers are hard to find in a research institution like Penn,
however, in my view, teaching is a complement and not a substitute for
research. To find a good question or a good dissertation topic, is just
the starting point of the production of a research paper, after that, we
need to be able to organize, present and write our thoughts in a logical
and understandable way. Teaching introductory economics has been an
excellent training to develop those skills because every week I face the
challenge of conveying economic theory to an audience of bright and
young minds that most likely have never heard about the material I am
presenting.

From the first recitation I work to set a positive atmosphere for
learning. I start emphasizing to my students that my job is not to grade
them, but to help them, and I encourage them to be active participants
of the recitation. I am very respectful of my students’ opinions and
answers, whether they are right or wrong. I understand it takes courage
to give an answer in front of 50 people, so when they are wrong I am
very careful of correcting them without making them feel ashamed. In
this way they feel safe and are not afraid of speaking up. Students’
participation is a very valuable asset that, as a teacher, I work on
preserving and encouraging. It helps to make the recitations more
entertaining and also tells me about how well they understand the
material so I can emphasize the areas where I detect weaknesses.

An important component for motivating students is how the recitations
are conducted. I share with my students my enthusiasm for economics and
I try to keep my students’ attention by being energetic. In my view, as
a teacher it is not enough to tell students the material and make sure
they copy it; on the contrary, a teacher should communicate and discuss
with the students. I show them that economics is not an abstract and
obscure subject, but a beautiful way of formalizing aspects of their
daily life, for example, their own consumption decisions. I have also
introduced them to complicated issues of asymmetric information with
applications to health insurance, and they have really enjoyed being
able to analyze with scientific methods relevant social problems.

My teaching experience has also been educational. I have greatly
benefited and learned from discussions with my students. Sometimes, when
answering a question I come to a deeper understanding of the material
myself; I am indebted to my students for these little discoveries. Penn
students are part of an intellectual elite and it has been my pleasure
to teach such a bright group of students. What I have described above,
are my efforts to help them make the most of their potential through
rediscovering the fun of learning. I can proudly say that every semester
I am rewarded with some students becoming majors, others asking for
advice for graduate school and others just stopping by to tell me they
liked the course and that they learned. These rewards replenish my
energy to start a new semester, and encourage me to continue improving
my teaching skills.