Teaching Economic Theory

Huseyin Yildirim's first teaching job was 20 years ago, when he was 15 and began tutoring high school students in the tiny village in southwest Turkey he grew up in.

 

"Tutoring was essentially unknown in my small town," said Yildirim, recipient of this year's Howard Johnson Teaching Award. Instead, he said, the emphasis was on farming, mostly of grapes and tobacco. But from an early age, Yildirim wanted to be an academic, and teaching was a way he could contribute to his family.

 

"I tutored until the end of my undergraduate degree," said Yildirim, associate professor in the Department of Economics. "I felt like I was accomplishing something."

 

In Yildirim's first academic job, teaching managerial economics at the University of Florida, where he received his doctorate, he was initially concerned that students would have a hard time understanding his English.

 

"But as I was teaching, I realized that communication is not just about knowing a language better, it's all dimensions -- making students feel comfortable, making eye contact, what kind of examples I use," he said. "Once the students realize they can actually understand the subject, they don't even think about the language."

 

As a teacher of math-intensive theoretical economics, Yildirim said his greatest challenge is conveying the real-life relevance of the subject.

 

"With the tools they learn in microeconomics, like utility theory and game theory, I tell them, now you can actually address some of your questions and get a deeper understanding," he said. "But convincing students to do theoretical work is not easy. It's more abstract, but it is about understanding the action, getting the logic."

 

One student he convinced was Selin Dilmener, who last year wrote an award-winning thesis based on a theoretical model she created, with Yildirim's assistance, to analyze the logic of mandatory hurricane evacuations.

 

"It's a very good topic, especially after New Orleans," Yildirim said. "But there will be some math, and that's where the advising comes."

 

Yildirim's work with Dilmener was partly what inspired Connel Fullenkamp, associate director of undergraduate studies in economics, to nominate Yildirim for the teaching award.

 

"It has been quite rare that students in economics have written purely theoretical as opposed to empirical senior theses, let alone ones of such high quality," Fullenkamp wrote in his nomination letter. "Huseyin's mentoring was clearly essential in Selin's achievement, and I have no doubt that Selin's enthusiasm for her research was inspired in large part by Huseyin."

 

This spring Yildirim inaugurated the department's undergraduate research workshop sequence in microeconomics.

 

In the fall, Yildirim's workshop students will present theses on such topical issues as employer sick-leave policies and why Democratic underdog candidate John Edwards stayed in the presidential race as long as he did.

 

His one-on-one work with students will assist them reach their academic potentials, Fullenkamp said. "This will indeed be a significant contribution to undergraduate education at Duke."

 

Before students choose their topics, Yildirim said he advises them, "you can't go by feeling. Make it a game to find the theory, to see what you can explain."

 

"I get excited as I see them get excited," he said. "Then they don't think about the math anymore because they're so into the economics of it."