Instructor Insights
Below, Jeff Levine describes various aspects of how he teaches 11.438 Economic Development Planning.
OCW: Who took this course in Spring 2020?
Jeff Levine: The spring class was all Masters students from DUSP. In fact, I think they were all second-year students finishing up their degrees and looking for an elective that offered tools for the practice. The students had some background in community and economic development but not as much in the planning tools that public and non-profit agencies might use to advance policy goals. Since it was a small class, we were able to adjust easily to remote learning in March and had a comfortable and informal class structure.
"Teaching in a professional degree program, one of my priorities is to help students learn to write for their future work environments."
OCW: In addition to two more traditional papers, you asked your students to compose two of the written assignments in the form of professional memoranda. Why did you decide to structure those assignments that way, and how well did it work?
Jeff Levine: Teaching in a professional degree program, one of my priorities is to help students learn to write for their future work environments. Busy decision-makers don’t have time to read a long theoretical paper on a topic. They may only have the time or interest to read the top page or two of a memo, and they want to quickly know what you want them to do. I asked the students to keep their memos to two pages or less, which can be harder than writing a five-page paper. Generally it worked well, and having multiple opportunities allowed the students to improve their memorandum writing skills.
OCW: How effective have you found grading rubrics to be as a tool for yourself and your students? What successes and/or challenges have you experienced in implementing them?
Jeff Levine: Grading can be a little challenging in a graduate-level class without a lot of quantifiable outcomes. Using rubrics helped me provide a rationale for how and why I was grading material, and that helped me stay focused on the values I brought to evaluating the submissions. Rubrics such as “you make your argument clearly” helped me separate that aspect of the evaluations from others, such as “your argument is supported by the research.” Having said that, there is always a bit of a judgment call as to whether particular students is really utilizing their judgment or just repeating what I told them.
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OCW: You presented this course as a sequence of four thematic units: “lenses,” “tools,” “strategies,” and “cases.” Why did you use this approach? Is this structure unique to the subject matter of 11.438, or would it be useful in teaching other topics as well?
Jeff Levine: I was looking for a way to explore what economic development planning tries to accomplish and what options are available to reach these goals. Starting with “lenses” allowed us to figure out the purposes of the field. Looking at “tools” allowed us to understand what options are out there for achieving those purposes. “strategies” brought the tools to bear on the lenses, and then “cases” allowed the students to see those strategies in practice. I thought it worked well for this class and I am using a variation of it in another class now.
OCW: What would you like to share about teaching 11.438 that we haven’t yet addressed?
Jeff Levine: I enjoyed presenting case studies and hearing the questions and thoughts from the students. They always had interesting perspectives on the cases, quite often ones I had not thought of.
Assessment
Grade Breakdown
The students’ grades were based on the following activities:
- 20% Short assignments, graded on a ✓+, ✓, ✓- scale
- 25% Midterm paper
- 30% End-of-semester project
- 10% Final presentation
- 15% In-class participation
Rubrics
Written work was graded in accordance with a rubric provided in the syllabus.
Instructor Insights on Assessment
Curriculum Information
Prerequisites
None
Requirements Satisfied
Elective
Offered
Every other spring semester
Student Information
Enrollment
Fewer than 10 students
Breakdown by Year
All second-year graduate students
Breakdown by Major
All students in the Master in City Planning program at MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP)
Typical Student Background
The students were all finishing up their degrees and looking for an elective that offered tools for the practice. They had some background in community and economic development but not as much in the planning tools that public and non-profit agencies might use to advance policy goals.
How Student Time Was Spent
During an average week, students were expected to spend 12 hours on the course, roughly divided as follows:
In Class
Met 2 times per week for 1.5 hours per session; 26 sessions total; mandatory attendance.
Out of Class
Outside of class, students completed assigned readings and worked on written papers and projects.
