The event was designed to take a deep dive on bringing economics to life with data-driven, innovative pedagogies and develop students to take the leap into their career

15 December 2020, Dubai, UAE - Pearson Middle East, the world’s learning company recently hosted a virtual event ‘Making Data Talk!’ with Michael Parkin, Professor Emeritus in the Economics Department at the University of Western Ontario to empower the Middle East educators, in  this digitally-driven world, to bring economics to life and develop students who are ready to leap into their career and the real world.

The event aimed at diving deep into how to support Economics educators to make data talk in their classrooms, sharing tips for university educators and leaders and looking through the lens of data-driven, innovative pedagogies to implement a range of new teaching strategies. 

During the interactive sessions, Professor Parkin shared valuable insights on driving student engagement in the classroom using technology, how to make economic models come alive interpreting events in today’s data-rich world and how to use the data from natural experiments generated by Covid-19. He also shed some light on the power of Pearson’s MyLab Economics as a teaching and learning tool along with a demonstration on how it facilitates the delivery of this data-led approach.

“Research shows that teachers are not trained on how to use extensive data to reflect on student progress or to differentiate instruction. In today’s world, it is extremely essential to use elaborate and diverse data from the online  environment to identify learnings gaps, and to use the data to design lesson options to address those gaps, to enhance student performance while addressing student learning needs,” commented Majid Mneymneh, Vice President- Higher Education and Corporate at Pearson Middle East.

Pearson’s MyLab Economics is built for flexibility where professors connect with their students in a meaningful and impactful way, even from a distance. The digital platform lets education specialists create a learning experience to best fit the unique needs of their curriculum and their students. Each course has a foundation of interactive course-specific content — by authors who are experts in their field — that can be tailored and assigned as each educator sees fit.

Reflecting on his experience through the event. Professor Michael Parkin commented: “Despite its terrible effects on health and incomes, COVID has strengthened the opportunity educators have to harness the power of technology for better learning experiences that support future-ready learners, equipped to face, understand, respond to and act on real-world challenges - COVID and beyond”.

More than 50 educators from the Middle East registered to this virtual event. They enjoyed the interactive and focused sessions, asked and received replies from Parkin and had hands-on experience with MyLab Economics. They knew more about how to make economic models come alive through data projects to engage their students, ways to interpret events in today’s data-rich world to encourage students to apply theory to practice, and how to use the data from natural experiments generated by Covid-19 to further support students to understand real-life economics. Most of all, they enjoyed the community of like-minded educators who were brought together in such an event.

“Pearson Middle East works with educators and institutions to support learner needs and deliver measurable results, enabling students everywhere to fulfil their potential and prepare them to be a part of the future workforce,” added Majid.

For more information on the learning solutions available for higher education and to know more about how MyLab Economics helps students master key concepts and improve results, please visit:  https://middleeast.pearson.com/Highered/learning-solutions.html

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