Ramin Nassehi (Economics)
10 minute talk
UCL Economics Walk is a walking tour of Bloomsbury, where the tour leader (i.e. lecturer) takes the audience through different locations in this area that have an economic story to tell. The project’s aim is to explain complex economic ideas in an accessible way to students and/or members of the public and encourage critical discussion on those ideas. I have offered this tour in person for thirteen times and twice virtually. In terms of pedagogy, this tour follows a dialogical approach in a sense that the tour leader starts a conversation about each location with, and among, the audience. In this presentation, I will talk about the challenges I faced to create a virtual version of this tour on Zoom, particularly the different mediums (group games, Google Map, music, short snippets from movies) I used to encourage peer dialogue and create a sense of collective intellectual journey. This tour takes a place-based approach to teaching economics that can be easily adapted to different campuses, towns or cities.