Hi, I am Ian Li and I am an economist based in the school of population health at UWA
I currently teach health economics at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels
and that is a bit challenging. Firstly because
these units are core units in their respective degree programs
second, economics can be a very dense subject area
and third, because these are core units the students normally have
no general interest in this area at all.
Actually, before i started health economics i think it was the most daunting subject
for me. I have no background in economics at all
so i thought this was going to be the most
difficult course i'd be taking. So the way that I
overcome these challenges is by using magic in
my teaching which i find sparks students' interest
and also makes it easier to learn and remember concepts.
Health economics as a unit is pretty tricky but i think the way that
Ian engages us and the way that he uses magic
is really interesting and helps make the unit so much more enjoyable and i think
when students enjoy the unit then they do better.
Look at the card. Alright, do you want to show it to all your friends?
Now basically i will lose your card in the deck
it's pretty easy but
what magicians do is say 'we are just tricking you. We have actually managed to control your card up to the top
of the deck again'. So what was your card?
Five of hearts. Five of hearts, okay. Five of hearts or four of hearts?
Five. Are you sure? Yes (laughter)
Okay, i'm going to take the four of hearts and just put it over here
So you're sure it's the five of hearts?Yes Okay so what you're really missing
is just one heart.
So, take three of hearts
alright, that was the three of hearts, take off the heart. (boom boom, boom boom)
Place it on the four of hearts
and it makes it the five of hearts. And that's what we call a heart transplant
For me the best thing about Ian's teaching is he takes
difficult concepts and makes it a lot easier for students to
understand
and he uses really creative method of doing that. Ian's really funny
and he's very engaging he doesn't just stand there and talk
against a slide he kind of engages all of us and
talks to all of us and he really understands his work
and what he's teaching so it helps us to understand it better as well.
Magic is really useful for teaching for three reasons.
One, it is an excellent ice-breaker and brings a rapport really easily.
Two, everyone has an interest in magic
so everyone loves and enjoys watching me perform.
Three, magic is very memorable and helps students remember
concepts and students often tell me that they find it a really
effective way of learning.
Alright, how long do you think it's going to take for me to find your card inside the deck?
Five minutes.
There are some that are face up, some that are face down, and some that are back to back.
Everything has now turned itself back to the correct order except
for one card. (Laughter)
So Ian uses a lot of magic in his teaching which
is so refreshing and really creative, you don't see many lecturers who are able to
do magic
and so that's a really great way to get your head around
difficult concepts and to sort of visualise it and for me it's really helped me remember these
things throughout my course
The magic tricks they weren't just for entertainment they were for relaying the concepts as well
and I found them really really effective because taking on concepts sometimes can be
quite tricky but
being engaged by the magic tricks and the entertainment it allowed me to
take it in and enjoy it and actually listen to what was being said
so i guess it just accelerated my learning as well
Does anyone have twenty dollars?
Thank you
Now, again
Every time i fold is a time period
So that's one, that's two and that's five
(laughter)
The impact of the time periods that have passed has actually caused the money to be
worth less than it was five time periods ago
so ten dollars five time periods ago is now only
worth five dollars
I'm a hobbyist magician and magic's a way of making the illogical appear logical
and I think that's what we all do as teachers. The magic tricks were
effective because
they kept us really well engaged
and obviously you want to capture some emotion in
your students and that's what he managed to do.
Ian's method of teaching is effective because when he uses magic
we all remember the concepts that he was talking about really well
when he does a magic trick right after teaching us a concept we tend to remember the
whole thing together
and remember that whole experience. He likes to take
it down to a personal level in terms of teaching so he'll make sure he'll come around every
desk and ask every single person 'how are you coping with this?
Do you understand?'. And at first we thought oh that's
so time consuming, the tute's going to take forever to finish but
we found it really helped in the end
because we really understood what was
needed to be learned for that topic. So the lectures and tutorials are incredibly interactive.
This trick is basically about the
power of information assymetry.
The game basically involves you guessing where the ball is.
I'll always do one, two, three and then you need to guess whether it's in
the left or right hand.