The Bessie B. Moore Center for Economic Education – helping you and your students to make better decisions.

Rita L. Littrell Director, Bessie Moore Center for Economic

  Mission:  The Bessie Moore Center for Economic Education is dedicated to promoting understanding of the American economic system by citizens of Arkansas.  The ultimate goal is to train our young people in elementary and secondary schools.  We believe that this can only be done by training teachers, giving them effective curriculum materials and engendering in them an enthusiasm for teaching economics.

  Current Initiatives:  Since 2004 the Bessie B. Moore Center for Economic Education has focused on five areas: personal financial literacy; youth entrepreneurship; globalization; economics for the ESOL learner; and using technology to teach economics. 

1. Personal Financial Literacy:  The focus on personal finance in new but growing.  The needs in the area are overwhelming.  The Center worked with the Arkansas Council on Economic Education to conduct a workshop on Financial Fitness for Life. Speakers from the banking and investment community and Credit Counseling of Arkansas helped to educate teachers on financial management decisions.  The Center partnered with the newly established Garrison Financial Institute to conduct a teacher training on Surviving the Global Financial Marketplace.  The demand is huge!  The Center is searching for funding opportunities to serve this need.  Much more can be done.
    
2. Youth Entrepreneurship:  The Center has focused on youth entrepreneurship training for 13 years.  Center staff is Mini-Society trainers.  They have traveled Arkansas conducting workshops on entrepreneurship for third to eighth grade students.  One result of this training is the annual Marketplace event for students.  Young entrepreneurs from all over Northwest Arkansas come to the market with goods and services to sell for Walton College bucks.  Walton College faculty and staff judge the PowerPoint advertisements and businesses.  A local entrepreneur shares his/her successes.  For 2006 the entrepreneur is Steve Cox from Mad Science of Northwest Arkansas.  The event is sponsored by the Arkansas Economic Acceleration Foundation.  Another resulting program is a partnership with the Rogers Sophomore Campus.
    
3. Globalization:  In summer of 2006, Dr. Littrell and two area economics teachers, Neil Norberg and Donnie Payne, participated in a Train-the-Trainers program on the new Focus: Globalization curriculum guide recently published by the National Council on Economic Education.  Their team was one of thirteen from the United States.  A seminar for secondary teachers was conducted at the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank Little Rock Branch.  A series of dinner seminars focusing on economic development were also conducted during the 2007-08 year. Several of these were conducted at the Arkansas World Trade Center.  One featured Heifer International’s development programs and ways students could help children in the developing world. These were met by a great demand and declared very successful by teachers.
    
4. Economics for English for Students of Other Languages: The focus on economics for the ESOL learner is based on needs of the large Hispanic and Marshallese communities that have recently immigrated to Northwest Arkansas.  The center has programs on personal finance, entrepreneurship and the benefits of developing skills for the workplace.  All of these meet specific needs of this population.  One result of this emphasis has been five seminars on Immigration to Arkansas: Costs and Benefits.  Teachers learn about the push/pull factors of economic forces causing the immigration.  They receive children’s books that teach Mexican history and culture with lessons that teach economics. Another result was Excellence in Economic Education grant funding to conduct a workshop on Entrepreneurship for the ESL Learner.  This week of entrepreneurship training included minority entrepreneurs as daily speakers as well as hands-on entrepreneurship training.
    
5. Economics Using Technology:  The first focus was based on the Arkansas Department of Education emphasis on technology training for teachers and the wealth of technology resources available to the Center. The Walton College provides state-of-the-art hardware and current software programs along with a supportive and helpful technology staff.  The National Council on Economic Education is on the curriculum forefront with EconEdLink.  The results of this emphasis include the development of economic education WebQuests by local teachers (http://webquest.waltoncollege.uark.edu/) and two teacher training sessions on developing lessons for EconEdLink (http://www.econedlink.org/).  Customized programs are offered to school districts.  The Center director was trained to conduct Virtual Economics training sessions and has offered these since spring 2006.  Currently an Internet based game on the economic dimensions of Arkansas history is under construction.  Also, four on-line personal finance modules are being created for teacher professional development.

  Economics for Elementary & Secondary Students:  Some people say that economics is just too complicated to teach to pre-college students but they have not been in schools to see economic education in action.  Primary students begin by learning scarcity, choices, opportunity cost, needs and productive resources.   Learning the basic skills of decision-making at this early level serves them well for the rest of their lives.  Secondary students deal with such topics as monetary policy, market failures and international trade.

  The Fourth R:  Economics is the Fourth R of the curriculum: Reading, wRiting, aRithmatic and Rational decision making.  The rational for the inclusion of economics in an already crowded curriculum is persuasive.  All people are personally involved in the economy and they can make more effective day-to-day decisions if they understand economic processes.  Most decisions made in the public arena are economic in nature. Economic understanding makes more effective citizens as they vote and interact with their elected representatives.  Decisions made on a sound economic basis are crucial to a successful democratic government.  Finally, economic knowledge is necessary to understanding the world in which we live.  Such understanding leads to fuller more complete living.

  Economics Umbrella:  Under the umbrella of economics, Center programs include basic economics, personal finance, entrepreneurship and international economics.  Curricula include concepts such as investment in human capital where students learn the importance of investing in developing skills they offer the workplace. In personal finance they learn the importance of consuming less than you earn so that you can make your money work for you.  In entrepreneurship they learn how to fulfill a market need by starting a business.  Students learn that we are all a part of the global economy and our decisions affect people around the globe.  The Center primarily trains teachers so that the multiplier effect reaches students year after year.  Occasionally, programs are conduced for students that support teacher training programs.

  Methods:  The methods of economic education are crucial to its success.  From the beginning of our efforts in economic education, the approach has been to integrate, be interactive and involve the community.  Rather than adding another subject to the curriculum, economics can be integrated into reading, writing and mathematics at the elementary level and into social studies, business, family and consumer science, ESOL as well as other areas at the secondary level.  Economics can enrich the other subjects while giving students important life skills.  The way economics is taught is interactive.  Students learn by doing with simulations, games and creative activities rather than lecture.  In many ways economic education has become the model for change in other disciplines.

  Community Connections:  Economic education involves students in the community.  Too often students never make the connection with what is going on in the classroom and the world outside the classroom.  By conducting market surveys, interviewing businesses, taking field trips to manufacturing enterprises, and generally studying the local economy, students become connected and involved in the community.

  History:  The Moore Center has been working in economic education since 1979, training teachers, developing curriculum materials, conducting research and consulting with school districts.  The Center is recognized as a national leader in economic education.  They are affiliated with the Arkansas Council on Economic Education and the National Council on Economic Education.  They have received national recognition for their programs and have helped numerous teachers to win state and national recognition.  The BMCEE participates in many Economics International programs to strengthen economic education delivery in transitional economies.  Much has been accomplished but even more needs to be done.

  Support:  The Bessie B. Moore Center for Economic Education is an outreach program of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas.  It is housed in the Don W. Reynolds Center for Enterprise Development. The Walton College support makes these programs possible.  The Arkansas Council on Economic Education supports some workshops and program initiatives.  The ACEE and BMCEE are partners in delivering economic education programs to the students of Arkansas.  New partnerships with organizations such as the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank Little Rock Branch, the Arkansas World Trade Center, Garrison Financial Institute, Arkansas Capital Corporation and Heifer International have been very fruitful to expanding program expertise and delivery.  Many thanks to these partners!