Orthodox – heterodox ?

Overview & Aims

The activity aims at connecting the most relevant author and scholars with each school of economic thought explained in this chapter. It also adds the distinction between orthodox and heterodox economic lines for the students to understand the positions of each line of argumentation.

Materials and time

The instructor could either use an online platform like Miro.com to carry out the exercise or do it offline by printing and cutting the forms shared below. 

Group size

It could be carried out either in groups or individually. The activity will take 20/30 mins. 

Instructions for trainers

1. According to the number of people the instructor should decide how to divide the group or whether to carry out the activity individually. 
2. The instructor presents the different schools in an unorganised way (Figure 1) and asks the students to arrange them in an order as they see fit (it could be suggested to follow the historical orientation provided in the chapter). The instructor could ask which schools seem to belong more to an heterodox or an orthodox line of the economy based on students’ general knowledge.
3. After the students have arranged the different schools they are then asked to locate the names of the authors around each of the schools to which they belong. 
4. As this is an exercise designed to stimulate connections, there are no right or wrong answers. Nevertheless, what’s shown in Figure 2 is the closest to what is considered convention.  Again, in any case, a discussion is encouraged.

Figures

Figure 1. Unarranged schools

Figure 2. Final result

For the instructor to print: