Critical and Analytical Learning (CALM)

Critical and Analytical Learning in Macroeconomics (CALM) is an assignment submission tool. CALM was originally developed for use in 316-101 Introductory Macroeconomics, however the tool can be used in any subject.

CALM requires that students follow these steps:

1. Provide a response. Students must provide a response or answer to an essay question. This question is usually made available via the subject's homepage. Students must paste their response into a text box displayed on the CALM screen. This forces students to save the file to their hard-drive for backup.
2. Select another student's response. Once the due date for the response submission has passed, students must select a response from another student in the tutorial group. Once a student has selected a response, this response is removed from the list displayed to other students, ensuring that all responses are critiqued, eliminating the problem of one response being more popular than another.
3. Provide a critical review of the response you've selected. Again, students are required to paste their review or comment into a text box so that they keep a backup.

The critical and analytical process provides students with feedback on their understanding of the subject as they are able to compare their work against other students’ work. The CALM process is described in the following paper: Enriching the Learning Environment: a CALM approach (PDF 179Kb) by Johnston, C & Olekalns, N (2000), EAIR Forum, Berlin.