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Economic Growth and Distributive Justice Part II - Maximize Social Wellbeing
If you really care about the big questions in the economies and societies of the 21st century, such as distributive justice - namely, inequality of income or wealth, and its correlation with economic growth - this course is meant for you. The knowledge you will gain can truly change your outlook on our world. "Economic Growth and Distributive Justice - Maximizing Social Wellbeing" is the second part of a two part course and it includes the following five lectures: (1) The excess burden of taxation (2) Tax incidence: who bears the economic burden of tax? (3) Progressivity: definition and ways to achieve (4) Low Income, Low Ability and the Optimal Income Tax Model (5) Designing the Tax and Transfer System that Maximizes Social Wellbeing If you haven't done that already, we strongly recommend that you register for the first part of the course: "Economic Growth and Distributive Justice - the Role of the State". Taking both parts of the course would enable you to obtain a fuller and more comprehensive knowledge about Economic Growth and Distributed Justice. The course is founded upon the elemental idea that the role of the state is to maximize the well-being - or simply the happiness - of its residents. In 9 fascinating, edifying lessons, using only simple words and decoding professional terminologies that sometimes baffle the intelligent layman, the course expounds many truths – both intuitive and unintuitive. Often using examples from the US and Europe, it does not however focus on policies in any particular region of the world, and is directly applicable to all countries around the globe. The course touches upon the essence of important concepts like efficiency and equity, inequality and poverty, gross domestic product, tax evasion and tax planning; it presents the work of Nobel Laureate James Mirrlees and his followers - promoting a coherent system that integrates tax and government expenditures to maximize social welfare; and illuminates a range of high-profile issues from their economic angle: • Climate change: the atmosphere and oceans as public goods, and how smart (Pigovian) taxation can be used to combat the rapidly increasing threats to our planet; • Technology as the engine of economic growth; • Taxing the rich: How can we mitigate the growing inequality problem? Should we impose a global tax on capital? The curriculum includes interviews with major figures in the fields of law and of economics: Harvard's Elhanan Helpman, Dan Shaviro from NYU and Richard Epstein from the University of Chicago and NYU. After successfully completing this course, you can expect to be able to: • better understand economic issues presented in the media • form an informed opinion on the strengths and weaknesses of presented social economic policies • define and measure inequality and poverty • define the connection between inequality (income, wealth) and economic growth • explain the foundations of economic growth • design a tax and transfer system to maximize the happiness of individuals All these will allow you to better understand the policies being developed around you, and to play a larger, more informed role in their development, as a conscientious citizen. In order to receive academic credit for this course you must successfully pass the academic exam on campus. For information on how to register for the academic exam – https://tauonline.tau.ac.il/registration Additionally, you can apply to certain degrees using the grades you received on the courses. Read more on this here – https://go.tau.ac.il/b.a/mooc-acceptance Teachers interested in teaching this course in their class rooms are invited to explore our Academic High school program here – https://tauonline.tau.ac.il/online-highschool This course is a direct extension of the first part "Economic Growth and Distributive Justice Part I -The Role of the State", so if you have not yet taken it, we highly recommend you start your learning from there (https://www.coursera.org/learn/economic-growth-part-1/home/welcome). This course will temporarily close for enrollment from March 1st, 2022 to August 31st, 2022. During this time, the course will be closed for new enrolments. All of the course materials will continue to be able available to previously enrolled learners; however, the course staff will not provide support in the Discussion Forums during this period. Best, The Tel Aviv University Team
Doing Economics: Measuring Climate Change
This course will give you practical experience in working with real-world data, with applications to important policy issues in today’s society. Each week, you will learn specific data handling skills in Excel and use these techniques to analyse climate change data, with appropriate readings to provide background information on the data you are working with. You will also learn about the consequences of climate change and how governments can address this issue. After completing this course, you should be able to: • Understand how data can be used to assess the extent of climate change • Produce appropriate bar charts, line charts, and scatterplots to visualise data • Calculate and interpret summary statistics (mean, median, variance, percentile, correlation) • Explain the challenges with designing and implementing policies that address climate change No prior knowledge in economics or statistics is required for this course. No knowledge of Excel is required, except a familiarity with the interface and how to enter and clear data.
Large Marine Ecosystems: Assessment and Management
Focusing on the Large Marine Ecosystems (LMEs) of the world, this course will introduce the concept and practice of ecosystem-based management. LMEs occupy areas of coastal ocean at least 200 000 km² or greater in size. These coastal waters produce 12.6 trillion USD in ecosystem goods and services annually and are vitally important for billions of people around the globe. Because LMEs are bounded by ocean features and are globally linked, management of human activities needs to occur in an integrated fashion across political boundaries and economic sectors (e.g. fishing, shipping, energy, tourism, and mining.) This represents a new type of management approached - shifting from single sector-based to multi-sector assessment and management within the spatial domain of the world's 66 Large Marine Ecosystems. There is global high-level support for this new approach and in this course, we will introduce the concepts and tools for assessing and managing LMEs. Together, leaders and experts in a global movement to recover and sustain the goods and services of LMEs will introduce you to the mechanisms used for assessment (Transboundary Diagnostic Analysis), planning and implementation (Strategic Action Programme). Based on recent activities in implementation and practice of the LME approach in 22 projects around the globe, we will showcase examples of effective management at this scale, and highlight the challenges and issues. By the end of the online course, we hope you will be able to actively use this knowledge to advance sustainable development of the world’s oceans. The course was created with the support and input of: the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), UNESCO-IOC and IW:LEARN.
Building Scratch and Read Activities with Seesaw
By the end of this project, you will have taken your Seesaw skills to the next level. This project is meant for those who have already started to use Seesaw with their students and are looking for ways to enhance student learning through Seesaw Activities. If you are looking for ways to engage your tech-savvy students, regardless of their age, Seesaw is a wonderful tool to use. As we learn together, you will create a Scratch and Read activity template in Microsoft PowerPoint that can be customized to use with your students right away as a Seesaw Activity.
Air Pollution – a Global Threat to our Health
We all have to breathe to live. But the air we breathe is polluted both outdoors and indoors. Each year, this pollution costs 7 million lives across the globe – and a lot of suffering. 1 in 8 deaths is due to air pollution. This course will provide you with an introduction to the most recent research in the field of health effects of air pollution as well as a broader understanding of sources and spread of air pollution and what we should do about it. What is air pollution? What are the sources? How and where are we exposed outdoors and indoors? What happens in the body? Which diseases are the result? Who are the most vulnerable? How can we assess the effects of air pollution? And what should we do to reach the Sustainable Development Goal to “substantially reduce the number of deaths and illnesses from hazardous chemicals and air, water and soil pollution”? These are some of the important questions we will address in the course. During the course you will meet researchers and experts from the University of Copenhagen and the Technical University of Denmark. They work with different aspects of air pollution and health: toxicology, exposure assessment, epidemiology, engineering and health impact assessment. It is a global responsibility to combat the health impacts of air pollution, and this fight can only be won through new knowledge and global collaboration. We hope you will join us in the course and equip yourself to take part in this global and individual health challenge.
Computational Thinking for K-12 Educators: Nested If Statements and Compound Conditionals
How could you program a complex "choose your own adventure" game? How can your soccer game determine goals, balls out of bounds, and corner kicks? You'll learn to do both of these in this course! This class teaches the concepts of nested if/else statements and compound Boolean conditional expressions. For each concept, we'll start by helping you connect real-world experiences you are already familiar with to the programming concept you are about to learn. Next, through a cognitively scaffolded process we'll engage you in developing your fluency with problem solving with nested if/else statements and compound conditionals in a way that keeps frustration at a minimum. Along the way you will learn about the common challenges or "bugs" students have with these concepts as well as ways to help them find and fix those concepts. You'll also be guided in running classroom discussions to help students develop deeper understanding of these concepts. Finally, you'll prepare classroom resources to help your students to develop debugging skills. Additionally, you will create resources to help educate your students about the impacts of lack of equity in K-12 CS instruction.
Speaking and Presenting: Pitches and Persuasion
The hope good presenters project when pitching their ideas is not naïve hope. They’re not Pollyanna at the podium. Instead, the solutions they offer are supported by research, data, and expertise. This course will teach you how to merge hard facts with an imaginative vision in a way that at once resonates with and inspires your audience.
Queering Identities: LGBTQ+ Sexuality and Gender Identity
In this course, you will explore the history of LGBTQ identities, experiences, and activism. We’ll study major events in global LGBTQ history, investigate local histories of queer and transgender people and communities, and consider how LGBTQ histories have helped shape broader conversations about civil rights, equality, and justice.
Climate Change and Water in Mountains: A Global Concern
What is climate change ? How are mountain regions affected by the evolution of water resources and their uses ? What kind of risks need to be considered ? Mountains are recognized as particularly sensitive physical environments where intense and rapid changes have in the past, and may increasingly in the future, place pressure on their resource base. In this context, a team of roughly 100 experts worked from 2008 to 2013 for the European ACQWA project (www.acqwa.ch) which was coordinated by the University of Geneva. The primary objectives of the project were to assess the impacts of a changing climate on the quantity and quality of water originating in mountain regions, particularly where snow- and ice melt represent a large, sometimes the largest, streamflow component. A further objective of the project was to determine the potential disruptions to water-dependent economic activities related to the climate impacts on hydrological systems, and to propose a portfolio of possible adaptation strategies. This particular MOOC is inspired by the ACQWA Project and offers a better understanding of climate change, its impacts on the quality and quantity of water in mountain regions and the risks related to changing water resources. From an interdisciplinary perspective, the participation of twenty-five instructors from five different countries (Switzerland, England, South Korea, India and Nepal) and fourteen institutions (UNIGE, RTS, UNIFR, UZH, ETHZ, Meteodat GmbH, WGMS, Imperial College London, Agroscope, République et Canton de Genève, Yonsei University, IHCAP, ICIMOD, SDC, FOEN) highlights the diversity of both theoretical and practical viewpoints related to these issues. By the end of this course, you will be able : - to define the general concept of climate change in mountain regions - to understand the concepts associated with climate change such as adaptation and water governance strategies - to consider the impacts of climate change on water resources in mountain regions - to identify the impacts of climate change on hydropower, agriculture, aquatic ecosystems and health - to enumerate risks that can occur in mountain areas and lead to disruptions in water availability and use. Your acquired knowledge will be evaluated through multiple-choice quizzes at the end of each unit of the course. This MOOC on “Climate Change and Water in Mountain Regions : A Global Concern” was initiated and financed by the University of Geneva, through its Institute for Environmental Sciences. We look forward to you joining us !
Qualitative Research Methods
In this course you will be introduced to the basic ideas behind the qualitative research in social science. You will learn about data collection, description, analysis and interpretation in qualitative research. Qualitative research often involves an iterative process. We will focus on the ingredients required for this process: data collection and analysis. You won't learn how to use qualitative methods by just watching video's, so we put much stress on collecting data through observation and interviewing and on analysing and interpreting the collected data in other assignments. Obviously, the most important concepts in qualitative research will be discussed, just as we will discuss quality criteria, good practices, ethics, writing some methods of analysis, and mixing methods. We hope to take away some prejudice, and enthuse many students for qualitative research.