UF Food and Resource Economics Associate Professor Patrick Ward was recently recognized for his innovative teaching – not by a committee of his peers, but by the very students he aims to guide their learning through his Quantitative Methods course.
The Innovation in Teaching Award is unique across the awards given out by the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences at UF in that all nominations must come from a student who has taken a class from that faculty member and found it impactful on their academic journey.
“It means a lot to me to know that a student went out of their way to make that nomination…that shows me I had a positive impact,” Ward said.
Ward, who joined the University of Florida Food and Resource Economics Department in 2022, teaches several courses throughout our undergraduate and graduate programs.
In particular, his course AEB 3510: Quantitative Methods in Food and Resource Economics, is one of the most challenging courses in the FRE curriculum in terms of the mathematical rigor of the coursework – and it is the course for which Ward was nominated for the award.
“I acknowledge right from day one that most people are only taking [the course; AEB 3510] because it is required for their degree, but it’s my goal that by the end of the semester they will be as excited about the applications of math to economics as I am,” Ward said
While math has been a passion for Ward since his elementary school days, it was not until much later that passion expanded to include the field of economics.
“Formally representing these [economic] relationships using mathematics, I was able to use the language of math that I was always interested in, but in economics where it can be applied to real-world issues.”
In his Quantitative Methods course, Ward gives students the opportunity not only to practice and learn how to solve complex systems of linear equations and optimize objective functions using calculus, but to make their own connections to how these methods can be used in applying economic theories to the broader challenges facing the agricultural and natural resource industries.
“You obviously are here because you find this field interesting,” Ward said. “To formulate or analyze many of the theories, we need a common language, and mathematics provides that language.”
With this common language established, students are able to not only solve problem sets, but work together for three group projects that bridge theory and application, and give them the chance to experience the type of work many will do after-graduation.
“Rather than just working through problems, I ask the students to role play as if they were professional economists in different fields and provide them with the types of scenarios that a real-world economist might confront,” Ward said.
For Ward, that shift – from solving problems to thinking like an economist – is the point of the course. And judging by the nomination, at least one student noticed.
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