Writing-to-learn: Strategies to promote engagement, peer-to-peer learning, and active listening in economics courses

Incorporating writing into an economics course is a beneficial goal of economic educators. The potential benefits of using writing to enhance learning among economics students have been emphasized in the literature. Writing to Learn (WTL) is an act of using writing activities to help students think through key concepts presented in a course. The authors’ objective in this article is to describe WTL activities that promote engagement, peer-to-peer learning, and active listening. This WTL strategy was born out of a desire to help students focus and learn in an online format during a particularly stressful time of the COVID-19 global pandemic. However, this strategy can be applied in all teaching formats: face-to-face, online or hybrid, and to both graduate and undergraduate students.