One class, start to finish.
Opportunity cost. First-year micro, class 1 of 6. Assigned to a section, due before class. Here is what one student does in the hour, and what the teacher sees after.
Everything on this page is from the example class. You can play it yourself at the bottom.
The brief
Brief: first-year micro, one hour on opportunity cost
Introduction to Microeconomics · Opportunity cost
The conversation
A tutor asks. They answer. It asks why.
The first answer is right. The tutor does not move on. It asks why the $80 counts when nobody was ever paid it.
Tutor
Saturday. You can work a shift and take home $80, or go to a concert. The ticket is $40.
If you go to the concert, what did it cost you?
- $40, the ticket
- $80, the wages you skip
- $120, ticket plus wages you skip
- $0, you wanted to go
Student
My answer: $120, ticket plus wages you skip
Tutor
Yes. The $40 leaves your pocket. The $80 never arrives. Economists add both.
Why is the $80 part of the cost, even though you never pay it to anyone?
Student
Because I could have had it, and I gave it up by going.
Tutor
That given-up alternative is the opportunity cost. Put the pieces in order for this choice.
- Name the next-best alternative (the shift)
- Add what you pay out ($40)
- Add what you forgo ($80)
Student
My ordering: 1. Name the next-best alternative (the shift), 2. Add what you pay out ($40), 3. Add what you forgo ($80)
Voice is the same class out loud. Same tutor, same grader. Switch without leaving.
Beside the conversation
Reading, a podcast, and a lecture for the same hour.
Generated from the same brief, not pulled from a library. If you taught from a document, the class points back to the page.
Reading
The next-best thing
Every choice uses time, money, or attention that could have gone somewhere else. Opportunity cost is the value of that next-best alternative: the thing you actually give up, not a list of every thing you could imagine.
Podcast
- Maya A student says the concert costs forty dollars. Why is that incomplete?
- Alex Because they could have worked. Eighty dollars does not show up if they go. Forty plus eighty is the cost of going.
Lecture
Opportunity cost is the value of the next-best alternative. Not every alternative. The one you actually give up.
After
What the teacher sees.
Four objectives for the hour. Each student gets a score against them. Staff see who finished, who is stuck, and what they scored. CSV if you want it.
Objectives · Opportunity cost
- 1Define opportunity cost as the value of the next-best alternative
- 2Include both explicit and implicit costs in the accounting
- 3Apply the idea to a simple choice (work vs concert)
- 4Say why “the ticket price” is not the full cost
At a school, a teacher reviewed and approved this class before any student took it.
Play it yourself.
Same tutor, same grader the students get. Text or voice.