Instructor Offers a Sweet Lesson on the Hard Realities of Economics : Cerritos Community College teacher wins a national award for her innovative, fast-paced classes.

A bag of M & Ms sells for more than a hundred bucks?

It sounds steep, but it happens regularly in Diane Keenan’s Cerritos Community College economics classes. Keenan uses the candy to teach students about inflation: She passes out a couple of bags, then floods the room with funny money and lets the students barter. Without fail, the price of the M & Ms skyrockets.

“Some students pay $140 for a bag,” Keenan says, smiling. “Immediately, my students know why the government can’t pay off the national debt by simply printing more money.”

Sugarcoating lessons on economics has made Keenan a popular teacher, and last month she was named Community College Teacher of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Keenan was selected from more than 500 community college instructors nominated for the honor nationally.

In an academic field in which students often doze off to lectures about the gross national product, Keenan is like jolt of caffeine, writing books with names like “Economics Live!” and using baseball cards to discuss theories of supply and demand.

“I can’t look out at a classroom full of students and have them all nod off,” she says.

Keenan insists that to make the study of economics interesting, teachers must use tangible objects and real businesses to explain dry theories.

Students love Keenan’s approach.

“She’s great,” says student George Perez. He recently dropped an economics class taught by another teacher because the lessons were too difficult to understand. “I really understand the stuff the way [Keenan] teaches it,” he says.

Keenan, 48, developed her creative approach to teaching years ago while working with another teacher who frowned upon lengthy lectures. Keenan learned to teach classes with a mix of short lessons and a variety of other activities, including group work, short films and games.

While some teachers plan their lessons based only on the information they want to deliver, Keenan views her lessons as a series of activities that must fill at least several blocks of time. No activity should go much longer than 20 minutes, she says.

“I don’t know if attention spans have gotten shorter because we’re dealing with the TV generation,” she says, “but I’ve got to keep things moving.”

Things were hopping at one recent evening lesson. Keenan begins the class with a short discussion about a popular potato chip company, and she focuses on how the company exercises “market power” by buying lots of prime shelf space at grocery stores.

Then it’s on to a short film about the success of Wally Amos and the Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Company. “He made lots of dough,” she tells her students.

As the film ends, she draws two graphs and asks the students to help her determine when the company would start losing money by baking too many cookies. Then comes some group work and, before long, class is over.

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But after many classes, Keenan’s job is far from finished. Beyond lecturing about economic theories, Keenan often spends time outside of class talking to students about the economics of education. Many of her students work full-time, and they have difficulty staying in school while trying to balance the demands of work and families.

Keenan often explains to them how their level of education has a direct effect on the size of their salaries, and she encourages them to stay in school despite the difficulties.

And she reminds herself to remain patient.

“I always assume students will work as hard as I did,” she says. “But it’s hard for many students these days.”

In the end, Keenan says, the satisfaction comes from seeing her students go off to study economics and business at four-year universities, and from the many letters she receives from students who appreciate her lessons.

“When people succeed,” she says, “it’s such a triumph.”