WE NEED ROLE MODELS

Many of us are having to navigate our teaching this fall into wild new lands.  Almost from the beginning of the pandemic, one of my concerns has been that most of us do not have experience with truly excellent quality distance /blended learning.  For that reason, everyone seems to be having to reinvent the wheel which is fine but not very cost and time effective. 

It would be excellent for someone to set up a website outlining the structure of various courses around the country that seemed to have worked well so we can all gain practical ideas.  I have heard plenty of theoretical ideas about teaching during a pandemic.  However, I want to hear from people in the trenches who have been in the battle and shown some level of success. 

 

Last week, I received an email from Dick Minot at Loyola Marymount.  He was kind enough to describe a class of his from over this summer that seemed to be quite successful.  He agreed to let me share this description just to provide you with some practical thoughts.  I do not mean that every teacher and every class should replicate his approach but there are many great ideas here that you might want to try for your own classes.

 

Thanks Dick!!!

 

**

This is Dick Minot. I am a clinical assistant professor at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles. I teach Advanced Accounting and Managerial Accounting.

 

Needless to say, the rapid transition to online/remote learning was a shock to the system for most of us. I had done some online teaching for the University of California at Irvine (UCI) sometime ago in summer sessions so the shock to me was not as great as it probably could have been. I volunteered to teach a summer session online in managerial Accounting as I was sure – sometimes I am a bit off – that we would be back in the class in the fall and I wanted the University to see that we could offer online classes as part of what we do for the students. Well here we are all online for the Fall semester.

 

My whole thrust in teaching online – and I did it for this summer session – was to treat the experience just as if we were still in the classroom. Sounds a bit crazy but if I was to be “down in the mouth” about online as an instructor so would the students. I believed and still do that the students will follow our lead and strive to be what we expect, for the most part, if we still challenge them. One of my recent summer online students offered this comment,

“I can easily speak for the rest of the class when I say that you really made this class worthwhile for us, and just as you say we would make your day, you would always make ours. …Again, I wouldn't have succeeded in this class without your motivation and help and I truly thank you for making me work hard and prepare for every class.”

 

While another student offered this comment,

 

“Just wanted to say thank you for calling on me a lot in class. It made me feel comfortable knowing that you cared about my learning.”

 

Sometime ago another professor and I were talking about what is most important to me as a professor and I said obviously getting the students to learn and understand the material but also to care about the students as people that will enter the accounting profession that I still participate in through my small accounting practice. I think that this is or can be pretty easy to do in person while face to face with the students but can be an issue when with long distance, remote/zoom classes. CAN BE! But it clearly does not have to be.

 

I have made it a part of my teaching to send numerous e mails to my students well before class actually starts. This allows me to introduce myself to the students well before the start date and I let them know what they might expect. Generally, for semester sessions I will send an e mail at 60 days, 45 days, 30 days, 15 days and then the day before class starts. Along the way in these messages I will let them know about assignments that I will want them to have done prior to the actual start of class so we can just move ahead. I have no way of knowing who actually reads the e mails way ahead but they certainly do just prior to the class start by the work that is turned in.

 

In keeping with my practice, I did the same with my Summer Session 2020 class in Managerial Accounting. I sent the class various messages at 45 days, 35 days, 30 days, 25 days, 20 days, 10 days and the day before class actually started. In doing this by the time class actually started they pretty much knew me and how I think about accounting, this class as well as life itself. Included in the 35-day message was the following assignment for them to do:

 

ASSIGNMENT: Please reflect on your last semester online classes and then do the following: · send me an e mail and list 3 (only 3 max) suggestions for the class considering the following issues:

 

o appearance for class - in bed; in pajamas etc.

o how should we relate to one another?

o should we all be muted when not speaking

o or left unmuted as we would be in class

o how and what you might expect from me as the leader of this class.

 

Thank you for your time in this matter and it will be helpful in making this class a great time for us all.

__

 

 

I remember you saying on one of your blog postings that “learning is like dancing and I can lead but if you do not follow neither of us will have any fun.”

 

I think more than ever this learning is very cooperative now between professor and students. We are all learning.

 

So, I am looking at a computer screen as my students “arrive” in class. The student that is always a couple of minutes late for class is still a couple of minutes late. So how does all of this work? It’s really pretty easy:

 

I greet students in person and I continued to do it with the online class. This may seem odd and I was asked by another professor how I handled the “noise” of everyone showing up 1-2 minutes before class with some of them being shy. And that is a great question as that is the reality of how they appear for class. I had students from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Dubai, Nepal, Indonesia, New Orleans and up and down California in this class and only a couple of the students knew each other. My greeting them by name in those first couple of minutes allows them to leave the “real” world behind and hopefully become part of the internet family of students in the class where they cannot “see” other but know that they are there. After a few classes, the students actually would greet each other especially if I brought up something from the last class. They actually did become a class and not just a group of faces on the computer screen.

 

Most of my classes start with a quiz. In the beginning of the course I would simply prepare a quiz in Word and I would share the screen with the class via zoom. They would then send me an e mail with the answers only. We actually did the quiz in class so they had the answers as soon as we were done. I understand that you do not want a bunch of e mails but the quizzes were not that involved so the answers were a computation or a sentence. And it allowed me to know who was there.

 

After a few classes I would actually send an e mail just before class with questions for the day and the quiz. By doing this I could use the breakout rooms for group quizzes that were more involved and I would receive only a few emails. Then I would have groups volunteer to answer the quiz questions. This got everyone involved and it was just like being face to face.

 

In going over the quiz I would be able to talk generally about the chapter material and relate how and what we were covering meant in their career major. They quickly realized that in going over the quiz arriving at an answer that they felt confident in was only part of the process. When they had answered the question the inevitable question from me was always there, WHY is that the case. My favorite line here is from the movie The Paper Chase when Professor Kingsfield explains the Socratic method of education to his class. That is me in person or online. Get them engaged. And they become a class.

 

We then do a series of problems that looks at the material in a variety of ways to analyze and review and then decide what is taking place and then the WHY again.

The students are expected to have read the chapter, review the power point slides and do a pre-class assignment that has a small overall point value but is important enough to garner their attention. This is no surprise; I refer you to my many messages that I have sent to them.

 

I always give a FINAL QUIZ to the class and ask them a few questions about the semester. This time I asked the students what advice they would give to the incoming students in the FALL 2020 class and one student offered the following:

 

“Every student entering managerial accounting should always

· Study for the materials before class to better understand and ask questions when doing class work and in class quizzes.

· Never procrastinate and leave the work for the last day.

· Mcgrawhillconnect.com gives great studying notes for the book, utilize everything you have.

· Never miss what the professor is saying, he usually gives hints to exam questions.

 

“What worked for this course was my participation. The first couple of classes I was not understanding what the content that was being discussed in the class, due to just reading through the chapters. I realized that I had to study it before class, then restudy it after the class to make sure I haven't missed anything. This is what I did for the remainder of the course. In doing this, I got more chances to answer questions in the class and not be put in the spot and end up saying ‘I don't know’ in the class, and actually have the information needed to put 1 and 2 together.

 

“What I'll take away from this course is

· To not procrastinate

· Always try to answers even if you're wrong

· Never stop asking questions even if it seems silly

· Always participate to break that barrier between you and the classmates/professor.”

__

 

This summer class turned out to be probably one of the best overall experiences in my teaching career. The students knew that this was going to be an online class so no issues about not knowing this. Attendance was virtually 100% for the term. And, that did amaze me. At about week 3, there was a situation in class and one of the students made a comment and I could see almost all of them laughing. They had become a class.

 

This class was run in a synchronous fashion throughout the course, unless I made a supplemental recording as needed.  The class was also set as a 3-hour session, just as it would have been in a face to face course, and the sessions flew by.

 

The students can do this! They will do pretty much what we expect of them.

 

GETTING MY STUDENTS READY FOR THE FALL – STEP THREE – HELPING THE AUDITORY LEARNERS

Over the past several weeks, I have posted blog entries to describe some of the material that I am producing this summer in preparation for the fall.  From what I can read, much of college education is becoming one huge Zoom session.  Zoom has its place and can be quite beneficial, but I believe we can do better than putting all our eggs in a Zoom basket.  To avoid that, though, we need to think deeply about the learning process.  We need to attack the educational challenges in a creative fashion.  All of the material I have discussed recently comes from ideas I have developed based on 49 years of teaching experience.  You can do that as well.  There is a lot more that we can do than just Zoom.  

That observation is especially true as we come to the reality that a considerable amount of our coverage is going to be distance learning for the foreseeable future.  Most of us have never experienced world-class distance learning which makes the fall especially daunting.  Ask yourself an essential question:  What would world class distance learning look like if that was your goal?  Once you can envision it, you can create it.

So far:

--On my July 22 blog posting, I wrote about suggesting the book Make It Stick to my fall students as an optional extra credit assignment to help them become better learners.  How can that not be a good idea?  I have had several students email me in thanks for the advice.

--On July 27, I described the “Guided Readings” I developed to help my students get more from their textbooks.  Why have them pay so much money if they are not able to learn (at least) the basic material in those chapters?  For students, reading the textbook needs to be more than a waste of time. 

--On August 3, I explained my use of “Retrieval Questions and Answers” to help students immediately follow up their textbook readings.  The students are given sequential questions (and their answers) to bring the important topics back up so they can make use of (and strengthen) their knowledge.

Today, I want to talk about auditory learners.  I have often thought that some of my students were held back from achieving their academic potential because they were auditory learners rather than visual learners.  Most learning experiences (books, written exercises, PowerPoint slides, and the like) focus on the information being seen.  In much of our teaching, knowledge enters through the eyes.  As the recent popularity in audiobooks seems to show, a considerable number of people absorb information by hearing.  Consequently, I think at least one learning product for each class should focus on auditory learning.  I want to have a supplement available that will be especially address the needs of those students. 

Plus, students love their phones and they love to multi-task.  In thinking about the fall, I wanted to include a learning exercise that took advantage of those personal preferences. 

Therefore, this semester, for every chapter, I am creating approximately 20 minutes of audio questions and answers.  I ask a question.  I pause for three seconds to give the students time to consider their response.  Then, I provide my answer.  I immediately move to what I view as the next logical question.  As I have said often, I like sequential learning.  For 20 minutes, it is just question-answer-question-answer, but it is all auditory learning.  Once again, as mentioned in my previous posting, I am obviously working on having students retrieve and use the information in many different ways.

I post the audio files on our learning management system (we use Blackboard).  The students can listen whenever they want to test their understanding.  Better still, they can download the app to their phones and listen while they do other things:  eat, exercise, take walks, and the like.  Every college student seems to struggle with time management.  Audio questions and answers can be an efficient use of free time – even listening for a few minutes as they walk to class helps them work on information retrieval. 

I needed to explain this to my students so, not surprisingly, I made a video.  I’ve become fond of the screen recording feature on PowerPoint for quick and simple messages to my students.  Below is the one that explains the audio questions and answers that will be available to them this fall. 

As always with these videos for my students, I have more than the goal of introducing them to a learning technique.  I am always trying to help the students become more confident and enthusiastic about the upcoming learning process.  These are scary times.  I cannot help them over every problem created by this pandemic, but I can help them have a wonderful learning experience.  I want to assure them that they will learn a lot in the fall and make a good grade.  There is a plethora of bad news in the world.  I think we as teachers should provide some encouraging news.

I don’t think I can send you the audio questions and answers but I will be glad to share the transcript if you drop me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.

Here is the video explanation that I sent to my students.  Notice, I did not worry too much about being technically perfect.  I just want to get the message out to them.  They are students.  They are not bothered by glitches. 

https://youtu.be/JzJpTrumpn4

GETTING MY STUDENTS READY FOR THE FALL – STEP TWO – RETRIEVAL QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

I wrote a blog posting last week about a short video that I had made to introduce my students to the first step in my fall classes – Guided Readings.  (By the way, these videos were made with the Screen Recording function in PowerPoint.  That is a simple way to make and distribute short videos to your students.)

The idea behind Guided Readings was that students needed assistance in learning the essentials from their textbook so I developed PowerPoint Flash Cards to help them make the most of their readings. 

But – now what?  Even an excellent reading of the textbook is not a complete education.

In the marvelous book, Make It Stick – The Science of Successful Learning, the authors (Brown, Roediger, and McDaniel) stress the importance of retrieval.  The second chapter is even titled, “To Learn, Retrieve.” 

They assert, “Repeated retrieval not only makes memories more durable but produces knowledge that can be retrieved more readily, in more varied settings, and applied to a wider variety of problems.”  Or, as I describe the process, “Bring new knowledge up and make use of it.  Bring it up again and use it creatively.  Bring it up as often as possible and in as many different ways as possible.”  That statement might describe my teaching better than anything else.

So, after Guided Readings, I immediately prescribe a sequenced series of questions designed to see how much of the material I can get the students to retrieve and use in some way.  I write approximately 14 to 20 questions that come directly from the material they have just read.  However, each question requires them to retrieve the new information and make use of it. 

The process is carefully scripted. 

--First, I include all of the retrieval questions for this section of the material. 

--Second, I then repeat those same questions but this time with the answers. 

I refer to this as a, “Wash, Rinse, Repeat” assignment.  I want the students to read the questions and see how many they can answer.  Then, they are directed to scroll down to the answers and immediately check their work.  They are told to note questions that they missed or where they had no answer.

I instruct them to go back to the top of the page and go through the questions again to see how many more they can answer this time.  Hopefully, if they do this entire loop two or three times, they will feel comfortable with all the answers.

--They first used the Guided Readings to pull out the essentials from the textbook. 

--They then use the Retrieval Questions and Answers to help organize, solidify, and expand their knowledge and understanding. 

I like to think that I am developing distance learning for my students using a structure that makes logical sense.

Last week on this blog, I offered to provide a chapter of Guided Readings and many people took me up on that offer. 

This week, if you would like to see an example of Retrieval Questions and Answers, drop me an email at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.  Always glad to share.

Here is the video that I used to explain my Retrieval Questions and Answers to my students.  It is less than 7 minutes.  I hope you will watch it.  

https://youtu.be/vyTOjn0zFVo