LEARNING ABOUT DISTANCE EDUCATION

 At some point, the virus will be controlled (at least, that is everyone’s daily prayer).  I hope teachers around the world will then pause for a moment to talk about what we have learned from having to switch so abruptly to distance learning.  There was little time for planning, just a desperate rush to see what might work.  When I hear my colleagues, they seem amazed at how effectively certain tactics have succeeded.  I want to hear about those discoveries.  I want to learn from their epiphanies.  I want to share in all of these new types of learning.

Most of us got pushed out of our teaching rut in record time.  What can we discover from the process that ensued?  With that in mind, I want to write today about what I have tried over the past couple of weeks and why.  It is too early to assess how well it has worked but I have tried to do things that made sense to me.  As I have explained to several friends who are not educators, “This is like changing from playing football to playing tennis.  Going from face-to-face to distance education is not about adapting.  It is about reinventing the process from the ground up without any time for practice.” 

My approach is based on two personal influences.  First, when I was in the 9^th grade in 1962, my little high school put me into a self-study program where I was supposed to learn advanced algebra by myself.  I am sure it was cutting edge education at the time.  I was given a big book that led me down a mathematical path – I would read a question, then read an answer.  I would read the next question and then read the next answer, and so on.  Day in and day out. 

This did not work for me at all.  No way.  I spent most of the time lost or about half asleep.  Nevertheless, even as a ninth grader, I realized that it absolutely could have worked.  The idea had merit but the implementation was flawed. 

--The sequencing of the questions had to be extremely good.  Because I had no teacher, each question needed to lead naturally into the next one without a seam.  If the questions were redundant, I got bored.  If the gap between questions was too wide, I got lost.  Occasionally, when the questions were sequenced just perfectly, I could successfully navigate through some complicated material by myself.  Those moments were neat.

--The explanations had to be understandable to a ninth grader.  The key educational point in the process was in the reading of each answer.  I was sure a high school teacher would have understood the answers but this material was all new to me.  I had to be able to read the words on the page by myself and figure out what they meant.  I was 15 years old.  If I could not do that, I was stuck.  Looking back, I cannot imagine how important it was for those answers to be crystal clear to a ninth grader.    

--I needed some type of frequent assessment to make sure I was not missing anything and to encourage me to keep pushing on.  The questions and answers could quickly seem endless without some kind of quiz or other assignment to make sure I was learning what I was supposed to learn.  The path could just get too long too quickly.  For me, it really did look like an endless highway.

I left ninth grade algebra thinking, “Well, that could have worked, but it didn’t.” 

Fast forward more than 30 years to the mid-1990s.  Two friends and I invented a self-study course for the CPA Exam titled, “90 Days to Success on the CPA Exam.”  We had no employees, it was just a hobby for us.  Within a couple of years, we were selling our programs in 50 states and 35 other countries.  We eventually sold the business because it was beginning to overwhelm us. 

But, I learned a lot more about distance learning from the experience.

--The “students” needed structure.  They wanted to wake up and know what they were supposed to do without having to think about it.  We furnished a daily calendar that said, “Today – do this.” 

--Everything we did in this program was based on sequential learning.  When there is no teacher present, the learning cannot look random (but I had already learned that in the ninth grade). 

--The students liked to have different types of learning experiences.  If they did the same thing every day, they got bored and lost their focus.

--The process needed to be interactive.  The students needed a lot of feedback or they would mentally drift away.  Everything we created required them to give a response that would be assessed.

--The students needed encouragement.  They were human.  They needed someone to tell them, “You can do this.  I know it can be discouraging at times and frustrating but, if you will do what I ask you to do, you ARE going to learn this material and be successful.  Believe in yourself.”

So, back in March, when I came back from visiting New Orleans over Spring Break (luckily, without the virus) and was told that we were switching to distance learning, I tried to incorporate what I learned in the ninth grade in 1962 with my 1990s distance learning program. 

I teach two classes on Intermediate Accounting II and one class of Financial Accounting.  The first is extremely complex and has 39 college juniors.  The second is an introductory course with 25 college frosh.  Two entirely different levels of material.

The first thing I did was choose not to use Zoom or any other “live” presentations.  I have no problems if someone finds that approach works well for them but I could not see me explaining complex accounting problems using some type of online “live” program.  I hope one day to see how it can be used successfully but, until then, I have doubts about it working well for me.  I thought the same thing even after watching Saturday Night Live.

It is impossible for me to explain exactly what I did but I will try to describe my process as best as I can.  The material was not always presented in exactly this format but almost.  If you would like to see some of these materials, please send me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.

1 – I started this whole process with a note to my students ensuring they that they were going to learn this material.  I never wanted them to have a doubt.  

2 - My first assignment was that they needed to spend a certain amount of time for class every day—60-75 minutes for financial accounting and 90 minutes for Intermediate Accounting II—and I wanted them to keep a “time journal” just so they could track their efforts.  I figured if I could get a good amount of their time using effective materials, the chances were high for a successful learning experience.  I did everything I could to get a “buy-in” from the students right from the start.

3 - I emailed them about 10-15 questions that I believed would sequentially lead the students into our first topic.  I wrote the questions and then immediately wrote those same questions but this time with my answers.  I explained to my students what I wanted them to do, “Read all the questions and then read all the answers.  Then, go back and read the questions a second time and this time try to answer them for yourself.  Read the answers again.  Go back and read the questions for a third time and see if you can get them all correct.  Keep following this loop until you are comfortable.”  I suggested that they needed to have this “Q & A list” under control in a reasonable but specific period of time.  From my experience, college students need deadlines.

4 – The next day I sent them a second group of 10-15 questions and answers that followed up on the first batch.  I am trying to structure these Q & A lists in chunks that are not overwhelming.  A bit like Goldilocks, I wanted them to face new information that was not too little but also not too big.

5 – The next day I emailed them a practice problem, “If you have been successful with our first two Q & A lists, then I think you can work the following problem.  The answers are at the end.  If I don’t hear from you by (insert time and date), I’ll assume you got the correct answers and have this material under control.  If you cannot get my answers, drop me an email and I’ll give you a push or send you the computations.”  I make sure this practice problem is not easy but is a natural progression from the materials covered in the Q & A lists.  Everything hinges on that sequential process.

6 – The next day I posted one or two Panopto videos on Blackboard.  (I imagine that a lot of people who had never heard of Panopto last month are now experts.)  First, I sent the students a rather complicated problem or two and told them to work them before watching the video.  Working a problem they have not seen has limited benefit in my mind.  I put as much relevant material as possible on a Power Point presentation and use Panopto to walk through those slides.  I want my students to hear my voice explaining how to work each step in the process.  I’m not a technical person so my slides are very basic but I’m not sure that basic is not a good foundation for learning.  I give the students a time frame for watching the videos.  I can check the numbers who have done so and will send encouragement if not enough are taking advantage of the videos. 

7 – During the next day or so, I post an “effort quiz” on Blackboard.  It is short and should take 15-30 minutes.  I use a lot of multiple-choice and true-false because I think they work well when you are focused on sequential learning.  I typically send the students some basic information in advance and tell them that the questions will be based off that information.  I want them to spend time looking and thinking about the information prior to opening up the quiz.  I am trying to avoid surprises.  I set a reasonably low number as a “Good Effort” grade.  As long as most students can hit that standard, we move on.  I am not seeking perfection.

8 – After we have gone through 2 or 3 groups of material looping through the above steps, I post a “Final Quiz” on Blackboard.  It is about 20-40 minutes.  It has a bit more weight and more complexity than the “effort quizzes” but I try to make sure that it covers what my materials have covered.  I like the term “Final Quiz” because it indicates to the students that they have successfully mastered a section of material. 

What do I like about this approach?

a.  It is structured.  The students always know what they are supposed to do next.

b.  It has time recommendations.  The students know how long they are supposed to be spending each day.

c.  It has deadlines.  Students know when assignments are due.

d.  It is sequential.  Everything is based on those Q & A lists.  If I can write them well enough, then all of the other steps tie back into that information.  To an educator, I cannot stress that enough.   

e.  I try to use several types of learning:  Q & A lists, practice problems, videos, effort quizzes, final quizzes.  Each one has its own particular purpose.  Each one requires the student to do something.  They cannot be passive learners.

f.  I use a lot of email so I can provide encouragement.  Many of my students are struggling with issues that go well beyond school.  There is a lot of strain and tension in their lives.  I am not a cheerleader but I do want them to know every single day that I believe they can learn this material and that we will all get through it successfully just as soon as possible. 

What do the students think?  What I think is probably unimportant.  It is what the students think and accomplish that matters.  After the semester is over, I certainly plan to ask them some honest questions to see what I can learn from this experiment.  Why go through all of this if I am not going to learn how to get better?  But that will have to wait.  That is why I am so interested in hearing what others are doing.  Let's learn from each other.

TEACHING FIDO TO ROLL OVER (or COMMON SENSE TEACHING)

If I offered you $1,000 to teach my dog (Fido) to roll over, how would you go about doing it?   Even if you have never taught an animal to do anything, do you think you could come up with logical and reasonable steps?  Sure you could.  For that kind of incentive, my guess is that we would all probably do a pretty decent job.  It might take awhile but we could do it.

I have written well over 200 blog postings about teaching during the last 6-7 years.   One particular entry from early in 2010 has really been on my mind recently—probably because a new school year is starting and I’m thinking deeply about teaching my 56 students.   In that original blog, I talked about teaching Fido to roll over.  Earlier today, I went back and reread this old post.   I loved the idea but I did not seem to develop my thoughts particularly well.  I am not sure I knew what I wanted to say.  Heck, I was only 62 at the time.  Maybe I have matured a bit since then (well, maybe).   I decided to try again based on my current ideas about teaching.  This is not a rewriting of that earlier blog entry.  It is a reconsideration of the idea based on how I feel about teaching today (as I get ready to begin my 46^th year in the classroom).

Sometimes, as we discuss the challenges of teaching, I think we make the whole process too complicated.  Yes, it is quite difficult to teach but I am not sure we don’t get ourselves all twisted up in our own complications.  Vince Lombardi, the legendary football coach, is famous for making the most success out of the obvious:   “Some people try to find things in this game that don't exist but football is only two things - blocking and tackling.”

So, as I wrote this blog today, I wanted to get back to the same type of basic teaching steps.   At its foundation, what is teaching?  Interesting question to ponder.

A few years ago, I read The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski. The novel was well written and very popular at the time.  Believe it or not, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle is a retelling of Hamlet set on a small farm in northern Wisconsin where a family breeds and trains dogs.

And, they are truly great at that job.   People come from hundreds of miles to buy the dogs they have trained.  Wroblewski must have known a lot about such training because he spends many pages describing in detail how the members of this family teach their dogs to perform so well.  Frequently, as I read, I felt as if I were studying an education manual.  Absolutely everything he writes about training dogs was so clear and logical that I started applying it to the teaching of people.  And it all worked.   What truly impressed me was that most of the process was nothing but common sense.   There were no complicated theories of learning.  Everything was about teaching the dogs.  I learned so much about teaching people by just reading about how this family taught their dogs.  

Often as we talk about improving education, we dwell on the characteristics of a good teacher (energetic, caring, enthusiastic, knowledgeable, etc.).   However, as I read Edgar Sawtelle, no mention was made of the teacher.   It was all about the process of teaching.   That is a seemingly slight change of focus but an essential one.

I believe (especially in these days of wonderful technological innovations) that we sometimes hold great teaching out as some type of dark mystery.   Perhaps we should start our thinking of great education with teaching and not with the teacher.   There are a lot of things about teaching that are both essential and basic to successful learning.  

So, I want you to try an experiment.   Before you read further, answer the question I laid out at the start of this essay.   Assume you have been hired by a rich person to train his dog (Fido) to roll over.   The dog is bright and alert but has never been trained.  The owner offers you $1,000 (might as well have a good financial reward) if you can train Fido to roll over.  

How would you go about teaching a dog to roll over?   Take a few minutes and write down the steps that you would likely follow.   I doubt there is any technology that can be much help.  There is not an app for this.   You have to depend on your teaching skills at their most basic level.   

I would bet that every person reading this blog can come up with several essentials steps needed to teach Fido.  Here’s my list.  Your list might be different but I would be surprised if the basics are not fairly close to the same. 

1 – Have a firm understanding of what you want the dog to accomplish.   You are the teacher.   There is absolutely no reason to even start a lesson until you truly understand what you are guiding Fido to do.  If your goal is vague to you, Fido has no chance of making it more concrete.  In my mind, no other step is more important.  Education is a random, ineffective act until you know exactly what you want to accomplish.

2 – Get Fido’s undivided attention.   If Fido is watching the local squirrels or the neighbor’s cat, you have no chance to teach Fido anything.   You have to place Fido in a situation where distractions are reduced to zero if possible.   Fido has to be focused on the lesson.

3 – All communications have to be clear.   The teacher has to communicate to Fido what needs to be done.   Fido cannot read your mind.   If the communication is not clear, the poor dog cannot even raise his paw and ask for a repeat.   Demonstrate to Fido exactly what he is supposed to do.   Very few things in teaching are more important than communications.   Get that right and the learning is much easier.  Get that wrong and you are probably out of luck.

4 – Consistent treatment.  If you are harsh one moment and laughing the next, Fido will have no idea how to react.   Fido will be an emotional wreck.   The dog does not have the experience needed to grasp the meaning of changes in treatment.   Decide who you are as a teacher and how you are going to treat Fido and then stick with the process unless it simply is not going to work.   Too many teachers are Dr. Jekyll for a while and then morph into Mr. Hyde.  Fido will work best when he is comfortable with you and the process.

5 – Build sequentially; build incrementally.  As I said in my previous blog posting, most learning occurs sequentially.   Learning takes place in small jumps of understanding.  You already know how to roll over.  It is no challenge for you.  You have to avoid jumping right to the big finish.  Fido only has the ability to make small jumps of understanding.   Set up the learning steps as sequentially as possible and keep them close enough together so that Fido can be successful in moving from one to the next.  

6 – Acknowledge proper responses.   I am a big believer that the world would function better if all the people in charge would give more pats on the back.   They are easy and free and everyone wants positive reinforcement.  Fido wants to be a good dog and is thrilled with a kind word (and a dog biscuit).   I think positive reinforcement is one of the things we all fail to do in so many aspects of life.

7 – Correct incorrect action immediately.   If Fido acts incorrectly and you don’t say anything about it being wrong, Fido thinks he has done it right and will continue to do it that way forever (and will believe that you are thrilled that he is doing so well).   No one likes to fuss but if Fido does it wrong, you have to stop the incorrect action right then or you just make it worse.   Fido will always interpret silence as “that’s exactly what I want.”

8 – Repetition Repetition Repetition.   It is easy for you.  It is not easy for Fido.   No matter how many times you think you have to demonstrate what you are trying to get across, it will probably take twice as many times.   I know that drives some teachers crazy but repetition is necessary if you really want Fido to learn.  Almost no one ever hears or sees something once and has it down perfectly.

9 – Time and Patience.   Learning is not a race (although our education system seems to favor speed).   My younger daughter has CP and some mild memory problems.   But she will be a senior in college next year.   She has taught me so much about having patience—not everyone learns at the same speed.   It is the learning that is important, not the speed.   If you want successful learning, give Fido the time he needs and stop looking at the clock.

Okay, go back to each of these nine and merely change the words “Fido” and “dog” to “students” and I believe it will read just as well.   This is not about the teacher.   This is about teaching.   (1) Understand your goal, (2) Make sure you have the students undivided attention, (3) Communications with the students should be frequent and clear, (4) Be consistent in the way you approach the class and the students, (5) Build the lessons sequentially and incrementally, (6) Use positive reinforcement, (7) Correct incorrect actions immediately, (8) Expect some amount of repetition to be necessary, (9) – Be patient and do not ruin the learning by being in a big hurry.  

Could you follow those nine teaching steps and train Fido to roll over?  Well, nothing is guaranteed but I think Fido would probably learn fairly well.  If you follow these nine steps could you be successful teaching accounting or English or biology or political science or whatever.   I think that is the essence of this post.   No matter what you are teaching, it is hard to get away from the importance of the basic steps.   There are lots of ways to be a great teacher.  We have all seen successful teachers who have radically different styles ranging from mean to kind.   But I believe, at the very basics, teaching has a set foundation. 

As you get ready to begin a new school year, think about each of these nine carefully and ask yourself how you could improve your efforts in each one during 2016-2017.   That is not a bad way to start off a bright new academic year.

MAKING USE OF THE SUMMER

I hope that many of the folks who read this blog will be attending both the Conference on Teaching and Learning in Accounting (CTLA) on August 6 and 7 and the American Accounting Association (AAA) annual meeting on August 8 through 10.   These conferences will be held in New York City near Times Square.   I am speaking twice at the CTLA on teaching and will serve on two panels during the AAA annual meeting.   Would love to see as many people as possible.   If you are there, grab me and let’s talk.   Tell me where you are from and what you teach and what goes well and what challenges you face.    I am always glad to chat.   On Saturday morning (August 6), I am giving the opening keynote address at the CTLA and will be talking on the topic “Recharging Your Batteries:   The Joys and Importance of Teaching.”   I have decided to subtitle this talk: “Seven Quotes that Changed My Life or, at least, My Teaching.”  

**

In this blog posting, I am going to describe one project that I have been working on this summer.   Before I start, I want to mention two things:

1. When I finish this project, I will be glad to share it with anyone who thinks it might be helpful.  I have high hopes that it will be very beneficial to my introductory students but, in the teaching business, there are never any guarantees.   However, I am happy to pass along the final version if you are interested.
2. There is still a month left in the summer.   I would urge every reader to think of a project that you can accomplish in the remaining weeks that might help your students be great this fall.  Such projects can be big or small.  The real purpose of this blog posting today is to stimulate your thinking.   I guess you would say it is a call to action.

**

I have long believed that a big problem with education is the material that we use when teaching our students.   Textbooks, journal articles, and the like are fine in a limited way.   They do a reasonably good job of conveying content.  But, we need to supplement those resources to help achieve some carefully considered educational objectives.   Teaching is more than the mere conveyance of subject matter.  For that reason, I have spent a good part of my summer creating a supplement that I believe will help my financial accounting students this fall.    

To me, educational supplements should demonstrate some or all of the following six characteristics:

• They need to be sequential.   Most students don’t learn in a random fashion.   They learn in a tightly structured step-by-step order.   Once material has been learned, sequencing becomes less important.  But, initially, a carefully crafted sequence is essential when showing the core of complicated topics to students.  On their own, students often fail to see the logical sequencing and then struggle to gain understanding of material that is really not that difficult when shown step by step.
• Those sequential steps need to build layers of knowledge very gradually.   Students rarely have the ability to make giant leaps from one level of knowledge to the next.  Growth in understanding should be at a realistic and sustainable pace.  It is easy to lose students—leave them far behind—if complications build too quickly whenever new material is presented.   I remember sitting in college classrooms, totally lost and confused, as I wondered to myself “How did the teacher just get from Point A to Point B?  It looked like magic to me.”   The transition was clear to the teacher but it certainly was not to me.
• Supplements need to help students realize that not all material is equal.   Some information is simply more important than others.   At first glance, students see all knowledge as having equal value.   They have trouble identifying the critical areas and, therefore, can wind up bogged down by trivial topics.  A good supplement should help point students in the right direction.  “This is really important so pay close attention.”
• Material needs to be broken down into chunks that are small enough for a student to absorb.  Students become overwhelmed very quickly by too much material.  When considering a supplement, envision the sequence: “here’s a manageable piece of knowledge and, now, here’s another manageable piece of knowledge that builds on the first piece of knowledge.” 
• The presentation of additional information must be interspersed with practice.   A teacher cannot simply make a “check off” list of things for a student to learn.  A reasonable amount of material is first presented and then that material is practiced before more material is added.  I have long stressed to my students: “Some amount of study time needs to be spent in learning activities.   The remainder of the study time should be used for practice activities.   Both are essential.”
• It is important to use both auditory and visual learning.   I believe that some students learn better by hearing material and some students learn better by seeing material.   Some combination is probably ideal.   To me, too much of our educational material focuses on visual learning.

By looking at the above six characteristics, you can easily see why I believe good supplements are so important.   Textbooks and the like often struggle with my list of essential characteristics.   For the most part, textbooks are more content providers and less educational aids.  Content is essential but so are materials that guide student education in a logical fashion.

So, this summer I have been considering those six characteristics as I build a new supplement for my financial accounting course here at the University of Richmond.   I am doing this project in three stages (that I have cleverly named Stage One, Stage Two, and Stage Three).   I am nearly finished with Stage One.   I hope to be entirely finished with the project by the middle of October.

For each of the 17 chapters in the Financial Accounting textbook that I use in class, I am creating my own set of flash cards.   I wanted to develop a supplement that students could easily use with no cost.   So, I am building the flash cards as PowerPoint slides.   Slide One is a question, Slide Two is the answer, Slide Three is the next logically sequential question, and so on.   When the project is finished, I might switch to a more elaborate system of technology but this will work for my fall testing.  I want to keep this simple until I see how it is working.

In Stage One, for each of 17 chapters, I am creating about 30-40 flash cards:  15-20 questions and then the corresponding answers.   I have worked hard to think through each topic and establish a logical sequence of bite-sized information.  

In Stage Two, I plan to go back though each of the 17 sets of flash cards and add audio clips.   So, for a topic that is particularly difficult, I can record a 15-20 second clip to make a suggestion or give encouragement.   I love the idea of talking directly to the student.   I plan to scatter these audio clips all through the flash cards.   If students are not confused, they can choose to ignore each audio clip.   That will be up to them.  But, if things are not clear, they have additional auditory information easily available.  Visual and auditory assistance is available.   

Finally, in Stage Three, I hope to add links to Explain Everything videos that I hope to make (these are the kinds of videos that the Khan Academy has made famous).   As an example, here is a short video that I created a few years ago to help my students understand FIFO and LIFO.  Would 20 or 30 of these help my financial accounting students better understand the textbook material?   I certainly think so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVp6n5CTi3o

Notice that I am not eliminating the textbook.  It will still play a central role in my class.  Instead, I’m trying to take information from the textbook and make it easier for students to understand and absorb.   And, I am doing this by (a) sequencing the material in a logical fashion, (b) very gradually making the coverage more challenging, (c) pointing out the most significant material to the students, (d) presenting the material in chunks that are of manageable size, (e) mixing material coverage and practice so the students have an immediate way of learning the material and working with it, and (f) using both auditory learning and visual learning.   

Can you build a supplement like that?   Sure you can!   In fact, it has been kind of a fun experiment for this summer.   But, you need to start by answering an essential question – what are the characteristics that you want to add to your course by means of this supplement?   I started with my six characteristics and the work has flowed from them.   But that was me.   Figure out what characteristics you want and I bet that you will be surprised by how quickly you start coming up with some great ideas.