A THOUGHTFUL NEW BOOK ON THE MARKET

I try to write all of these blog essays myself.  However, a good friend of mine, James Lang at Assumption College, has just published a new book (Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty) that I think is excellent and innovative and I wanted to recommend that you consider reading it.   (Here, in the name of full disclosure, I will admit that he includes a couple of pages on my approach to teaching but that is only a very small part of the book.)

On his own blog, Jim posted the following description of the book.   I thought he did a great job of explaining what he had done.   So, I am simply including his words directly.   If you are looking for a thoughtful book on teaching and education, I think this is a great choice.

**

By James Lang:

Just around two years ago, the editor of my last book with Harvard University Press told me that she had been to a conference about teaching in higher education and heard a lot of discussion about the problem of cheating on campus. Everyone was looking for solutions. She wondered whether I might have an interest in tackling the problem in a book for the Press.

I wasn't sure how I felt about it, but you don't get too many offers like this as a writer, so I agreed to think about it. She drove out to Worcester and we had a lovely lunch together at the Sole Proprietor, my favorite seafood restaurant. By the end of the conversation, I was convinced enough to at least do some reading and put together a proposal. I went to the local public library, checked out three books on cheating, and brought them with me on vacation that following week.

After reading them, I had some vague ideas about how I might like to approach the problem, and the book, and so I put together a proposal, which the Press accepted. As I then really dug into the research on cheating over the next few months, I began to see things differently. The more I tried to understand why students were cheating, the more I became convinced that the problem of cheating revealed some fundamental flaws in the ways we structured and taught courses in higher education. I abandoned the structure of my initial proposal and struck out in an entirely new direction.

By the spring of 2012, I had settled on my approach to the issue, which was to argue that research on human learning and research on cheating were both pointing us in the same direction in terms of how we should be designing and teaching our courses, and so the heart of the book became an argument about how we can learn from academic dishonesty how to build better learning environments. Christopher Hager, a Trinity College professor who read an advanced copy, captured this well with his very kind blurb for the book: "James Lang has written a smart, original, well-researched guide to 'building better learning environments' framed as a guide to avoiding academic dishonesty."

The heart of the book, then, is essentially an argument for how we can teach our students more effectively--and, in doing so, reduce their incentive and opportunity to cheat. Around that basic argument are two shorter sections: first, a brief tour through the history of cheating, both in higher education and beyond, as well as an overview of the statistics on cheating in higher education today; and, in the final part of the book, some arguments about how and why we should tackle the problem of cheating from the broader campus perspective.

So if you have any interest whatsoever in the question of why students cheat, or how they do it, or what to do about it, you should buy this book! But I hope the book will appeal to all teachers, even those who teach at the secondary and elementary levels, as it also reviews recent research in learning theory and uses that material to make the case for how we should be building learning environments for all of our students. Finally, if you are interested more broadly in the present and future state of higher education, I hope and think you will find the book of interest, as it explores how the root causes of cheating may extend deeply into the structure and nature of the way we do business on campus.

In any case, that's the story of Cheating Lessons: Learning from Academic Dishonesty.

**

The book is available on Amazon through a search of the title.

 

If I Challenge You to Become a Better Teacher in 2013-2014, What Is Your First Response?

As some of you might know, besides being a college professor, I am a cofounder and president of CPAreviewforFREE.com.   In that role, I send out email lessons to about 20,000 past and future CPA candidates two or three times each month.   These lessons talk about how to pass the CPA Exam and, hopefully, encourage and assist those candidates in achieving their goal.   I’ve actually written these motivational email lessons now (off and on) for nearly 20 years.  

The following blog entry is adapted from a recent one of those lessons.   Obviously, I’ve changed the goal from “pass the CPA Exam” to “become a better teacher” but I believe that this basic message applies to teachers just as much as it does to CPA Exam candidates.   Success is success whenever you face a genuine challenge.

**

Two to four times each year, over the past 10-12 years, I have given presentations around the country on teaching.   I am always amazed by how many capable teachers show up to these sessions and immediately start telling me why they cannot improve their teaching.   Were it not so sad, it would be funny.   Over the years, I have started diagnosing this as the “I can’t do this because” disease.  

--I can’t do this because the students are lazy.

--I can’t do this because I have to focus on my research.
--I can’t do this because I have too many students.  
--I can’t do this because I am paid so poorly.  
--I can’t do this because my dean will not give me the resources that I need.
--I can’t do this because I have always gotten bad evaluations in the past.
--I can’t do this because it is not important for tenure and promotion.
--I can't do this because no else around here wants to teach well.

--I can’t do this because my students have no interest in learning.  

With all these self-imposed barriers, I often wonder how anyone ever manages to become a better teacher.   But people do improve and even become great teachers.   If you want to be one of those folks who really does improve,  it can be done.   Yes, it can!!!   It might not be easy but it can be done.   The excuses might slow you down but you can still get better.

When teachers tell me why they cannot improve, my response is always “well, don’t place too many stumbling blocks in your path.   Let’s start by looking at several places where small amounts of improvement can be made.”   Teaching in college is tough enough without you telling yourself you are going to fail.  

So, let’s practice.   Let's check your attitude.   If I were to get in your face and challenge you to become a better teacher in 2013-2014, what is your first response – would you start giving me reasons why that can’t happen or would you start thinking about changes you might make in order to become a better teacher?

I have long pondered the need of teachers to establish excuses.   For many, it is very much like a chanted mantra:   “I cannot become a better teacher because….”  This tendency seems almost universal.   A lot of humans just think in that negative way.   Every time we start a new challenge in life, especially if it pushes us outside of our comfort zone, we seem to lack faith in ourselves.    I suppose setting low expectations makes failure easier to face.  We make excuses as a way to soften the possible blow to our egos if we do fail. 

However, setting low expectations makes success so much more difficult to attain.   A negative attitude works against you.   It is hard to have the confidence to do the hard work necessary for success if you have already explained to everyone (including yourself) the many reasons you are going to fail.   Who wants to work hard if you don’t believe you can succeed?     People (teachers as well as students) live up to their own high expectations but, just as importantly, they also live down to their own low expectations.  

Attitude is vitally important in achieving success.   People rarely succeed without a “can do” attitude.   No one wants you to walk around and brag about how well you are going to do.   But, a certain degree of “I can do this” is necessary if you are going to take on tough challenges and succeed.

Let me give you an example.    My wife has long wanted to take a pottery class.   I have always resisted because I was convinced that I could never learn how to take a lump of clay and put it on a wheel and turn it into a pot or bowl or vase that could be glazed and fired.   I always assumed that I would produce a wreck and the teacher would look at me and just shake her head in frustration.   I didn’t want to try because I was afraid that I would be embarrassed by failure.   I was afraid of looking stupid.   So, I created all kinds of excuses.   When pottery was mentioned, I found myself starting every sentence with “I can’t do this because.” 

Finally, as I have written before on this blog, we decided to take a six-week pottery class this summer after I ran out of excuses.   I figured that I would produce awful stuff but I’d get it over with.  

And, of course, you can guess what happened.   The teacher was very patient and showed me exactly how to start, how to get the clay centered, how to mold it, how to shape and trim it.   When I did something wrong, she would show me how to learn from my mistake and do better the next time.   It was a wonderful learning experience.

I enjoyed every second.  And, almost immediately, “I can’t do this because” was replaced by “with some help, I can make this happen.”   Becoming a better teacher is much the same.   Quit the excuses and give it a try.

The key was that I stopped putting roadblocks in my path.   I stopped defeating myself.   I let the teacher help me make gradual progress.   And, eventually, I could make some pottery.

After 6 weeks, my wife and I had produced over 30 pieces.   If you want to see them, you can go to the following website and see a few photos that we took:  

http://www.cpareviewforfree.com/resources.cfm?name=article&article_id=83

What is the point of this story about pottery?   When it comes to teaching, stop doubting yourself and start thinking about improvement.   You have to rid yourself of “I can’t do this because” or you will never get one bit better.   Instead, get to work and get better.      

I recently read a book titled “Wild” by Cheryl Strayed.   It was a relatively long book and quite interesting.   But one line near the start of the book really caught my attention.   I immediately jumped up and ran to find a pen so that I could write down those few words.

Ms. Strayed was 26 and had lived a tough life.   Her mother died when Ms. Strayed was in college and she had a lot of trouble getting over it.   She had married and divorced and experimented with some dangerous drugs.

In hopes of getting her life straightened out, she decided to walk 1,100 miles of the very challenging Pacific Crest Trail by herself with little training or experience.   In the book, about the time she gets ready to start this grand adventure, she gets scared and almost backs out.   It is there that she includes the line that I appreciated so much:  

 

“Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves.”

 A line well worth remembering.

If you tell yourself that you cannot become a better teacher, you will become afraid and will not even try.   You are letting your own story defeat you.

If you tell yourself that you are going to keep pushing forward and learning from your mistakes, your chances of improving go up immediately.   Don’t let your excuses hold you back.  

When you look at becoming a better teacher, what story are you telling yourself?   In many ways, that question is the entire point of this blog entry.   What story are you telling yourself?

--The students don’t care so why should I waste my time as the teacher

Or
--If I improve, I’ll have a positive impact on more of my students

--I need to shut my door and work on my research; the students keep me from doing the work that is really important.

Or

--If I improve, I can change my students for the better and there is simply not a much better way to live a life.

--I have always gotten bad student evaluations; that is never going to change no matter what I do.

Or
--I cannot become great overnight but I can make small improvements and if I keep working and have patience, I can become a good (maybe outstanding) teacher.  

 Before the fall semester begins, ask yourself: “What stories am I telling myself about my teaching?”   Am I telling myself stories that are going to make me afraid and hold me back from getting better?   Am I convincing myself that I am weak and flawed?   Or, am I telling myself stories that will provide me with the courage, energy, and enthusiasm that I need to improve?   Am I convincing myself that I am strong and able?

There are no guarantees in life.   But that doesn’t mean that you have to view yourself as chained to failure.  Everyone can teach better; I guarantee it.   Tell yourself stories of courage and determination and, quite possibly, like Cheryl Strayed, you’ll succeed at a very difficult task and become a better teacher.

It is easy to have weak stories in your head.   But your chances for improvement go up dramatically if you can replace them with strong positive stories.

UNDERSTANDING THE IMPORTANCE OF GOOD TEACHING

 

As I have mentioned several times in the last few months, this blog is receiving an innovation award at the American Accounting Association annual meeting that will be held next month in Anaheim.  As part of that program, on Wednesday, August 7, I will make a 90 minute presentation (2:00 until 3:30 p.m.).   Because this blog is about improving teaching, I assume the presentation should be about improving teaching.   There will be hundreds of research presentations in Anaheim; however, at least this one will be a teaching presentation.

I realize that 99 percent of the people (maybe 100 percent) who read this blog will not be able to attend my session in Anaheim.   So, today, I want to talk with you about how I plan to start that program and why.   You can pretend you are in Anaheim in August (at a hotel next to Disneyland).  

If I want to have any real impact during my 90 minutes, I need to get the attendees mentally involved as quickly as possible.   I want them to seriously consider the importance of good teaching and how they can become better teachers.   That’s my basic goal.   However, from past experience, I know that whenever I give talks about teaching, the conversation can quickly fall into a litany of complaints about students:   Why are they lazy?   Why do they never seem to be able to think?   Why are they reticent to participate?

Those are legitimate questions but I want the program to have positive energy and not negative.   I am not looking to become “Dear Abby” – out to solve everyone’s problems with their students.

What I plan to do is have a quick warm up exercise to get people in the right mood.   To begin, I will ask all of the attendees to close their eyes.   I will then ask them to think back through all of the teachers they have ever had – from kindergarten through grad school.   I will ask them to consider them all but eventually pick the one teacher who was the very best.   I am not asking them to select their favorite teacher of all time or the most popular teacher.   I want them to pick the teacher from their experience who was the very best.  

From past presentations, I have found that almost every person in the audience is able to quickly select his or her choice.   I don’t provide any criteria but people just seem to know who was best.  Usually one person stands out above all the rest.   It might possibly be a 9^th grade biology teacher or a 4^th grade English teacher or maybe a math teacher in college.   Virtually every person has at least one teacher who has really made a difference.

I will then ask every person present to consider that selection very carefully and come up with three characteristics that describe why that person was their very best teacher.   I want them to choose three words that capture the teacher’s essence.   What made that person so very good?   It wasn’t luck.   What was it?

I will next ask each person to think of what they would tell that best teacher if he or she walked into the room at that very moment.  Some are probably dead and many have been out of contact for years.   But if their best teacher was to appear, what would they want to say?   What message would they convey?  How important has that person been?

Finally, I ask all of the attendees to turn to the person on their left or right and describe their best teacher by talking about those three words they chose as descriptors, and also what they would like to say to that person.   I want to create a personal conversation about great teaching.

Okay, I do not know how this will work in Anaheim (all of the people might fall asleep) but when I have asked these questions in previous presentations, everyone has gotten seriously involved.   Why?   That is easy.   I have changed the perspective.    The people in the audience walked in as teachers (probably annoyed with student behavior).   Like most groups, they often feel dissatisfied by what they have been able to accomplish.   But then, suddenly, each person has been returned to the role of student, a student who has been influenced by a great teacher.   It is the proper perspective for a teaching presentation.   I want every person to consider how important a teacher can be.  I want every person to think about how lives are affected by great teachers.   Most of all, I hope each attendee will want to become some other student’s “best teacher.”   That is really a goal worth having.  

Okay, if you are going to be in Anaheim, I hope to see you there.   But if you are not, why not try this warmup exercise by yourself?   You don’t need me there.   Sit in a chair in a quiet room.   Close your eyes.   Think of all your teachers, probably since you were 4 or 5 years old.   Pick the one who was the best teacher.   Think about why that teacher was so good.   Select three words to describe that teacher.   Imagine that teacher suddenly walks into your room.   What would you want to say? 

You are not going to be in a room with other people so, instead of discussing your best teacher with the person to your left or right, I will give you an alternative assignment.   For those three characteristics that made this person so wonderful, what grade would you give yourself and your own teaching?   For example, if your best teacher was “caring,” that was clearly an important characteristic to you.   So, what grade would you give yourself on being a caring teacher?   If it is not an A, then you know you have some work to get done.

 

Charles Dickens Would Approve

From Joe Hoyle:   On January 1, 2013, and again on June 1, 2013, I wrote entries on this blog about my experience at linking a Government Accounting course with a Victorian Literature class.  I found it to be an interesting experiment with some excellent outcomes.   If you want to read more about what we did, the following link will take you to an article in the online version of the Chronicle of Higher Education.    If you have followed this blog for long, you know that I am a strong proponent of experimentation in education.   This one did not require a committee or a mandate or a strategic plan.   We thought the idea might work and (with the support of my dean) we just tried it to see.  I believe college education would certainly improve with more such interesting experiments.

http://chronicle.com/article/Victorian-Literature-for/139971/

**

Since I have already referred to Victorian Literature above, I will make a comment about something I recently read.   A few weeks ago, I started Hard Times by Charles Dickens.    Dickens could be brutally sarcastic about elements of daily life that he found wanting.   Apparently, he was not necessarily a big fan of certain educational practices.   At the end of Chapter Two of the first book of Hard Times, he describes a teacher (with an incredibly unusual name – another characteristic of his writings).

To quote Dickens, this teacher “had taken the bloom off the higher braches of mathematics and physical science, French, German, Latin, and Greek.   He knew all about all the Water Sheds of all the world (whatever they are), and all the histories of all the people, and all the names of all the rivers and mountains, and all the productions, manners, and customs of all the countries, and all their boundaries and bearings on the two and thirty points of the compass.   Ah, rather overdone, M’Choakumchild.  If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!”

That last line jumped out at me like a bullet:   “If he had only learnt a little less, how infinitely better he might have taught much more!”

Is it possible that a person can just be too smart or too well educated to be a good teacher?

Well, hopefully not, but it does present some challenges:

--If you understand material especially well, it is often difficult to comprehend why certain aspects are not readily apparent to a 19 year old college student.   In such cases, it becomes easy to skip over essential parts of the process because “anybody can see how these two steps connect.”   What is clear to a teacher is not necessarily clear to a student. 

--If you love the material (which is often why people study particular subjects so intensely), it is often difficult to comprehend why other folks might not be equally enamored.   Thus, although reading 300 pages of dense material over a week-end might be a thrill for you, a 19 year old college student might present a bit of resistance.  What is fun to a teacher is not necessarily fun to a student.

 --If you are truly excited about the material, it is often difficult not to talk on and on and on about it.   You then find it incomprehensible that a 19 year old college student could possible nod off in the middle of your monologue.  What is enthralling to a teacher is not necessarily enthralling to a student.

Obviously, you cannot unlearn material or become dumber simply because you think it might make you a better teacher.   No, but you can work to see the course more through the eyes of a student.

As I wrote last year, I like to take classes over the summer – especially in topics where I know absolutely nothing – just to help me stay aware of what it feels like to be “the dumb one in the room.”   Last summer, I took tai chi (and am still taking tai chi) and I have struggled terribly to do things that my teacher does with ease.   He makes a movement with his hands and arms and legs and then I do what seems to be exactly the same thing.   The teacher then shows me at least 9 different reasons why I am off.   Luckily, he is very patient with me.

This summer, I am taking a class in pottery.   I know nothing about pottery.   I know less about pottery than I know about tai chi.

At the first class, the teacher handed me a one-pound piece of clay and showed how to shape it into a cone.   When she did this shaping, it looked like something a 4 year old dog could have done.   It could not have looked easier.   So, of course, I messed it up completely.   She actually had to take the clay from my hands and toss it aside.   Without professional work, my effort was beyond help.   I wanted to bang my head against the wall.

For me, at those special moments, I become a better teacher.   I can actually feel how difficult it is to do something for the very first time and not the 10,000^th time.   I needed to be shown again (and again and again).   I needed for the teacher to do it incredibly slowly.   She did and, eventually, I was able to turn my clay into a cone and get it on the wheel and come up with something roughly like a cup.   For me, every step was a trial.   Nothing came easy.   It was just a whole lot tougher to be a student than I would have anticipated.   But, when I had made my cup, I was thrilled.   The educational process had worked its magic!   I had managed to succeed (or take a small first step toward success).

You have a lot of summer left.   Why not find a class like tai chi or pottery or some such and take it?   Go in as stupid as possible and see what you can learn.   Remember what it feels like to be “the dumb one in the room.”

I believe this is a good suggestion.   I hope you will try it.   From my experience, the typical response is:   “that’s a great idea” and then it never gets done.   That’s just human nature.   But it is also why improvement is often so difficult.   We want to get better; we truly do.   But we don’t necessarily want to do the things that might bring about such improvement.   Prove me wrong -- go sign up for a class.

 

HERE'S YOUR SUMMER ASSIGNMENT

As I have mentioned before, on August 7, 2013, I will be giving a 75 minute presentation about this blog at the Annual Convention of the American Accounting Association in Anaheim, California.  If you are going to be at the convention, I hope you’ll stop by and chat.   I’d love to meet each and every one of the people who read these essays.  I’ll be there for several days so let’s get together over coffee and talk about teaching.  

In preparing for this talk, I have gone back and looked at some of the 170 posts that I have written over the years.   To me, it is interesting how many of these posts push teachers (including me) to think about the last day of class and what the teachers want their students to have accomplished.   Until you visualize what you want your students to do by the end of the semester, it is hard to know how to guide them.   Over and over, you see that theme in my thoughts on teaching.   You can accomplish very little without knowing specifically what you want to accomplish.   Notice the word is not “vaguely” but “specifically.”  

One of my very favorite posts was “Training Dogs” which I put up on this site on March 4, 2010.   (It is available at http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2010/03/training-dogs.html ).   This essay talks about how people go about training dogs and makes what I thought was an obvious point:   training students uses the same basic techniques that you would use in training dogs.   It seems easy when you talk about dogs; in fact, it seems like basic common sense.   I am not sure why it appears so much more complicated when working with college students.

In this earlier essay, I ask readers to come up with 8 steps for training dogs.   They are all obvious but my very first one is:   “Have a firm understanding of what you want them to accomplish.”   Again, that seems so self-evident.   You cannot teach a dog to roll over if you are not sure what you want the dog to do.  

Unless the goal is clear in your mind, the dog will just be confused.  

Unless the goal is clear in your mind, the student will just be confused.  

I think a lot of teachers who struggle are simply not sure of their goal.   Maybe vaguely they are but not specifically.

Okay, how do you put this into practice?   I was working with one of our younger teachers this week and I gave him an assignment that might be helpful to you.   I told him to spend several hours over the summer writing a “hypothetical but absolutely perfect final exam” for his fall classes.  In other words, if the students did exactly what he wanted them to do for the entire semester, what would he want them to show him on the final exam?   That seems like a legitimate assignment.   If the students learned exactly what he had hoped for, how would they be able to show that on the final exam?    It seems to me that there really needs to be a connection between those final questions and what they ultimately need to know.

So, don’t write your final exam at the end of the semester to ascertain grades.

Instead, write your final exam now before the semester even begins as a guide for what you want your students to be able to do by the end.   Don’t be vague – make those questions as specific as you possibly can.   That's the real purpose -- to add specificity to your goals.

Okay, you probably won’t ever give this exam.   That’s not the point.   The point is to help YOU (not them) to visualize what you want them to be able to accomplish at a high quality level.

Visualize the perfect semester where every class goes great and every assignment is done well and every reading is carefully analyzed.   How would the students be able to demonstrate that they had done really well for you?  

Surely, you would not fill up this hypothetical exam with memorization questions.   That just cannot be your ultimate goal.  Well, if that’s not the goal, what is your goal?   What would be several perfect questions to allow students to show you the intense depth of their understanding?

I have an idea that this might be a very interesting summer project.   I have held before in these essays that most teachers spend way too little time thinking about testing and how it can be used to help pattern student learning.   Here’s a chance to give some deep thought to that process.

By the time school starts back in the fall, can you have a hypothetical final exam created that would enable your students to show what they know and understand?   If so, that can really serve as a road map for how you attack each day of the entire semester.   Anything that won’t get the students moving toward the point where they can answer those hypothetical final exam questions will quickly start to seem trivial to you.   And, that’s probably a good sign.

A Good Suggestion

Before I get started today, I want to mention that this blog went over 83,000 page views a few days ago.  I truly am thrilled by that level of traffic and wanted (as always) to thank everyone who passes along the URL to someone else.  I believe that we teachers CAN improve teaching in this country and in this world but only by being willing to share ideas and resources.   We need to think and talk more about teaching, learning, and education.   There should be genuine joy and excitement in the exchange of teaching/learning thoughts.   I hope the blog encourages those activities.

**

Two nights ago, my wife and I went to see the play “Red” here in Richmond about the artist Mark Rothko and his paintings.  It was an excellent play and I enjoyed it all.  But there was one very short section that I have thought about 1,000 times over the last 48 hours.   In the play, Rothko is talking about how he learned to become an artist and develop his unique style.   At a critical point in his development, he saw a painting by Henri Matisse at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City that really intrigued him.   The work was so interesting to him that he went back day after day and stood there for hours on end just trying to figure out how Matisse had done it.   He stared at each part of the art work until he was able to unravel the mystery.

He didn’t check out a book about Matisse and read it.

He didn’t take a class on Matisse and have someone explain the work to him.

He didn't read about Matisse in Wikipedia.

He didn’t call up Matisse on the telephone and ask for a tip.

He went back day after day, hour after hour, and stared at the work to figure out how it was done.

I can’t even begin to tell you fascinating I found those two or three sentences.

**
I had a genuinely wonderful teaching experience this past semester.   As I discussed in a blog posting on January 1, 2013, I helped set up a class in Victorian Literature for 10 second semester senior accounting majors.   We read and discussed Great Expectations, North & South, and The Mill on the Floss.  

I served as the teaching assistant for this class.   In truth, this meant that I read each book and sat in on the class and participated in the discussions.  

The best part, though, was that I got to watch an excellent teacher at work each day.   The class was taught by Dr. Elisabeth Rose Gruner of the English Department here at the University of Richmond.   For 75 minutes each week, I got to observe a master teacher at work.   What a great experience.  What a great opportunity.

Dr. Gruner and I teach using very different styles.   My goal, though, was not to become her.   Rothko certainly didn’t want to become Matisse.   He wanted to understand how Matisse managed to create art.    I wanted to see how Dr. Rose taught.   I wanted to see how she managed to create learning.   Mainly, I wanted to see how she could get 10 senior accounting majors to learn, appreciate, and enjoy the writings of Charles Dickens and George Eliot.   That sounds absolutely impossible but she did it.   And, she did it well.  

Each day in class, we would start with some seemingly casual conversation about one of the novels and the author.   Some days we would actually read passages aloud together so we could hear the sound of the words.   Often, Dr. Gruner would pose a question about the reading for that day and we would spend 10 minutes or so writing out our thoughts.   We would then talk about what we had written.  It was a fabulous class.  All 10 students were deeply engaged every day.

I was interested in many “how did she do that??” questions.

--How did she get the 10 accounting majors to actually talk in class about literature without having them feel threatened?

--How did she get students who were incredibly busy to actually read long Victorian novels?
--How did she get the students to appreciate a writer like Charles Dickens who seems 500 years removed from the style of a current author?  (Great Expectations is certainly not Harry Potter.)

What did I learn?   I’m not sure I can tell you.   I know that Dr. Rose listened to the students wonderfully well, much better than I ever do.    I know that she was able to convey her genuine love of those books while still showing her frustration with some aspects of each work.   I know that she was not obsessed with getting to a predetermined answer in such a hurry which often inhibits interesting student ideas.    I know that she was great at asking questions to make the students think.   I will always remember those 10 accounting majors having an animated conversation on the last day of the semester when Dr. Rose asked:   “Well, if you don’t like the way George Eliot ended The Mill on the Floss, how would you have ended it differently?”  

I’m 100 percent convinced that I am a better teacher for watching her teach.   This wasn't my goal but I'm still delighted.

**

Would you like to be a great teacher?   Don’t read a book.   In truth, I’m not even sure that reading this blog is much help.   Don't ask for tips or clues.

Here’s my main advice, especially for new teachers.

Go find the very best teacher at your school even if that person teaches something like Victorian Literature.   Don’t find the most popular teacher or the funniest teacher.   Find the teacher who is genuinely the best.   If you talk with students, you'll quickly hear descriptions of a few, truly great, teachers.  

Ask that teacher if you can sit in on class for three solid weeks.   I don’t think one day is really enough to catch on to what is really going on.   Rothko didn't look at the Matisse once.   He came back day after day.

Before you start your class visits, write down several “how is the teacher doing this?” questions that you want to answer over these three weeks.

--How is the teacher getting the students to participate rather than sit on their hands?

--How is the teacher getting the students to prepare before they come to class?
--How is the teacher getting the students to think more deeply?
--How is the teacher getting all of the students involved and not just the ones who like to talk?

Then, during every class for 3 weeks watch what happens.   Try to look behind the superficial to see what is really going on in the class.

You don’t want to become that teacher.   That’s never the goal.   You want to understand how that teacher is creating the magic that we refer to as learning.   That will make you a better teacher.

 

WHAT WAS YOUR BEST?

 

In my previous blog posting, I talked about the creation of faculty learning communities as a way to generate conversation about various aspects of teaching/learning/education.   At that time, I brought up one of my favorite topics.   If you have read this blog for long, you are aware that I am a firm believer that the way you test will strongly influence the way your students learn.   If you want to create a different class environment, you need to test differently.

Therefore, in discussing faculty learning communities, I strongly feel that every aspect of testing should be a topic of serious conversation by people who want to become better teachers.

So, today, I have a question for you.   I would bet it is a question that you have never been asked before no matter how long you have taught.   And, I would argue that it is a question we should be asking all the time.   In fact, I think we should have a national contest built around this one question.   I believe the answers might well improve college education (which is not a small statement to make).

Here’s the question.   Think before you answer. 

Whether you teach history, political science, math, accounting, or the like, in your testing during the past semester (or academic year), what was the very best question you asked your class on a test?   If testing matters so much, then we should all have some really good questions that we are especially proud of having written.   Why did you feel that particular question was so good?

Excellent test questions set the tone for your class:   this is what I consider important, this is the way I want you to learn, this is the kind of thinking you should be doing, this is what I want from you rather than memorization.   Students need guidance – nothing guides them quite like what they believe will be on the tests.

Okay, so what was my best question for the past semester?   As most readers of this blog probably know, I teach accounting at the Robins School of Business at the University of Richmond.    We have very bright students who are willing to do as much or as little as you ask of them.   It is all about asking.   In testing, I want them to know that I am going to ask them for a lot of serious thinking.

One of my courses is Intermediate Accounting II.   Most of my students believe that accounting is basically the memorization of set rules that they must apply to particular situations.   Many of them are left-brained and love the comfort of those rules.   They are not necessarily happy that I want them to think outside of the box.

However, my experience has been that, in real life, accountants are thrown into odd situations almost every day and must use all of their brain cells to figure out what is going on so that they can determine what response is needed.  

You can learn the rules for being a medical doctor but the actual application is much more stressful (and interesting).

On my first test this past semester, I wanted to break the students away from the memorization of rules.   So, when they opened the test, they discovered that they had an accounting client on the planet Kryptoplasm.   The businesses on that planet use a unique set of accounting rules (referred to as Krypto-GAAP).   I then presented a variety of situations and described the basic rules found in Krypto-GAAP.  I then asked the students to determine the impact of converting the financial statements prepared on that planet into financial statements that could be used in the US (based on US GAAP).   For each situation, they had to tell if reported net income would go up or down, whether the reported liabilities would go up or down, and so on.

The students had never seen anything like this which is what I wanted.  

What was I trying to accomplish?

--I wanted the students to read the questions carefully.   They could not anticipate the accounting rules on the other planet so they had to read the words and think about what those people were doing.   I think the ability to read and think through what you are being told is vitally important in solving problems.

--I wanted to downplay the importance of memorization.   No matter what you tell a student they will believe that they can prosper by memorizing everything you have said.   I wanted no questions that simply asked them to replicate a mechanical rule.

--I wanted them to make judgments as to which rules should have been applied.   By describing the weird things that were happening on this planet, they had to step back and think about how those events should be reported.   The problem was more than just manipulating numbers.

--Despite being set on a faraway planet, I wanted the students to be placed in a real life situation.   Having a client do weird things is no stretch of the imagination.   Too many tests have nothing to do with real life and reinforce the student’s suspicions that college classes are just student exercises.

Did I like the results?

Yes, in fact, I liked this question so very well that my second test used the same format (without warning the students).

Yes, in fact, the standard joke in my classes quickly came to be “what would they do in Krypto-GAAP?” which alerted the students to the fact that accounting rules are not set in stone but simply selected at a point in time and place as the most appropriate method.

Did the test question work?   I have no hard data but I do know that I had a really good semester in Intermediate Accounting II.   My students quickly came to be open to talking about accounting in interesting and theoretical ways.   We learned the rules but we didn’t become obsessed with the rules.   I think one of the major reasons why the semester went so well was because of the message that I sent out in that first test (and then followed up on in the second test).   This question helped show the students the kind of thinking I wanted them to be able to do.   The way you test is the way they will learn.

So, what was your best question of the past semester?