A PROFESSIONAL STUDENT

(ESSAY NUMBER 345) One of my main goals every semester is to help my students become better at being good students.  I want them to walk out of class on the last day as more efficient learners.  I’m often shocked at how poorly they have been trained as students.  Some of my smartest students struggle simply because they don’t know how to succeed as a student.  So, for example, over the summer, I offer them extra credit for the fall if they will read either Make It Stick or Outsmart Your Brain. 

In addition, four months before they enter my class, I try to start planting the concept of a “professional student” in their brains.  That is a student who knows how to be successful as a student versus being an “amateur student” who always seems to take the wrong approach.  I’d like the idea of a “professional student” to rattle around in their heads for a while before they meet me.  That goal doesn’t require smarts.  It just requires being alert, paying attention, and getting into the habit of doing things the right way.  I want them to walk in on the first day thinking, “I know this is a challenging course but if I do things the right way I can be successful.” 

So, yesterday, I emailed my 56 students for the fall (in Accounting 301 and 302) the attached note.  It is nothing brilliant.  It just says, “In my class, there is a right way and a wrong way to do things.  If you do things the right way, I think you’ll have a much greater chance to be a successful student. In that case, this will be one of your very favorite courses. That is what I want."

In case you are interested, here is the note I sent to my students yesterday.  I talk about accounting with them because it is an accounting course.  You can easily substitute history, biology, or the like based on whatever you teach.

**

To:  Intermediate Accounting Students for the Fall Semester

From:  JH

I hope you are winding up a fantastic semester and that you are looking forward to a great summer.

You will be entering my class (likely for the first time) next semester.  Virtually all of you have been students since you were 4 or 5 years old.  You probably have spent about 80 percent of your lives as students.  After so many years and so many teachers, you should be very good at being a student.  I often refer to college students as “professional students” because they have spent such a long time at it.  If you spent that much of your life playing pickle ball or poker, you’d be a pro.  Same for being a student.

I find that many of the students in intermediate accounting really do qualify as professional students.  They know how to get it done and done well.  They are often not smarter.  They just know how this learning business works. 

However, some students strike me as amateurs when it comes to being a student.  They are often the smartest people in the room, but they just cannot seem to live up to that because they are not very good at being a student.

Over the summer, I want you to think about what it means to have the talents of a professional student.  I think that will help you do better in my class next fall as well as in all your other classes.  Stop being an amateur when it comes to school and you’ll be a better student than you ever thought you could be.  That’s what you and I both should want. 

Here are a few of my observations. 

Most students are aware that my class consists of three separate actions.  First, I give all the questions and problems to the students a day or two prior to class.  Second, I ask students to discuss the questions with me and the rest of the class.  They’ve had the questions for a day or two.  They should be ready.  Third, about 50 percent of the time (more in 302 than 301), I send out a practice problem a few hours after class for the students to use for practice purposes. This is complicated college material, so I suggest (strongly) that students spend 80-100 minutes every day (no more, no less) on intermediate accounting.

--Within a week or so, professional students figure out how to spend the suggested time (80-100 minutes) every day and just build that scheduled work into their daily planners.

It becomes a daily ritual.

--Amateur students have a different attitude, “I’ve never studied 80-100 minutes per day for any class in my life and I don’t plan to start now.”  That attitude never changes even if grades are not what they would like.

--Professional students realize that I send out a lot of information using emails so they read the emails.  It just becomes part of the ritual.

--Amateur students get an email from me and roll their eyes wondering what planet I’m from.  They store these away to be forgotten.  For these students, procrastination is the biggest roadblock for success. 

--In the 10-20 minutes prior to class, professional students go back and re-read the daily handout, highlighting any names or numbers they will need if called on for a particular question.  Or, they chat with other students about what appropriate answers might be.  If called on, they want to sound like a professional accountant.

--In the 10-20 minutes prior to class, amateur students scroll through their phones looking for some entertainment.  (You will be able to recognize amateur students.  When, I call on them to describe a problem, they immediately begin reading it to me because they aren’t really sure what it is about.  Don’t read problems [that I wrote] to me.  Tell me the facts that they contain.)

--Professional students learn to read the professor and figure out what he really wants from them.  They are flexible and willing to adapt if that seems appropriate. 

--Amateur students seem incapable of anticipating what the professor wants from them.  You will occasionally hear them say, “I never thought he would do that.”

--Professional students realize that the material is complex so they are going to need to get it down in writing as quickly as possible after class.  They set up a system to clear up and organize their class notes within just a few hours of class.

--Amateur students believe if they understood a concept during class, they will understand it forever so there is no reason to write it down or solidify it through organized note taking.

--Professional students do any and every practice problem within 12 hours of receipt.  If anything is wrong, they bring their work to me for help just as soon as possible.  That’s my job—to be of help in learning this stuff.

--Amateur students file away practice problems and try to figure them out right before the test (often in a mad dash).  They are not concerned about understanding.  Memorization rather than understanding was stressed in their high school classes.

--Professional students read test questions carefully and highlight the information that might be relevant to the problem to be solved.  They stay methodical and don’t get rattled.

--Amateur students skim the test and never quite get a handle on the facts that are being presented.  They often start trying to answer the questions before they even know what they’ve got to work with.

--Professional students come by my office whenever there is any confusion.  They come by before class so there won’t be any confusion during class.  They come by after class to clear up anything from class that they didn’t understand.

--Amateur students come by the day before a test and try to ask three weeks worth of questions.  Without a doubt, the biggest enemy an amateur student has is procrastination.  Redundant point but still important.

 

My fundamental message is that you will enjoy this coming semester ever so much more if you are successful.  Heck, that just makes sense.  So, I very much want you (YOU) to be successful.  I believe that success is more likely if you start right away working to be a professional student – meaning that you do everything we do in the best possible way. 

One thing you can do in the fall to help guarantee maximum success is to take 5-10 minutes after every class to evaluate how well you did and why – were you prepared, did you listen to the questions and think about how you would answer them, did you stress understanding more than memorization.  Nothing beats learning from your own actions.

Maybe most importantly, did you find joy in what we were doing?  Did you enjoy the discussion and thinking about how to resolve the problems we faced?  I’m a strong believer that the best classes are the ones that create the most joy in learning.  I find accounting fascinating like some giant and intricate puzzle.  To me, that is what success should mean for a professional student.

 

 

 

 

GETTING READY FOR NEXT SEMESTER – SIX SUGGESTIONS

 

(Essay number 344).  Over about 16 years now, I have written 343 essays on this blog about my experiences as a college teacher.  One of the main reasons that I do this is because it helps force me to pay close attention to my own teaching and focus on its most important elements.  In other words, I write these essays because they help make me a better college teacher (and hopefully help my readers as well).  Thus, if you truly want to teach better, you should consider starting your own blog.  The thinking that goes into the writing is extremely helpful. 

Although I love the written word, podcasts have become unbelievably popular.  So, I thought I would convey my 344^th teaching essay as a video.  I’m not sure if I’ll ever do this again, but I thought once would be fun.   The link is below.  In this video, I talk about the importance of getting ready in advance for your next semester.  When I first started teaching in 1971, I probably started three days in advance.  Now, 55 years later, I start 4 ½ months in advance.  And, I think that does help my semesters work out much better.  More success and less frustration.

Although this is a different format, I hope you’ll watch as I talk about my six suggestions for getting ready to teach a college class in the fall. 

 

https://youtu.be/oETZOxw2GZ4

 

 

GETTING STUDENTS TO CHANGE THEIR STORIES

(Essay Number 343)   I gave my first test in Intermediate Accounting II (a genuinely hard course) a few weeks ago and had 18 percent A’s, 46 percent B’s, and 36 percent other grades. Pretty normal for a first test, but I genuinely wanted every student (even the A students) to start making improvements. So, I sent the students the following email to encourage them to change their inner stories. I think many of us hold ourselves back simply by the stories we tell ourselves.  (Can you verbalize one story you are telling yourself at this time in your life that is holding you back from the success you want?)

**

(To my students)
I am a person who loves quotes. One of my very favorites comes from the book "Wild" by Cheryl Strayed.

“Fear, to a great extent, is born of a story we tell ourselves, and so I chose to tell myself a different story.”

When it comes to the work required in this course, absolutely everyone tells themselves stories and those stories are often negative and hold you back. Now that we have finished our first test, it would be a good time to assess the stories you have been telling yourself.

“I’m just not smart enough to do well in this course.”
“I don’t do well in classes where the teacher cold calls on students.”
“I’m never going to make an A so why should I try.”
“I always make stupid mistakes.”
“I’m not a good test taker.”
“I don’t have the discipline to be well prepared for class.”
“The other students are just better at this than I am.”
“I must be the dumbest person in class.”
“I didn’t do very well in Intermediate I so I’m never going to do well in Intermediate II.”

I hear those stories all the time and they are nonsense. Nothing in your DNA says that you cannot do well in this course. Yeah, the course requires work, and I want you to read the questions carefully and think about what they are saying, but none of this is outside of your abilities. Change the stories you are telling yourself and you’ve taken the first step toward a better grade.

“This stuff is actually interesting and the class is almost fun. I never thought I would say this but I’m enjoying it.”
“Now that we’ve been together for a month, I am beginning to see what the professor really wants from us.”
“Perfection is not the goal. I just need to improve.”
“I am going to prepare better and that will make my learning in class more effective.”
“I do understand that this class must be a real priority for me and it will be from now on.”
“I won’t let anyone outwork me in this class.”

We are all human. We tend to focus on what we think are our weaknesses. Change the story you are telling yourself and you’ll change your life. As far as I’m concerned, the only story that is relevant is that you want to do better and you are willing to do the work to make that happen.

****

Here's a separate note from me (Joe Hoyle).  Hopefully, in the next month or two, I will release a new (free) book for professors who teach Financial Accounting and Intermediate Accounting.  It will contain 100 problems and related questions that I have created and used in these two courses over the decades to push better understanding and help students develop their critical thinking skills.   Watch this space for more information.   The book is being produced because of something I read recently in a famous college teaching book:

"Sometimes I think that we, as teachers, are so eager to get to the answers that we do not devote sufficient time to developing the question."

IN LIFE (AND COLLEGE CLASSES), ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING

(Essay 342)  Tomorrow is the first day of my spring semester.  I always want to focus on how to get my students off to a great start.  William James once stated the obvious, "It is our attitude at the beginning of a difficult task which, more than anything else, will affect its successful outcome.”  The problem is:  How do you help your students start out with a healthy attitude toward your course?  They’ve been in school for so long that they often walk in expecting to have trouble staying awake.

I am teaching Intermediate Accounting II this spring, which has always been known as a very challenging course.  Plus, even accounting majors tend to believe that accounting can be a boring slog.  Therefore, helping my students start the semester with a good attitude is never easy. 

Some teachers, I expect, simply direct the students to have a good attitude without really explaining what that means.  Kind of sounds like the old song, "Be Happy.  Don't Worry."  Saying it is different from doing it.

I decided to try a different tactic this semester.  I sent my 63 students the following email today to help get them ready for our first class tomorrow. 

Will it help get them into a positive mindset?  Will their attitudes be universally positive?  Honestly, I don’t know, but I think (if I were 19 years old again), this story would have caught my attention.  It’s in a form that I think they can relate to.  Any story of an athlete willing to step up and hit the winning shot should resonate with a lot of people, especially students.  At least I hope so.

*

To:  Accounting 302 Students

From:  JH

I've taught so long that I have a story for everything.

Years ago I was reading an autobiography of a famous basketball star.  He told this story.  He was playing in the final game of the pro (NBA) basketball championships.  There were only a few seconds left in the game and his team was behind by a point or two.  The coach called time out to set up a final play.  All five of the players on the floor immediately rushed over to the coach to demand that they be given the ball so they could take the winning shot.  They were sure they could do it and they wanted to do it.  The player writing the book said that, at that moment, he knew they were going to win and they did.

Everyone knows that I call on students in class.  For 50 minutes, I'll call on people and we'll chat.  Any moment in any class when you are not praying to be called on is the moment when you are not an A student.  At that moment, you are just one of the fans observing the game and not one of the players in the middle of the action.  

*

Will it help -- I think it will, at least a little.  Try something similar and see if it works for you.

*

In case you are interested in watching my 12 minute TEDxYouth@RVA talk about transformative education, here is the link:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20tup61ZxI&t=1s

 

And, my book, Transformative Education, is available as a free download at:

 

https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/

 

If all of that is not enough, you can also go to the following link and where a video where I tell four stories about teaching in college. 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT428yjJ0Ls

 

SIX REFLECTIONS FROM THE SEMESTER PAST

 

(Essay 341)   I recently finished my 109^th semester as a college teacher.  It was a good semester.  I was happy about most things.  In case you are interested, 29.3 percent of my students earned the grade of A (standing, as I tell them, for “excellence”). 

However, as I say after every semester, “It could have been better.”  I had great students, but too many students got (and deserved) C’s.  I always wonder what I could have done to entice a bit better work out of those C students. 

The winter break is a wonderful time for some serious reflection.  Over the decades, whenever I speak at conferences or on other campuses, I always push the idea of ongoing improvement.  Evolution should be the goal of any teacher.  Feeling satisfied is usually an open door to problems. 

Consequently, after every semester concludes, I spend some serious time thinking about what happened and why.  If you have followed this blog for long, you know that I love lists.  So, here is my list of the things that stood out to me from these past three months.  Making a list is not a bad strategy for starting a conversation with yourself on how you can get better. 

(1)—For decades, I have used the 20 minutes that I drive to campus every morning to listen to an audio book.   I have read countless books in this manner from East of Eden to The DaVinci Code.  This semester, I never started a single book.  Instead, I used those 20 minutes to walk through my two preps for that day.  I envisioned what I wanted to have happen – what questions I should ask and what learning structure I should create?  I had already written down my lesson plans the day before, but I tried each morning to make sure that I had the class mentally organized and fresh.  Several times I left my car, walked into my building and directly to my classroom, and wrote down on the board, “Here is exactly what I want us to accomplish today.”  Never done that before, but the students seemed to like the tip.

I was surprised by how much I thought those 20 minutes of “envisioning” helped my classes to feel fresh.  I did miss reading books but there’s plenty of other time for that.  My classes simply seemed more alive to me this past fall and I credit that imagining process for creating a clearer mental outline.

If you have a commute to campus, you might try a step-by-step review each day before you head into class.  Just be careful and don’t drive off the road into a ditch.

(2)—I have sometimes observed that as faculty members get older, they often become more easily angered by their students.  I always say that the “A” word becomes a sign that a professor should think about retirement.  The traditional complaint that, “Students today are not as good as they used to be” can say more about the professor than about the students or about the times.

Since I am nearly 80, I have worked hard to replace any anger with a different “A” word.  Every day, I work to be “amused” by my students.  That’s not always possible, but as often as I can, I try to find some of the stuff they do as amusing rather than getting angry or upset at them.  I’m not sure that becoming angry at students ever does any good for either you or the students.

I want my students to learn because they want to learn and not because they are scared of me.  Be careful if you notice yourself growing angry more often than in the past.

(3)—I had the pleasure of watching the movie The Last Class about the final semester of Robert Reich’s legendary career as a college prof.  Watching the story of his life in teaching was quite an inspiration for me.  It is nice to be reminded of how lucky we are to be in a wonderful profession with the daily opportunity to change lives.

Sometimes we all need our batteries recharged and this was one of the ways that helped me this past semester.

(4)—One of the oddities of the past semester was that in the higher level of my two preps, I had fewer students come my office than I usually expect.  One of the things any teacher should watch out for are any changes that are observed.  Was this just a random occurrence or was there a reason?   Was I not as welcoming as usual?   Was the material simpler?  Did I grade more easily?   I don’t have an answer for this, but I’m going to pay attention and see if this one-semester trend is more permanent.  As I often tell my students, “I’m not bored so there’s no need for you to come by unless you think I can be of help.”  Evolution is not just about coming up with new ideas but also watching for changes and then considering what those changes mean. 

I tell people that I prepare and carry out class trying to emulate successful football coaches who study every aspect of every play working to make their team better and more likely to end the game as winners.  I try to observe and study every aspect of every class.

(5)—The quotation that had the biggest effect on me this past year came from page 16 of Why Don’t Students Like School? by Daniel T. Willingham.  “Sometimes I think that we, as teachers, are so eager to get to the answers that we do not devote sufficient time to developing the question.”  I’m biased on this, but I think any college teacher could improve class immediately if they focused on this one sentence. 

When you are teaching a class, what is your prime focus?  What are you really trying to do?  I won’t speak for Dr. Willingham but, for me, having that perfect question ready to entice the students into caring is a fundamental key to all great education. 

(6)—And, finally, I continued my effort not to let my students become invisible in my classes.  We live in a time where suicide rates are high, and students complain about extreme loneliness.  I call on students by name every day and I email them if they are absent.  I try to get them into my office so I can talk with them one-on-one.  As my brother once reminded me, “You are not supposed to be a professional friend.  You are supposed to be a friendly professional.”  That’s advice I try to practice every day.  Students can (and do) say bad things about each of us on student evaluations, but I never want to hear any student say about me, “He didn’t know me and he didn’t care about me or my education.”  I go out of my way to make sure that never happens.

Those were some of my end-of-year thoughts.  What did you take away from the fall semester.  Take some time off and sit down with a cup of coffee or tea or a glass of beer or wine and just reflect on the past few months.  You might be amazed by what your brain tells you.

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!!   I HOPE 2026 IS SIMPLY THE GREATEST YEAR OF YOUR ENTIRE LIFE.

In case you are interested in watching my 12 minute TEDxYouth@RVA talk about transformative education, here is the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20tup61ZxI&t=1s

And, my book, Transformative Education, is available as a free download at:

https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/

If all of that is not enough, you can also go to the following link and where a video where I tell four stories about teaching in college. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT428yjJ0Ls

 

 

TWELVE THINGS I’VE LEARNED DURING MY FIRST 54 YEARS AS A COLLEGE TEACHER

(ESSAY 340)   In two weeks, I will finish my 54th year as a college teacher.  My 70 students have, so far this semester, done incredibly well.  I’m proud of their efforts and how much they want to learn.  I’m pleased by their ambition and their willingness to keep working on complex materials day after day.

After 54 years, I surely must have learned something about teaching.  Every few years, I try to figure out what I know now that I didn’t understand back in August of 1971 when I stepped into my first classroom and said, “Hello my name is Joe Hoyle and I’m here to help you learn.”

As I have said previously on this blog, I love lists.  So I created a countdown of the twelve most important things (in my own mind) that I have learned about college teaching during more than five decades on the job.  (The original list was supposed to be ten, but I couldn’t cut it down that far.)  If you ask me tomorrow, I might give you a different list, but these are the items that strike me as essential right now.

(12)—The way you test is the way your students will learn.  If you tell them you want to help them develop their critical thinking skills and then you test their memorization, you should not be surprised when they put all their focus on memorization.

(11)—Be willing to market your class to your students.  Here’s a good message, “This is important stuff, and it will be fun, and you can be successful.”  If you don’t believe that, you need to redesign your course.  Assuming you do believe it, you occasionally need to explain to your students the primary benefits of what they are learning.  During any semester, I will ask my students to do a considerable amount of hard work.  They will naturally be resistant unless I help them understand how the resulting knowledge is going to affect their lives in a positive way.  “Learn it because I said so,” is not likely to inspire the best from any college student.  They deserve to know why you think the assignments in your class are important.

(10)—Every class session should be important.  I believe college education must be transformative.  I want to create a significant piece of that transformation every day.  By the time they make it through middle school and high school and arrive at my class, many students have suffered through a lot of what I refer to as “trivial education,” education that has no joy and no apparent purpose.  I’m not paid to do that.  I want every student to walk out of every class thinking that their time has been well spent.

(9)—On the first day of every semester, I explain to my students that I define the grade of A as “excellent.”  I don’t believe teachers are doing students a favor by giving them an A for lesser work.  College students are not naïve.  They know the difference between excellent and good.  They might love getting an A without much effort, but the thrill of that success will be tainted.  

(8)—Procrastination is a mighty foe.  Students are human beings, and human beings are not always great at self-motivation.  As a student once told me, “I have a busy life.  If your assignment is not on fire, I have other things that need to be done.”  To help students achieve serious accomplishments, the teacher should provide a bit of urgency now and then as motivation so they can overcome their natural procrastination.  A teacher’s common announcement, “Pay attention because this will be on the test,” is nothing more than a trite method to create urgency in the heads of the students.  Surely, there are better ways to give them the push they need.  I add that urgency by using the Socratic Method and then cold calling on every student every day.  That style fits my personality.  Every teacher should consider how they can best bring a little urgency into their class to help students get beyond procrastination.  Find a method that works for you because your students are not robots.  They are human beings.

(7)—I work to know every student as a person and then make sure they understand that I know them.  Many students feel invisible sitting in a class and that has a detrimental effect on their interest in attaining a quality education.  I call on them every day by name and often email them when they are absent.  I try to instill in each person a confidence that success is possible no matter what their previous experiences have been.  “I know this is a complicated subject, but you are bright and if you work hard, you can do well even if you don’t make an A.  I’m here to help.  Let’s make something good happen.”

(6)—A great marriage and a great class are both based on open and clear communications.  Students cannot read the teacher’s mind.  You should think about what they need to consider to be successful and then convey that information very clearly.  Over the course of a semester, I probably email my students 100 times.  Most messages are short and all should be to the point.  I frequently start the correspondence with, “Here’s something you should think about as you get ready for tomorrow’s class” or “Here’s something you should have noted in this morning’s class.”  We all want our students to be successful.  If I can make the topic more interesting or if I can help the students avoid some type of educational pitfall, why not tell them?

(5)—Talk less.  I suspect that 100 percent of college teachers talk too much in class.  People don’t like silence and, if students are not inclined to speak, the teacher often gets anxious and starts filling in that silence.  And, students are usually glad to let the teacher do all the work.  There are many ways to push students to be active.  Find the strategy that works best for you.  I pose questions, sometimes odd or unique questions.  I try to say as little as possible.  I want the students to do the talking and thinking and work out the answer.  Occasionally, if a student responds to one of my questions with a question, my comment will be, “I’m paid enough to ask questions.  I’m not paid enough to provide answers.  Right or wrong, I expect you to provide the answers.”  For college students, I think that is appropriate.  The practice of working through a problem to arrive at their own answer is an excellent way for students to achieve understanding.

(4)—Having clear and reasonable goals is essential.  Whenever I talk with new teachers, the first and last questions I stress are:  What do you want your last class of the semester to look like and feel like?  What kind of transformation are you trying to create?  Identify the specifics of that vision and keep them in mind whenever you make decisions on what to cover or what to test or what to do in the next class or how to respond to a student plea.  Your vision for the final class of the semester is your guiding star.  Consider what the most efficient way is to achieve that goal.  Set clear goals and set them high.  Then work as hard as you can to get every student to achieve those goals.

(3)—Every class session works better if students spend an appropriate amount of time in preparation.  Nothing ever works well if students arrive without being prepared.  Students who are well prepared can create miracles in class.  Students who are not prepared become stenographers.  How do you encourage students to do the work necessary to be properly prepared when they walk into class every day?  If you can solve this challenge, you have the chance to become a truly outstanding teacher.  I provide complicated questions in advance and then tell them, “I’m going to call on you and I want legitimate answers so be prepared.”  Does it work?  For me, yes, some of the time.

(2)—I have long believed that the most underutilized time in a student’s education comes during the 24-48 hours after class.  Proper understanding does not occur until class coverage is organized and solidified and that needs to happen as soon as possible after the student leaves class.  After many, if not most, of my classes, I email my students a 15–30-minute practice assignment with the instructions, “This question covers what we did in class today but is probably 10 percent harder just to stretch your knowledge.  I have included the answer I think is best.  If you can’t get to my answer, bring your work and swing by my office and I’ll give you a push.”  If I had to provide one practical teaching recommendation, it would be some type of assignment immediately after class.  Once I started doing that on a regular basis, I felt that the quality of the learning went up dramatically.  (The second chapter of the wonderful book Make It Stick by Brown, Roediger III, and McDaniel is titled, “To Learn, Retrieve.”  These practice assignments come in part from that chapter.)

(1)—I did a TEDx talk back in November about the power of transformative education.  For me, the underlying theme was the importance of creating genuine trust between teacher and students.  The teacher asks the students to do a lot of work with only the mere possibility that this work will lead to a deeper understanding of the subject matter and, hopefully, to a good grade.  For this working relationship to be successful, the two parties must trust each other.  I firmly believe that the teacher must do everything possible to create the mutual respect that leads to a personal level of trust.  Without trust between teacher and student, the quality of the education is severely limited.

Those are 12 things I’ve learned over the past 54 years.

If you think there is something that I forgot to include, put it in the comments below.

In case you are interested in watching my 12 minute TEDxYouth@RVA talk about transformative education, here is the link: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20tup61ZxI&t=1s

And, my book, Transformative Education, is available as a free download at:

https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/

If all of that is not enough, you can also go to the following link and watch a video where I tell four stories about teaching in college.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nT428yjJ0Ls

LETTING STUDENTS KNOW THEY ARE NOT INVISIBLE

(ESSAY 339)  I recently gave my first test of the semester.  My primary course (Intermediate Accounting II) is extremely complex so every test is a challenge for my students.  I have 71 students this semester so that was a lot of grading.  

My goal for this first test is usually that 50-60 percent of my students make an A or a B.  On this test, 70 percent made an A or a B so I was pleased.  The group had worked hard and seemed to have made excellent progress.

However, 15 percent of the students made a D and another 5 percent made a low C.  That’s a lot of poor work.  I always tell my students, “I will always take half of the credit if you do well, but I assume I deserve half of the blame if you do poorly.” 

Students who do poorly always seem to feel invisible.  “No one really knows or cares if I am struggling.”  I don’t want my students to feel that no one cares.  They still have 80 percent of their grades to be determined.  Nothing in my teaching is more pleasing than turning a D student into an A or B student.   (I probably take way too much credit for turning A students into A students.)

So, I wrote emails to each of the students who did poorly just to give them some advice and make sure they knew that I cared and that they were not invisible.  Each of the emails was somewhat different but below is one example of what I sent out.

The first two students I wrote, emailed me back almost immediately to thank me for touching base and for my recommendation.  It was almost as if they had been waiting for some encouragement.

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To:  XX

From:  JH

As you know, you made a D on our first test in Accounting 302.  I do not know how you did in Accounting 301, and I do not know what your grade point average is so I'm not sure whether you just had a bad day or whether I should be worried about your grade in 302.  It is important to remember that Test One was only 20 percent of your overall grade, but it was 20 percent and should not be ignored.  You can do better, but we need to get started. 

I'd really like to see improvement over that 69.   I'm not sure but I don't think you've been to my office to ask any questions or seek any assistance this semester.  Always remember that is why I have office hours.  I'm more than happy to help.   You don’t need an appointment, just show up during my office hours.

In addition, I want to recommend that you contact Roger Mancastroppa (he is copied here) who is the Associate Director of our Academic Skills Center.  I suggest that you make an appointment with him to chat about ways that you can improve your learning skills and especially your testing skills.  This is not a requirement.  I just think it might be beneficial.  You seem to work hard, but we need better test results and that needs to happen on Test Two. 

I think one visit (or maybe more) might be a good investment as we look toward making a serious improvement in the remaining 80 percent of the course grade.

If you want to chat about my suggestion, come by and see me.

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And as I have mentioned previously, in case you are interested, you can watch my 12 minute TEDxYouth@RVA talk about transformative education at:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G20tup61ZxI&t=1s

And, my book on Transformative Education is available as a free download at:

 

https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/375/