This
website recently went over 146,000 total page views. That is about 145,000 more than I ever
expected when I began. I want to take
a moment this morning to thank everyone who reads these postings and shares
them with other teachers. Obviously,
there is no real marketing of this site.
People tend to learn about it from other teachers. Word-of-mouth. So, thanks for sharing!!! I sincerely believe that most teachers want
to think more deeply about the art of teaching. I hope this website serves as an occasional
prompt for such thoughts.
This
will be my 211th posting. Several
of these essays over the years have gathered more interest than others. In terms of readership, here are the Top Ten
in case you would like to check out some of the more popular postings.
--What
Do We Add? (July 22, 2010)
--What
Is the Purpose of A Final Exam? (May 12, 2010)
--Introduction—Teaching
Financial Accounting (January 7, 2010)
--Great
Teaching—What I Learned from My Students (March 5, 2015)
--If
I Challenge You to Become a Better Teacher, What Is Your First Response? (July
30, 2013)
--Fourteen
Characteristics of Great Teaching (April 23, 2015)
--Conversation
with Bob Jensen (October 8, 2013)
--What
the Catcher Tells the Pitcher (August 21, 2011)
--A
Good Suggestion (June 1, 2013)
--What
Do You Really Want to Accomplish? (August 28, 2010)
---
Several
of my most recent posts have dealt with becoming a great teacher. I have always been fascinated by that jump
from “good” to “great.” I believe there
are ways to make that jump successfully and I am not sure enough of us have
that as our goal (in teaching as well as in other aspects of life). Why stop at good? Why not try for great?
But,
today, I want to tell you something that you already know: If you have great students, then becoming a
great teacher is a much more manageable challenge. Bright, energetic, and curious students are
just easier to teach.
Recently,
I have been thinking about how I might get more great students. I have almost no control over the quality of
the students who show up in my class. I
cannot put a minimum SAT score limitation or a required GPA as a prerequisite
for my classes. I am responsible for
teaching everyone who enrolls. How can
I turn more of them into great students?
I
decided I would try to get my students for the fall to start thinking well in
advance about what it means to be a great student. I bet that few, if any, of them have ever
really considered what it takes to be a great student. If I can get them to consider the question,
will that alone improve the chances that more of them will be great students during
my course?
Luckily,
my students register in April for next fall and I have access to their email
addresses. I decided to try an experiment. I wanted to encourage them to focus over the
summer on what it really means to be great students. I figured it could not hurt and it might
have a positive effect on some of them.
Below
is an email that I sent a few weeks back to all of the students (I think it was
roughly 60 in total) who have signed up for my class in the fall. I have already heard back from a couple who
seemed to be intrigued by the experiment.
Will this help? I don’t know—that
is why I am trying it. If you’ve read
this blog previously, you probably know that one of my teaching mottoes is: Experiment, Evaluate, Evolve.
**
Email
to students who are enrolled in my class for the fall semester:
Okay,
I have your first assignment for the fall semester. And, I dearly hope that you won’t go running
away in horror and panic simply because I am giving you an assignment four
months before the first class. I
actually think you will enjoy this assignment.
More importantly, it might make you a bit better as a student going into
the fall semester. That is a good goal.
In
addition, I don’t want you to start trembling over the upcoming fall semester
like some scared and frightened cat.
About two weeks ago, I gave the keynote speech at the Richmond College
Senior Recognition Dinner. One of my
comments to the group was that Richmond would become a better educational
institution when more of the students stopped being so timid. At your age, a bold challenge should bring
out the very best in you and not send you fleeing to drop-add.
That
is one thing that you should demand of all your professors: “Bring out the best in me!!!”
There
are three steps to this assignment.
(1)
– For many years, I have written a blog about teaching, primarily about how I
teach here at the University of Richmond.
Over the years, the blog has had more than 140,000 page views. A few days ago I wrote about the
characteristics of great teaching. I
want you to read that blog entry because it will explain why I do some of the
weird things that I do. Reading should
take you under five minutes. I want you
to read the whole thing but I want you to focus on 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and
12. Those are the ones that will impact
you the most in my class in the fall.
Here
is the URL for the blog entry:
http://joehoyle-teaching.blogspot.com/2015/04/fourteen-characteristics-of-great.html
(2)
– I want you to spend some time over the summer talking with someone (your
parents, a trusted high school teacher, a friend, a co-worker, a stranger on a
bus) about the topic: What is the
purpose of a college course? At the
University of Richmond, you have to take at least 35 of these courses. What are they supposed to accomplish? Surely, it is not so that you will memorize a
bunch of trivia just so that you can pass a test. Given the cost of the University of Richmond,
that would be a darn expensive test.
Surely, it is not so that you can get a first job that you might well
quit within the first year. The goal
has to be longer than the first few months after you walk across the stage at
graduation.
It
is very hard to put a lot of work into a college course if you are not sure why
anyone even takes a college course. You
are going to be stuck with me for a semester.
What am I supposed to do for you?
What do you want me to do for you?
In many cases, your parents are paying a lot of money for you to be in
my class – why are they doing that?
What do they believe is the purpose of a college course? You ought to ask them.
(3)
– Some time before the first class in the fall, I want you to write a short
essay and email it to me. Be sure to
put your name on it and which class you are in. In one paragraph (or more, if you wish), I
want you to tell me what you believe are the characteristics of a great
student. You might well be a great
student but, if you are not, you surely have known great students here at
Richmond or in your high school classes.
For
you, what are the characteristics of a great student?
You’ve
got four months. I hope all three steps
in this assignment intrigue you a bit.
I hope they tickle your curiosity.
HAVE
A GREAT SUMMER!!!
**
I
am not sure what I am going to get from them.
I am not sure how I will use those essays. But we will do something and maybe, just
maybe, it will push a few more of my students to become great. That would be fabulous. I guess I will just have to wait and see
what happens.
