WHAT QUESTION WOULD YOU ASK YOUR STUDENTS?

I have written, more than once over the years, about student evaluations—the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The ones we have at the Robins School of Business seem fairly standard as far as I know.  They are electronic which is helpful.  They ask each student to make quite a list of judgments such as developing critical thinking, teacher preparation, teacher enthusiasm, treating students with respect, and so on.  Our evaluation contains 22 judgments where students must select one of 5 responses and then three open-ended questions. 

I want to personalize my student evaluations.  I do not want to drop any questions because I understand that the overall results are used to calculate school averages.  Nevertheless, I want to add at least one question that will appear only on my student evaluations.  If the evaluations are supposed to be for my benefit, then I would like to ask a question that is specifically for me. 

With a bit of explanation, the person who oversees our student evaluations has been kind enough to allow me to add one question for the spring semester of 2023.  We will be doing this as a test to see whether the ability to personalize student evaluations provides any particular benefit.  I am delighted, but I have no idea whether this will work or not.  I discovered long ago that my ideas are not always great ideas.

This, of course, brings up the obvious.  What one question do I want to add to my student evaluations that will be just for me?  What do I want to know that is not already being covered?  I have a wonderful opportunity here and I don’t want to ruin it with some useless question.   Remember, the student evaluations already contain a total of 25 queries.  What is left to ask?

What would you ask?  What question could you put on your student evaluation that would be helpful in judging how successful you were during the semester?    If you have any good thoughts, stop right now and send me an email (Jhoyle@richmond.edu) because I am interested in every possible approach.  I might change my mind and put your question on my evaluations.

I have read a lot of student evaluations over the decades and it is difficult sometimes to get at the foundational information that I believe would be helpful.  Many of the open-ended questions almost beg the student to write paragraphs if not pages.  I don’t want more of that because I already have that in the present form.  Those answers often ramble and lose direction.  They seem designed to glorify the professor or be vindictive.  I want a question that can be answered by a student in one sentence and will tell me something essential about the semester.

Here is what I finally submitted,  

    “What do you believe is the professor's primary goal for this class?”

To me, if I have not clearly helped every student understand what I want to accomplish, then the semester would seem to be a failure by definition.  On the other hand, if the students truly understand what I want from the class, then the rest of their student evaluation judgments are much more meaningful for me because they are based on that foundation.

Notice that almost all (perhaps all) typical student evaluation inquiries have a positive and a negative side.  Is the teacher prepared?  Is the teacher enthusiastic?  Does the teacher succeed in developing critical thinking skills?  Heck, every student can see which answer is “good” and which answer is “bad.”  Consequently, student responses all seemed to be biased based on the student’s general feelings toward the teacher.  “I like the teacher so I’m going to rate the teacher a bit higher on developing critical thinking skills because that will make the teacher look good.”  What does that prove?

However, the question, “What do you believe is the professor's primary goal for this class?” does not necessarily have a positive and a negative side.  Yes, I do understand that a student might put, “To learn the material” and that doesn’t really tell much but it is neither positive nor negative.  I am truly hoping, though, that the students will be more specific than that.  I want to know what they think I want them to accomplish.  We’ve been working together for months.  Surely, they have some thoughts as to my purpose for them and for the class.

In the end, this is merely an experiment to see how the students will respond and what I might learn from it.  I have high hopes but, if you check back in about six months from now, I will let you know whether this “extra question” proves beneficial or is basically a waste of time.   Fingers crossed for interesting results. 

If it were you, what question would you want to ask?

 

WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU GIVE FOR BETTER TEACHING?

A few weeks ago, the goods folks at McGraw-Hill were kind enough to ask me to do a one-hour webinar titled “Tips for Becoming a Better Teacher.”  We assumed that a portion of the audience would be accounting professors since I am an accounting professor and the 15^th edition of the Advanced Accounting textbook that I coauthor is coming out in January.  Nevertheless, we wanted the webinar to be of interest to anyone who teaches in college whether they teach biology, psychology, accounting, or everything in between. 

For someone like myself who has taught a long time, it is an interesting challenge to consider what advice you would give to a person wanting to become a better teacher.  What is really important?  What actually can work?  After a long debate with myself, here is some of the advice that I chose to provide in this webinar.

--Every teacher should start out by acknowledging just how essentially important education is for each individual and for our society as a whole.  Investing the time and energy needed for success is much easier if you realize how important your role as a teacher is.  Every day, we have the opportunity to change lives for the better.  We need to take that role seriously.

--I like to begin each class throughout the semester with a mental vision of the “perfect class” at the end of the semester.  In other words, what type of class environment am I trying to create?  What should the last day of class look like?  What should the last day feel like?  If you don’t know that, then a class is just a random event without any guiding structure.

--Use technology but use it well and don’t feel a need to use all of the possible technology.  I think every teacher should keep track of the available technology and make use of what feels good to you.  Nevertheless, there is no necessity to make use of every new bell and whistle that comes out.  Think about your classes and be selective.  What technology can help you meet your goals?  For example, I think making videos is a great strategy for me and one that I use often.  Students today have grown up in the YouTube generation.  I like to take advantage of that.

--Help students focus on their class preparation.  Nothing improves a class more than having students arrive each day with an adequate amount of preparation.  Don’t be casual when it comes to preparation --- make that a real priority.  My experience is that virtually all students underprepare for class.  Change that and things will immediately get better.

--Help students focus on reviewing and organizing the new material right after every class.  Knowledge seeps out of the brain very quickly if techniques are not applied to help solidify what has been learned.  Have assignments set up to be done immediately after coverage to make the understanding both clear and permanent.  

--The better you test, the better the students will learn.  Spend serious time thinking about your testing process.  Make sure that your test questions are very well written.  In my mind, every test question should be (a) fair, (b) challenging, and (c) stress critical thinking.  Students learning is often affected by what they see on a test.  Don’t teach a student to think and then test them on memorization.

--Determine what percentage of the talking you want to do in class.  In my classes, I try to avoid doing more than half of the talking.  That is not easy.  That means that I have to figure out how to get the students to do the other half of the talking.  That is a tough challenge, but one that can turn a passive class into an engaged class.

--Realize that students cannot read your mind so work on developing good communication techniques.  I use emails.  I use a lot of emails.  I keep them short and to the point.  This allows me to inform students of what I need from them and why.  If I can get that message across, most students seem willing to put forth a better effort.  That’s a good start.

--We all tell ourselves stories about our jobs, our students, and our classes.  It is easy for those stories to be negative.  "Conditions are bad."  "Students are lazy."  "Students have not been taught how to learn."  If you want to be a better teacher, work very hard on telling yourself better stories.  "Most of the students were well prepared today."   "We had a great discussion in class."   "The students appear to be figuring out what I want from them."  I cannot possibly tell you how important I think those internal stories are for becoming a better teacher.  Listen to yourself and make sure your stories will lead to a stronger and better version of you.

If you would like to watch the actual webinar, here is the URL.  I hope it helps you make key steps as you seek to become a better teacher and eventually a great teacher. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h1NfHprZrE&t=341s

 

HELPING STUDENTS AVOID CONFUSION ABOUT YOUR CLASS

I have taught now for more than five decades.  I know how I want my class to operate.  In contrast, the students are brand new to my class, and what seems crystal clear to me is often terribly confusing to them.  I don’t like confusion.  It rarely helps education.

If you have read this blog for long, you know how much I stress communications with my students.  My motto, “Just because it is clear to me doesn’t mean it is clear to you,” never leaves my mind. 

Two weeks ago, I sent out the course outline to my students to give them a chance in advance to see how the coming class will be structured.  My bet is that 10 percent of the students will look at it rather seriously and the others will adopt a “need to know” approach. 

That is a recipe for confusion.  Should I just accept this or can I help them clear up some of that confusion?

On our first-class day (next Monday), I want to use as little time as possible to introduce the course while also making sure that the structure is clear to 100 percent of the students.  So, today, with six days until our first class, I sent them a “scavenger hunt” – 31 questions about the structure of the class based on the course outline and other material that I had sent to them.

Who doesn’t love a scavenger hunt?  Heck, it is fun.

I wanted to create some curiosity, but most of all, I wanted them to start thinking about how a “Joe Hoyle” course operates.  To them, education seems somewhat random.  From my perspective, it seems very specific.

I don’t expect them to know the answers to any of these questions.  That is not my point.  I just want them to think about the questions and why those questions might be important.  Then, on Monday, I will go through the 31 questions with them and, hopefully, after 15-20 minutes, they will have a pretty good understanding of how a “Joe Hoyle” course operates. 

I am 74 years old and I have never tried this before.  I might never try it again.  However, at least once, I want to see if this will reduce the amount of confusion that students can have about a college-level class.

Here is what I sent my students this morning.

**

ACCOUNTING 302 – FALL SEMESTER 2022       I think it is very important for each student to understand the essential parts of the Course Outline (and some of the information that I have distributed to you in other forms).   In the first 15-20 minutes of our first class on Monday, we will go through the course outline.  Here are a whole bunch of questions that I want you to be able to answer after we have finished.  You can get many of these simply by a close reading of the course outline.  No matter how you get them, 15-20 minutes into our first class, I want YOU to be able to answer each of these questions.  I think that is a reasonable goal.

  1.  I will pass around a seating chart at the beginning of the first class.  Wherever you sit on that first day is where you will sit (at least for a while).  How long should you anticipate having that seat in my class?

  2.  By what name do I prefer to be called?

  3.  How will you know if you are late for class?

  4.  How many times can you be late for class before you need to explain to me why you seem to have trouble arriving on time?

  5.  Where is my office?

  6.  How do I describe my office?

  7.  Our class is scheduled on MWF from 1:30 – 2:20.  How long will our class sessions actually be?  How do I make up for that?

  8.  What are my office hours?   Do you need an appointment to see me during my office hours?  When should you first come to my office?  In my classes, there are two traditional times for students to come to my office – what are they?

  9.  How often should you check your email for messages from me?

  10.  How many hourly tests will be given this semester?  

  11.  When are those hourly tests? 

  12.  What should you do if you are entitled to extra time on an examination? 

  13.  How much time will you be given on each of the three “hourly” exams?  On the final exam?

  14.  What is the class grading scale?  Typically, how many students make an A or a B in this class?

  15.  Do I curve our tests?

  16.  Your final grade is determined based on a weighted system.  How many points is each of the hourly tests worth?  How many points is the final exam worth?  How many points are the three writing assignments worth?

  17.  When is the first writing assignment due?   What is the key to the writing assignment?

  18.  On the Internet and lots of other places, you can probably find/buy copies of my old exams.  Are you allowed to do that?  If you break that rule, what happens?

  19.  What is my rule about phones in class?

  20.  What is my rule about computers in class?

  21.  What is my rule about talking in class?

  22.  What is my rule about getting up and walking out of class during class? 

  23.  There are two ways to get extra credit in this class.  What are they?

  24.  I try to post everything we do on Blackboard (our learning management system).  Can you find this course on Blackboard?

  25.   We will start the semester with Chapter 13 and spend about 3 weeks on it.  How is our coverage of Chapter 13 different from all the rest of the semester?

  26.  We will eventually use a lot of “practice problems.”  What are they and how do they work?

  27.  I sent you a document with quotes from past students about How to Make an A in my class.  What did you learn from that document?  What do I expect you to do with that document?

  28.  What is my number one piece of advice about how to do well in this class? 

  29.  What is my number two piece of advice about how to do well in this class?

  30.  What is my number three piece of advice about how to do well in this class? 

  31.  What is the overall goal of this class? 

BE INNOVATIVE IN FIVE EASY STEPS

My first class of the fall semester starts in 14 days.  It will be my 52^nd year as a college teacher.  I have been pondering how to get emotionally ready for the new batch of students.  How can I keep my teaching an exciting activity for me?  If I am not excited, why should the students be?

About two weeks ago, I flew to San Diego for a conference.  In the local Richmond airport, someone left behind a publication from the Harvard Business Review.  It was some type of “Best of” series that was probably available in one of the airport book shops.  I picked it up and read exactly one article in the few minutes that I had before boarding the plane.  That article was, “How Coca-Cola, Netflix, and Amazon Learn from Failure,” by Bill Taylor (originally published November 10, 2017). 

I am fascinated (obsessed) by how people and organizations manage to grow over time to become better and better.  So, it was my type of article.  I was immediately captivated by the following three sentences because I think they are absolutely true.  People talk endlessly about “innovation and creativity” yet, it can be hard sometimes to spot any actual innovation and creativity.  Many people would rather talk about innovation than be innovative.

From the HBR:  “I can’t tell you how many business leaders I meet, how many organizations I visit, that espouse the virtues of innovation and creativity. Yet so many of these same leaders and organizations live in fear of mistakes, missteps, and disappointments — which is why they have so little innovation and creativity. If you’re not prepared to fail, you’re not prepared to learn.”

Now, change the words “business leaders” in that quote to “college professors” and change "organizations" to "universities."  Does that change much about the quote?  Of course not!!!  Every university and every professor that I speak with talk about educational innovation and creativity.  Considering that this is 2022 and not 1982, it can be troubling to search for the results of those educational innovations.  Oh, I certainly know that there is always creativity.  However, given the problems of our planet, I personally doubt that there is enough. 

Taylor talks about the fear of failure as stifling for innovation.  Does that apply to you and your teaching?  As you begin a new semester, that is not a bad question to consider.

I think a problem that college teachers face is that we often view innovation as something that must be a major change, something that takes a lot of time and effort.  Obviously, if we only equate innovation with significant undertakings, then the fear of failure is real.  Everyone is cautious about taking a considerable risk that might well end in defeat.  We are not like Indiana Jones.  Most of us are not big risk-takers.

Does innovation have to be a high-stakes gamble?  

As you prepare for the fall semester, I want you to think about innovation in a different way.  What are a few tiny changes you can make in your class that could bring about improvement?  Don’t try to fix the world all at once.  Don’t attempt a major renovation.  Think about your classes and consider how a few small changes might lead to better and deeper student learning.  Small innovations can lead to real improvement without leaving you open to the possibility of extreme failure.  If they work, that is great.  The success will provide you with a foundation for more changes.  If they don’t work, then don’t do them again.  Keep it simple.

Whenever I talk with professors about educational changes, they always seem puzzled about where to start.  They want to change.  They want to teach better.  That is genuine.  They want deeper understanding by their students.  Nevertheless, they are not sure how to get innovation started.

Here is my advice in five easy steps.  Thinking this way helps me.  Try it.  Maybe it will help you. 

1—Picture the end of the fall semester.  Don’t get in a hurry.  Take your time.  Think about your class on the last day.  As specifically as you can, identify the characteristics or actions that you want to see in your students during that final session.  Assume the semester has gone perfectly.  Assume it is the best class you have ever taught.  How will your students act or what will they be able to do on that last day?  One of my mottoes (for myself and for my students) is, “Picture perfection.”  I don’t think we do that enough as teachers.  What would you like for that last class to look like?

2—Make a list of the Top 5 or 10 things that you would observe in this final, perfect class.  How do students act?  What do the students do that you like so well?  How have they grown?  Make it specific.  Create a list of what you would see.  “Smarter, more thoughtful students” doesn’t tell you anything – what does that mean on the last day of your class?

3—Make two columns.  One is headed, “Things I’m doing to get my students to this outcome.”  The second is headed, “Things I’m not yet doing to get my students to this outcome.”  You want to determine what you are currently doing in your class to move the students toward your “Perfect Class Goal.”  Thinking like this helps.  You also want to consider what new actions might push the students to where you want them to be.  It is this last column that is most important.  Spend serious time thinking about what you might try during the fall that would guide the group toward your perfect picture.  Don’t get in a rush.  This is an important assignment.  If you don’t have 10-20 things on the “not tried yet” list, you are not being creative and innovative enough.  Another one of my mottoes:  “The more ideas you have, the more likely it that you will have a good idea.”  So, let your imagination run wild.

4—Look at this last list carefully.  Don’t attempt to do everything!!!  That’s a problem that often stops teachers from pushing forward.  Instead, pick 2-3 things from this list that (a) might be effective and (b) can be carried out reasonably well in this coming semester.  In other words, when it comes to innovation, Think tiny.  These 2-3 changes will be the focus for your teaching this coming semester.  Something new.  These initiatives might fail, but they might not.  They are worth the risk.

5—Document your list of 2-3 innovative things for the fall semester.  Give yourself a definite plan.  (a) What are you going to do new and different?  (b) When are you going to do it?  (c) How are you going to implement it (although that might be self-evident)?  (d) How are you going to judge the results you achieve?  Try to make an assessment each week of the progress.  

You CAN be a more creative and innovative teacher.  I don’t care who you are.  The world needs that.  Whether you are young or old, the world needs more innovative teachers.  It is time to get started.

You CAN eventually achieve your perfect class, but it might well take 52 years. 

You MUST understand what your primary goal is for your students and then find some workable strategies to guide your push toward that improvement.  Think tiny.

If those ideas work, do them again in the spring semester and build on them toward more success. 

If they fail, try to fix them and give them another shot or do something different in the spring semester.  My third motto for this essay:  Failure is only failure if you stop trying. 

 

Best of luck to all my readers for a fabulous fall semester!!!!

QUESTION: SHOULD YOU BRIBE STUDENTS?

  

When I have a question about teaching, I pay close attention to what my friends do, especially those teachers that I respect a lot.  If a tactic works for them, then I should, at least, consider the possibility.  If a teacher is not careful, it is easy to spend too much of your time giving out opinions and not enough of your time taking in opinions (and evaluating them). 

Or, as I might tell my children, keep your mouth shut and your ears open if you want to benefit from a conversation.

I have a close friend who is now retired who was a great teacher.  He did an excellent job and the students loved him.  He used to give out extra credit points for many types of assignments.  “The cost is very little to give out a point or two and the students are just so much more likely to do what you want them to do.”  I suspect that he would have asserted that students are human beings who tend to respond well to motivation.  It seemed to work for him. 

I had another close friend who was also a fabulous teacher.  Unfortunately, he died a few years back.  He got great results.  However, he was adamant against giving extra credit points.  “Why should I bribe students for helping them to learn college-level materials.  If they are unwilling to do the work, they should suffer the consequences.  If they don’t do what I assign, they won’t learn the material and they won’t do well in the course.” 

Sadly, I see both points of view here and that leaves me in a quandary. 

Here is why I am asking.  I teach a very complex accounting course each semester.  This is tough stuff for the students.  So, I tend to give them advice over the summer about how to do well in the course.  There are certain things they can do during these final 6 weeks before the first class that will get them ready to do well when the semester starts.

I teach accounting and, for those of you who don’t teach accounting, the financial accounting rules are gathered into thousands of pages called the Accounting Standards Codification (ASC).  As with an attorney and the law, it is important for an accountant to be able to find things within this massive set of accounting rules.  So, I created a 7-question “Scavenger Hunt.”  I told the students what I wanted them to find in the ASC and how to locate it. 

I thought this was something that they would enjoy doing and would really help them be ready for my class on August 22.  They would know how to find things in the rules.

When I emailed this to the students, I went out of my way to tell them that this was purely for their benefit so I expected them to do it.   However, I was not going to give them a few extra credit points.  I wanted them to do it because it was good for them and not because they needed to be bribed.  They are not 12 years old.  They are on the verge of entering the adult working world. 

I was pretty sure that if I offered them a mere one or two points on the first test many of them would do the work (it would only take 20-30 minutes) almost immediately.  But, if I do that, am I creating students who must be bribed or they simply will not do anything even for their own benefit.  Are students becoming like Pavlov’s dogs they can only react to a specific stimulus?

Well, nearly a week has passed since I emailed this assignment and I’ve heard from none of my 17 students.  That leaves me wondering which of my two friends had the best approach to Extra Credit.  I wondered what you might think.

HOW ONLINE EDUCATION CAN HELP SAVE OUR WORLD

Here is a sentence for you:  Wealth inequality begins with education inequality.  

I believe that sentence and I believe we as educators need to work as hard as we can to provide a high-quality education for as many people as we possibly can across our world.  The world has desperate needs and this needs to be at the top of that list.

Live education is absolutely wonderful.  I love walking into class each day in order to teach 20-30 college students.  However, I think I could do more good on this planet by trying to provide a high-quality education to 5,000 students around the world.  And, that requires online education.  

The Virginia Society of CPAs asked me to give a virtual speech this morning to a group of educators describing my experiences in teaching online courses and live courses.  Trust me, they didn't have to ask twice.  This is a topic I feel very strongly about.  

After giving the presentation, I came home and opened up Zoom and did it again so that I could record it.  The YouTube link is below.  I have given a lot of speeches about education over my life but I don't remember giving one where I felt more passionate about the topic.  

I hope you will watch a little or a lot or all of it twice.  More importantly, think about your teaching and your school.  How can you provide a high quality education to as many people around the world as possible?  We are teachers.  This should be what we do.

Please pass along the link to anyone who might be interested.  

https://youtu.be/ukY9qVux2dM

SHOULD YOU COLD CALL ON STUDENTS?

Note One:  Every so often, I make this offer.  I post about 10 teaching essays per year.  If you will send an email to Jhoyle@richmond.edu, I will send you a short note whenever a new posting is put up.  I will make no other use of your email address.   Joe 

Note Two:  I will be presenting at the online Virginia Accounting Educators' Conference on June 9.  Would love to have you join me.  You can get information at https://www.vscpa.com/conferences

**

Should You Cold Call on Students?

Possible Answer One:  For the past 30 years, I have cold called on each of my students once or twice every single day of the semester.  I think it is the only way to teach if you truly want students to pay attention and think.

Possible Answer Two:  For the past 30 years, I have never cold called on my students a single time.  It just scares students and doesn’t really accomplish anything.  Making students uncomfortable with random questions is not my goal in life. 

How could I give you both of those answers for the same question?  I cannot possibly have taken both of those approaches over the last three decades of my teaching career.

Before I explain my answers, let me describe an experiment I did this past Sunday.  I went to church.  The pastor gave a good sermon.  It lasted approximately 16 minutes (equal to about 1/3 of the time of one of my typical class sessions).  During the sermon, I made my best effort to pay close attention and stay focused.  I listened carefully and followed along.

According to my best judgment, it took approximately 4 minutes before my mind began to wander.  I started to think about something else or I noticed something in the sanctuary.  Either way, I lost track of the sermon.  This was my own internal observation but about every 4 minutes, my mind went scurrying off in some weird direction.  It was only with great intensity that I could get my brain back on the sermon.  And, it only lasted 16 minutes.

The sermon was good and I really tried, but my attention-span was about four minutes.  Try it some time and see how you do.  Just count how many times your mind wanders.

On another day, I watched an episode of Jeopardy.  I pretended that I was a contestant and wanted to see if I could answer the questions and be a winner.  I managed to make it through the entire show without once losing my attention.  I paid attention to the categories and tried to anticipate where each topic was going.   Okay, the commercials did give me a break but, for the actual show, I was all in, every moment, every second. 

Why could I not stay focused more than a few minutes on the pastor’s (interesting) sermon, but I was on the edge of my seat during my pretend experience on Jeopardy?

Well, that is an easy question.  You already know the answer.  I was a passive participant at church and a (virtually) active participant on Jeopardy.  I had nothing to do at church but listen.  On Jeopardy, I had to analyze the topic and be ready to respond as quickly as possible.   

This is not rocket science.  You already knew how this experiment was going to play out.  We all know that engaged students stay better focused than passive students.   So, why in the world would you ever let one of your students be a passive learner who just sits there and listens and maybe takes down a few notes????  If you do that, your students’ minds will just head directly off toward day dreaming. 

We know that.

Why do we do it?   What is the alternative?

Most teachers don’t like to cold call on students.  They might call on the smart students or the students willing to raise their hand but it is a brave teacher who makes cold calling a comprehensive strategy.   Teachers would rather say every word in class and let the students day-dream than to cold call on them.

A little over 30 years ago, these were the exact questions I was pondering one summer.  I swore that I would never teach to passive students again.  Never.  Never.  Never.  So, how do you turn them into engaged, active students?   Isn’t this just a fundamentally important question for any college teacher?

I started with three fundamental beliefs:

--I wanted the students to know that they would be called on each and every day.  No surprises, just a natural part of the class.

--I wanted the students to be able to prepare for the questions so those questions did not come flying in from outer space to scare them.

--I wanted this to feel more like a conversation so it had less of a “right” and “wrong” feel to it.  I wanted it more conversational and less judgmental.   

After that, at each class, I gave my students 5-10 starter questions for the next session.  They are often tiny little case studies, “A company has the following situation.  What should happen next?”  As soon as I walk into the room at the next class meeting, I start asking the students about one of those little case studies. 

          Mr. Jones, “What should we do first in this situation?”

          Ms. Smith, “Do you like Mr. Jones’s answer or do you have a better one?”

          Mr. Wilson, “If we do what Ms. Smith suggests, how is the company president going to respond?”

          Ms. Greene, “What really is the problem here that we are trying to avoid?”

Is that cold calling on students? 

If you were sitting in the room as a student, it certainly might seem like cold calling.   But, it is not.  The students have the questions 48-72 hours in advance.  The students know they were going to get called on.  They never know which question they are going to get, but they know they will get called on at least once or twice.  I don't view that as cold calling.  It's a conversation with both sides talking.

Okay, drum roll.  Here are the big questions:  Are my students passive learners or actively engaged learners?  Do you think they begin to day-dream like they would during a lecture?  Or, will they pay close attention, as if they were contestants on Jeopardy?

I think you already know the answer to those questions. 

Do I ever cold-call on a student?  No, I think that is mostly a waste of time.

Do I call on students to engage with me on questions that they should have thought about in advance?  Yes, every single minute of every single class session.  I never lecture.  I just have what I call “conversational questioning.” 

The final question that I usually get when I talk with college teachers is, “What do the students say about this rapid-fire question-and-answer format?  Don't they crucify you on your student evaluations” 

As you might guess, my student evaluations are interesting to read. 

From this past semester, one student made me smile by complaining, “I had to learn everything in advance of class.”  The student would not have realized it, but I could not have been more happy with that answer.  How could any teacher or student ask for more than that?

But, my favorite was from a first-year student who wrote, “To be honest, I am not very interested in accounting, but this is the best course I have ever taken.”