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

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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.”