If you’ve followed this teaching blog over the years, you know I have many serious opinions about great teaching. Here are two:
--Great teaching is like a great marriage. It requires plenty of open and honest communications. Your students/spouse simply cannot read your mind. Confusion is removed by what you tell them and how you say it. Guidance must be communicated directly. You cannot transport it through telepathy.
--If there is one thing humans do poorly, it is giving other people pats on the back in recognition for something they have done well. I think every serious organization in the world should have that sentiment emblazoned over its doorways. People simply work with more dedication and drive if they know they are seen and appreciated. No one wants to be invisible.
We’ve had 6-7 weeks of school. I’m well pleased with my students so far this semester. I’ve had virtually no absences and the great majority of students come to class ready to do their half of the work.
I decided to tell them that I was happy with them. Why hide the fact? Okay, they’ve not been great every day but, for the most part, they are making nice progress.
So, I sent the 47 students
taking my three classes the following message a couple of days ago. They
are away on fall break. I wanted to give
them something positive to mull over while they anticipated the second half of
the semester. Will they come back and
work better or will they come back and be worse? I don’t know, but I
think good communications will help stack the odds in my favor.
**
To: My Students
From: JH
I wanted to take a moment to say that I'm extremely pleased with the first 6-7 weeks of the semester. Over the decades, I've had good classes and bad, and I can recognize the difference. So far (so far) all the classes are doing quite well. If you keep up the effort until the last day of the semester, I truly believe that each one of you will be amazed by the amount of knowledge and understanding you have attained. I'm not nearly as interested in grades as you are. I'm interested in growth. I'm interested in improving. I’m interested in transformation. I'm especially interested in how much you come to enjoy learning because that is a characteristic you can carry with you forever.
How do you achieve those goals? I believe you need three things: (1) the ability to prepare obsessively for every class, (2) the ability to be completely focused on the class discussion, and (3) the ability to carefully organize what you’ve learned within 6 to 12 hours after class.
Okay, you are not perfect at any of those three (so far), but, for the most part, you are reasonably good and getting better. If you listen to the student responses in class, they are getting better—more thoughtful. Fewer students are reading the questions back to me so they can be reminded of the facts involved.
When I walk into class every MWF, I judge students on one thing. I don't judge you on brilliance or GPA. I judge each of you on how much I can depend on you to give me a reasonable answer to one of my odd questions. And, here's what I can tell you about the classes so far this semester: more of you than usual are ready to go when you walk into that classroom and I start asking those bizarre questions. That is the single reason why the semester has gone well.
So, don't come
back from fall break lazier or dumber. Build on what we've done so far
and make this the greatest course of your entire life. Yeah, it's a
lot of work but, at the end of the semester, you'll look back and say,
"Time well spent."
**
For a free download of my new book, “100 Conversation Starters to Develop
Student Critical Thinking in Intermediate and Financial Accounting Courses,” just go the
University of Richmond Scholarship Repository at the following link. To date, the book has been downloaded more
than 1,280 times which is quite literally about 1,000 more times than I would
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everyone who has helped to spread the word.
https://scholarship.richmond.edu/bookshelf/400/
