GETTING MY STUDENTS READY FOR THE FALL – STEP THREE – HELPING THE AUDITORY LEARNERS

Over the past several weeks, I have posted blog entries to describe some of the material that I am producing this summer in preparation for the fall.  From what I can read, much of college education is becoming one huge Zoom session.  Zoom has its place and can be quite beneficial, but I believe we can do better than putting all our eggs in a Zoom basket.  To avoid that, though, we need to think deeply about the learning process.  We need to attack the educational challenges in a creative fashion.  All of the material I have discussed recently comes from ideas I have developed based on 49 years of teaching experience.  You can do that as well.  There is a lot more that we can do than just Zoom.  

That observation is especially true as we come to the reality that a considerable amount of our coverage is going to be distance learning for the foreseeable future.  Most of us have never experienced world-class distance learning which makes the fall especially daunting.  Ask yourself an essential question:  What would world class distance learning look like if that was your goal?  Once you can envision it, you can create it.

So far:

--On my July 22 blog posting, I wrote about suggesting the book Make It Stick to my fall students as an optional extra credit assignment to help them become better learners.  How can that not be a good idea?  I have had several students email me in thanks for the advice.

--On July 27, I described the “Guided Readings” I developed to help my students get more from their textbooks.  Why have them pay so much money if they are not able to learn (at least) the basic material in those chapters?  For students, reading the textbook needs to be more than a waste of time. 

--On August 3, I explained my use of “Retrieval Questions and Answers” to help students immediately follow up their textbook readings.  The students are given sequential questions (and their answers) to bring the important topics back up so they can make use of (and strengthen) their knowledge.

Today, I want to talk about auditory learners.  I have often thought that some of my students were held back from achieving their academic potential because they were auditory learners rather than visual learners.  Most learning experiences (books, written exercises, PowerPoint slides, and the like) focus on the information being seen.  In much of our teaching, knowledge enters through the eyes.  As the recent popularity in audiobooks seems to show, a considerable number of people absorb information by hearing.  Consequently, I think at least one learning product for each class should focus on auditory learning.  I want to have a supplement available that will be especially address the needs of those students. 

Plus, students love their phones and they love to multi-task.  In thinking about the fall, I wanted to include a learning exercise that took advantage of those personal preferences. 

Therefore, this semester, for every chapter, I am creating approximately 20 minutes of audio questions and answers.  I ask a question.  I pause for three seconds to give the students time to consider their response.  Then, I provide my answer.  I immediately move to what I view as the next logical question.  As I have said often, I like sequential learning.  For 20 minutes, it is just question-answer-question-answer, but it is all auditory learning.  Once again, as mentioned in my previous posting, I am obviously working on having students retrieve and use the information in many different ways.

I post the audio files on our learning management system (we use Blackboard).  The students can listen whenever they want to test their understanding.  Better still, they can download the app to their phones and listen while they do other things:  eat, exercise, take walks, and the like.  Every college student seems to struggle with time management.  Audio questions and answers can be an efficient use of free time – even listening for a few minutes as they walk to class helps them work on information retrieval. 

I needed to explain this to my students so, not surprisingly, I made a video.  I’ve become fond of the screen recording feature on PowerPoint for quick and simple messages to my students.  Below is the one that explains the audio questions and answers that will be available to them this fall. 

As always with these videos for my students, I have more than the goal of introducing them to a learning technique.  I am always trying to help the students become more confident and enthusiastic about the upcoming learning process.  These are scary times.  I cannot help them over every problem created by this pandemic, but I can help them have a wonderful learning experience.  I want to assure them that they will learn a lot in the fall and make a good grade.  There is a plethora of bad news in the world.  I think we as teachers should provide some encouraging news.

I don’t think I can send you the audio questions and answers but I will be glad to share the transcript if you drop me a note at Jhoyle@richmond.edu.

Here is the video explanation that I sent to my students.  Notice, I did not worry too much about being technically perfect.  I just want to get the message out to them.  They are students.  They are not bothered by glitches. 

https://youtu.be/JzJpTrumpn4

MAKING USE OF THE SUMMER

I hope that many of the folks who read this blog will be attending both the Conference on Teaching and Learning in Accounting (CTLA) on August 6 and 7 and the American Accounting Association (AAA) annual meeting on August 8 through 10.   These conferences will be held in New York City near Times Square.   I am speaking twice at the CTLA on teaching and will serve on two panels during the AAA annual meeting.   Would love to see as many people as possible.   If you are there, grab me and let’s talk.   Tell me where you are from and what you teach and what goes well and what challenges you face.    I am always glad to chat.   On Saturday morning (August 6), I am giving the opening keynote address at the CTLA and will be talking on the topic “Recharging Your Batteries:   The Joys and Importance of Teaching.”   I have decided to subtitle this talk: “Seven Quotes that Changed My Life or, at least, My Teaching.”  

**

In this blog posting, I am going to describe one project that I have been working on this summer.   Before I start, I want to mention two things:

1. When I finish this project, I will be glad to share it with anyone who thinks it might be helpful.  I have high hopes that it will be very beneficial to my introductory students but, in the teaching business, there are never any guarantees.   However, I am happy to pass along the final version if you are interested.
2. There is still a month left in the summer.   I would urge every reader to think of a project that you can accomplish in the remaining weeks that might help your students be great this fall.  Such projects can be big or small.  The real purpose of this blog posting today is to stimulate your thinking.   I guess you would say it is a call to action.

**

I have long believed that a big problem with education is the material that we use when teaching our students.   Textbooks, journal articles, and the like are fine in a limited way.   They do a reasonably good job of conveying content.  But, we need to supplement those resources to help achieve some carefully considered educational objectives.   Teaching is more than the mere conveyance of subject matter.  For that reason, I have spent a good part of my summer creating a supplement that I believe will help my financial accounting students this fall.    

To me, educational supplements should demonstrate some or all of the following six characteristics:

• They need to be sequential.   Most students don’t learn in a random fashion.   They learn in a tightly structured step-by-step order.   Once material has been learned, sequencing becomes less important.  But, initially, a carefully crafted sequence is essential when showing the core of complicated topics to students.  On their own, students often fail to see the logical sequencing and then struggle to gain understanding of material that is really not that difficult when shown step by step.
• Those sequential steps need to build layers of knowledge very gradually.   Students rarely have the ability to make giant leaps from one level of knowledge to the next.  Growth in understanding should be at a realistic and sustainable pace.  It is easy to lose students—leave them far behind—if complications build too quickly whenever new material is presented.   I remember sitting in college classrooms, totally lost and confused, as I wondered to myself “How did the teacher just get from Point A to Point B?  It looked like magic to me.”   The transition was clear to the teacher but it certainly was not to me.
• Supplements need to help students realize that not all material is equal.   Some information is simply more important than others.   At first glance, students see all knowledge as having equal value.   They have trouble identifying the critical areas and, therefore, can wind up bogged down by trivial topics.  A good supplement should help point students in the right direction.  “This is really important so pay close attention.”
• Material needs to be broken down into chunks that are small enough for a student to absorb.  Students become overwhelmed very quickly by too much material.  When considering a supplement, envision the sequence: “here’s a manageable piece of knowledge and, now, here’s another manageable piece of knowledge that builds on the first piece of knowledge.” 
• The presentation of additional information must be interspersed with practice.   A teacher cannot simply make a “check off” list of things for a student to learn.  A reasonable amount of material is first presented and then that material is practiced before more material is added.  I have long stressed to my students: “Some amount of study time needs to be spent in learning activities.   The remainder of the study time should be used for practice activities.   Both are essential.”
• It is important to use both auditory and visual learning.   I believe that some students learn better by hearing material and some students learn better by seeing material.   Some combination is probably ideal.   To me, too much of our educational material focuses on visual learning.

By looking at the above six characteristics, you can easily see why I believe good supplements are so important.   Textbooks and the like often struggle with my list of essential characteristics.   For the most part, textbooks are more content providers and less educational aids.  Content is essential but so are materials that guide student education in a logical fashion.

So, this summer I have been considering those six characteristics as I build a new supplement for my financial accounting course here at the University of Richmond.   I am doing this project in three stages (that I have cleverly named Stage One, Stage Two, and Stage Three).   I am nearly finished with Stage One.   I hope to be entirely finished with the project by the middle of October.

For each of the 17 chapters in the Financial Accounting textbook that I use in class, I am creating my own set of flash cards.   I wanted to develop a supplement that students could easily use with no cost.   So, I am building the flash cards as PowerPoint slides.   Slide One is a question, Slide Two is the answer, Slide Three is the next logically sequential question, and so on.   When the project is finished, I might switch to a more elaborate system of technology but this will work for my fall testing.  I want to keep this simple until I see how it is working.

In Stage One, for each of 17 chapters, I am creating about 30-40 flash cards:  15-20 questions and then the corresponding answers.   I have worked hard to think through each topic and establish a logical sequence of bite-sized information.  

In Stage Two, I plan to go back though each of the 17 sets of flash cards and add audio clips.   So, for a topic that is particularly difficult, I can record a 15-20 second clip to make a suggestion or give encouragement.   I love the idea of talking directly to the student.   I plan to scatter these audio clips all through the flash cards.   If students are not confused, they can choose to ignore each audio clip.   That will be up to them.  But, if things are not clear, they have additional auditory information easily available.  Visual and auditory assistance is available.   

Finally, in Stage Three, I hope to add links to Explain Everything videos that I hope to make (these are the kinds of videos that the Khan Academy has made famous).   As an example, here is a short video that I created a few years ago to help my students understand FIFO and LIFO.  Would 20 or 30 of these help my financial accounting students better understand the textbook material?   I certainly think so.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVp6n5CTi3o

Notice that I am not eliminating the textbook.  It will still play a central role in my class.  Instead, I’m trying to take information from the textbook and make it easier for students to understand and absorb.   And, I am doing this by (a) sequencing the material in a logical fashion, (b) very gradually making the coverage more challenging, (c) pointing out the most significant material to the students, (d) presenting the material in chunks that are of manageable size, (e) mixing material coverage and practice so the students have an immediate way of learning the material and working with it, and (f) using both auditory learning and visual learning.   

Can you build a supplement like that?   Sure you can!   In fact, it has been kind of a fun experiment for this summer.   But, you need to start by answering an essential question – what are the characteristics that you want to add to your course by means of this supplement?   I started with my six characteristics and the work has flowed from them.   But that was me.   Figure out what characteristics you want and I bet that you will be surprised by how quickly you start coming up with some great ideas.  

HELPING YOUR AUDITORY LEARNERS

I am beginning an experiment today to help more of my students be successful in the classroom. If you look on the upper left hand side of this page, you should see a link titled “FINANCIAL ACCOUNTING – 2nd Edition.” If you click on that link, you will come to a page that has a series of audio clips between 8 and 11 minutes in length.

These audio clips were created by me to accompany the Financial Accounting textbook that I have written with CJ Skender at UNC (and published by FlatWorldKnowledge). Although these audio files are specifically designed for our book, they could probably be used quite well with any book. Debits are debits and credits are credits in every textbook.

Right now, I have five audio files posted but I hope to have many more soon. If you are teaching financial accounting, please feel free to suggest that your students listen to these files to see if they are helpful. Heck, they are free. What do they have to lose except for a few minutes of their time?

Each file is a carefully sequenced series of questions and answers. I ask a question and pause for a few seconds so the student can consider the answer. Then, I provide the answer and move on to the next logical question. I am quite literally trying to guide the students, step by step through the reading material.

As I explain in the rest of this posting, I started to create these audio files as a result of reading an article in the Wall Street Journal. I have long felt that our educational system is designed more for visual learners than it is for auditory learners. The article below pushed me to stop thinking about that problem and start trying to do something about it. If you have students who are struggling (in any course that you teach), you might consider whether they are auditory learners who are having trouble in visual learning system.
**

On Thursday, November 29, 2012, I was sitting at my very favorite deli having my very favorite lunch. I was reading the Wall Street Journal for that day as I ate. On page D6, I came across a story about Joe Moglia, the head football coach at Coastal Carolina.

He is the 63 year-old, first-year head coach of that team. And, he is a successful coach – his team made the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs. However, five years earlier, Moglia had been the chief executive of TD Ameritrade (a company with a market capitalization of $8.9 billion). Of course, the article was about the mystery of how a very successful corporate executive could retire and then become a very successful college football coach.

It was a fascinating story. But, if all the story had told me was about blocking and tackling, I would have moved on to the next article. But one sentence really caught my attention. It is a sentence that I have thought of often since that day. “In his first months, Moglia tested each of his players to figure out whether they were auditory, visual or kinesthetic (touch-and-feel) learners so he and his coaching staff KNEW THE BEST WAY TO TEACH EACH OF THEM.” (emphasis added).

Okay, how many of the teachers reading this blog have ever done anything to figure out how each of your students learn? My best guess is that the answer is close to absolutely zero. Which of your students are visual learners? Which of your students are auditory learners? (I understand that only a relatively small percentage of students are kinesthetic learners.) We tend to treat all students exactly alike. Or, if we classify them at all, it is not as auditory learners versus visual learners but rather as “smart students” versus “not so smart students.”

I have read that roughly 30 percent of students are auditory learners. That’s a pretty large percentage of any class. Wikipedia provides this information:

“Auditory learning is a learning style in which a person learns through listening. An auditory learner depends on hearing and speaking as a main way of learning. Auditory learners must be able to hear what is being said in order to understand and may have difficulty with instructions that are written. They also use their listening and repeating skills to sort through the information that is sent to them.”

Now, in most classes, we will tell students “go read Chapter Two in the textbook” or “go to the library and read this journal article.” Some students come back with a clear understanding of the material whereas others come back lost and confused. Maybe, those lost students are not just being lazy. Maybe, those lost students are auditory learners who struggle with comprehending the visual words.

In class, we write things on a board which is visual but we usually talk about what we have written so that we are meeting the needs of both visual learners and auditory learners. However, many of our assignments are purely visual – especially assignments that are textbook based: read the chapter, answer the questions, do the problems.

After finishing the WSJ article and leaving the deli, I started trying to figure out how we could use our textbook to help both visual and auditory learners. We already have 68 videos which are both visual and auditory. But, I wanted to try something different. The result of that thinking is the audio files that will now be attached to this website.

Will they work? I honestly do not know. But, as I often say, the only way you can find out in teaching whether something works is by trying it. If you have a financial accounting course (even if you are using a different textbook), suggest that your students (especially any who seem to struggle with the visual words) try listening to these files. After all, they are free. It might prove to be helpful.

If you don’t teach financial accounting (intermediate accounting, for example, or the history of the Roman empire), think about how you can meet the needs of your auditory learners. If a 63 year football coach at Coastal Carolina can do it, so can you.